Wikipedia:Featured article review/Greco-Buddhism/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed 12:47, 23 August 2007.

[edit] Greco-Buddhism

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at following WikiProjects: India, Greece, Buddhism and User talk:PHG

This article was promoted in late 2004 in the old days. As it stands, it is not in line with the requirements of an FA.

  • (1a) - Many very long sentences with many commas. Many paragraphs are only one sentence.
  • (1b) - The lead speculates on possible influences and changes to Buddhist doctrine due to interaction in the Greek. I don't really know anything about this topic, but the actual main body actually has little to talk about possible changes in Buddhist teachings or philosophy, but is mostly about military interaction with the likes of Asoka. Or perhaps the lead is a mistake?
  • (1c) - Again I don't know enough about the topic to comment, but one thing I did notice was a comment about the virgin birth of Prince Siddhartha. All books that I have read about Buddhism talk about Queen Maya having a dream, and then becoming pregnant, but they did not say that the pregnancy was not a normal one or that the dream was not a coincidence. All the books I have read are ambiguous and do not rule out or rule if is to be taken as a virgin birth or whether it was a normal pregnancy which coincided with a dream. So I wonder if this fact is overstretched from teh refs, and whether other things have been stretched.
  • (1d) - One part is tagged for POV. No personal opinion
  • (2a) lead is two sentences.
  • (2b/c) four levels of hierarchy may be excessive
  • (2d) Insufficient inline citations

Examples of long sentences

The interaction between Hellenistic Greece and Buddhism started when Alexander the Great conquered Asia Minor and Central Asia in 334 BCE, crossing the Indus and Jhelum rivers, and going as far as the Beas, thus establishing direct contact with India, the birthplace of Buddhism.
Finally, after the reign of Menander I, several Indo-Greek rulers, such as Amyntas, King Nicias, Peukolaos, Hermaeus, Hippostratos and Menander II, depicted themselves or their Greek deities forming with the right hand a benediction gesture identical to the Buddhist vitarka mudra (thumb and index joined together, with other fingers extended), which in Buddhism signifies the transmission of Buddha's teaching.

Blnguyen (bananabucket) 05:03, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


Keep After almost 3 years since its FA, this article still displays a great richness of content, images etc... I will add more inline quotations in the next few days, as we could definitely go up to the 60-80 range.

  • (1b)The lead refers to the influence of Greek thought on Mahayana, which is doucmented and references later in the article.
  • (1c)The Buddha was conceived following Maya's dream of a white elephant entering her womb from the side. I added a Gandhara sculpture of the event to illustrate this story. The "virgin birth" of the Buddha is further described by Christian writers of the 2nd-3rd centuries (in article).
  • (1d) I cleaned up the disputed story (I don't known where it came from).
  • (2a) Lead was increased.
  • (2d) Citations being increased.

Best regards. PHG 05:46, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Keep or Remove are not declared during article review; please have a look at the top of the WP:FAR page regarding the purpose of the review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:15, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are prose (1a), comprehensiveness (1b), citations (1c), LEAD (2a). Marskell 06:05, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Cleanup needed. Please visit WP:MSH with respect to repeat words and use of "the" in section headings. The prose needs attention, examples: For example, Herakles with a lion-skin (the protector deity of Demetrius I) "served as an artistic model for Vajrapani, a protector of the Buddha" (Foltz, "Religions and the Silk Road") (See[1]). Example: the contrapposto stance of the upright figures (see: 1st–2nd century Gandhara standing Buddhas[17]), ... Image captions should have full stops only when they are full sentences. All of the date ranges need to be revisited per WP:DASH and WP:MOSNUM. Per WP:MOS#Images, text shouldn't be squished between two images. Mixed reference styles (inline and cite.php), example: one of the centers of the blossoming Buddhist culture (Milinda Panha, Chap. I). Example: the reign of Menander or one his successors in the 1st century BCE (Tarn, p391). WP:MOS#Quotations, author of quotes of a sentence or longer should be identified in the text, not the footnote. see WP:LAYOUT, See also templates are used at the top of sections. Per WP:MOSLINK and WP:CONTEXT, common words shouldn't be linked, and relevant words should be linked on the first occurrence. (For example, India is repeatedly linked in the article.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:26, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Remove, no progress since my list 11 days ago. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:54, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delist mainly because of 1a. Many of the sections have no references. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:34, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
  • "The" is missing before "flourishing" in the first para. The lead is inadequate. "Several" is unnecessarily vague. Looks worth saving, but not without work. Tony 00:14, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.