Talk:Alison Frantz

List of publications

I've made a few small edits to the list of publications, sufficiently explained by the edit summaries, I think. Here are few additional comments:

• The listing for Frantz 1944 does not make it very clear that this is a review of Morgan's Corinth volume on the Byzantine pottery. It's confusing (or at least it was to me) that the "title" of this review is itself a complete bibliographical citation of Morgan's book, right down to the number of pages and figures and the price of the original edition. The style recommended by most style guides (at least on this side of the Atlantic) is to write "Review of" before the name of the publication being reviewed, without quotation marks, but that seems to be a non-starter with the WP template, which puts everything in the title field in quotes. Is there some way to suppress the quotes in a given citation? If not, I don't know what the solution is, and perhaps there isn't one. But the citation as it stands is bound to confuse some readers.
  • You're probably right: at least, I don't know of a good fix. To me, having all that bibliographic detail in the title is a good clue that the article is a review: honestly, I'm not sure it's all that important that we make clear the nature of each individual article or book. If nothing else, readers will twig quickly enough if they follow the link. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 23:34, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

• Frantz 1988 is listed in the sole author section, but that's not strictly accurate. The appendix on the post-Herulian wall was written by Travlos, and the chapter on the so-called Palace of the Giants was drafted by Travlos and revised by Homer Thompson. Not enough to list them as co-authors, I think (and everyone always cites this as Frantz alone, unless they are citing the chapter on the Palace of the Giants specifically). But perhaps worth a note ("with contributions by ..."), which is how the title page handles it.
  • EFN added to that effect. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 23:34, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

• It still seems odd to me to single out one or two of the Agora picture books for listing here, since most of them (at least the ones published before the 1980s) were illustrated almost entirely with Frantz's photographs. (The later ones, and the revised editions of the earlier ones, increasingly use images by other photographers, esp. Mauzy.) You could just as easily cite Harrison's Ancient Portraits from the Athenian Agora, or Perlzweig's (aka Binder's) Lamps from the Athenian Agora, or even Meritt's Inscriptions from the Athenian Agora, all of which are good examples of her work with different kinds of artifacts. But perhaps a better approach would be to add a line, either in the text or the list of publications, stating that her excavation photos were used in a large number of Agora picture books, and provide a link to the list at the ASCSA web site, where they can all be downloaded for free? And the same could be done for the final excavation reports, since many of early volumes in the Athenian Agora series are also illustrated by Frantz (e.g., Harrison's two sculpture volumes, all three lamp volumes, and a bunch of others), likewise listed at the ASCSA web site. I'll leave it to you to decide how best to handle it.
  • Honestly, I've listed everything I could get my hands on: I think there's something about the sheer scale of Frantz's scholarly work and influence that's worth getting across here. As below, if I've found somebody mentioning Frantz's name in connection with a book, it's here (I don't actually have access to any of these on paper, so this is all by the medium of Google searching). Following that strategy, I'll sniff out the details for those and get them into the list too. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 23:34, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

• Not sure why some of her Hesperia articles are linked to JSTOR and others to the open-access ASCSA site. Doesn't really matter, I guess, but the links should probably be standardized before you nominate this for GA (which I assume you are going to do sooner rather than later).
  • Purely a matter of what I could get my hands on: I haven't systematically checked the ASCSA site, but I've linked it when it came up after Googling the article title. If it didn't, I've used JSTOR, as long as I could find it there. May try to hunt down some more: sometimes, the bot does it. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 23:34, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Cheers, Choliamb (talk) 22:58, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Choliamb. Replies above. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 23:34, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Date of the church of the Holy Apostles

The footnote about the church currently reads Frantz 1971, p. 1; Mauzy 2006, p. 115. Frantz dated the church as probably tenth-century; for more recent assessments of an eleventh-century date, see Rees 2000, p. 153, and Kaldellis 2009, p. 114.. This, while not strictly inaccurate, is a little misleading, I think, since it implies that there is a significant difference between Frantz's date and the date given in other sources, and that Frantz's date has been superseded by a date based on more recent research. Neither of those things is true. The dating to the early years of the 11th century is not recent; it has been the consensus since the 1930s, and Frantz herself accepted it both in her 1954 Byzantion article about the church (add to the list of publications?) and in her 1961 picture book on the Agora in the Middle Ages. In the course of preparing the full publication of the building, she came to believe that a slightly earlier date in the final decades of the 10th century better fit the evidence. All of this (the earlier consensus, the evidence supporting a general date in the late 10th-early 11th century, and her own preference for a date in the earlier part of that range) is set out in the "Date" chapter of Agora XX, pp. 24–26. I don't know that anyone has directly engaged with her arguments since then; certainly neither Rees nor Kaldellis does, they simply repeat the traditional date, without any explanation or evaluation of the evidence, and without any indication that they are even aware of Frantz's argument. I myself have no idea whether a date near the end of the 10th century is better than one near the beginning of the 11th century; this is far outside my competence. But it would be more respectful of Frantz if the note did not imply that more recent research has led to a conclusion different from hers (in this case, her own discussion is actually the "more recent assessment"). And it would also be nice to indicate that the difference is one of two or three decades, not a century, as the current note implies. I see that in the most recent editions of the Agora guidebook (the 4th ed. in 1990 and the 5th in 2010, both edited by Camp), the date of construction is no longer given as "early 11th century", but as "around 1100 A.D." Perhaps that is the best way to express it, and just omit the discussion of the date from the note in this article altogether? Choliamb (talk) 01:08, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Charalambos Bouras, Byzantine Athens, 10th–12th centuries (Routledge 2017), pp. 131–134, appears to be the only discussion of the architecture of the church in any detail since the appearance of Agora XX (as opposed to passing mentions like those in Rees and Kaldellis). His comment on the date (p. 134): "The church of the Holy Apostles was constructed after that of the Panagia at Hosios Loukas, but in close association with it. A date in the last quarter of the tenth century was proposed, and has not, to date, been contested." The footnote points to Agora XX, pp. 25–26. Choliamb (talk) 12:44, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

No quarrel with any of that. Have gone with "around 1100": can see an argument for going with Bouras and saying "last quarter of the C10th", but he's not exactly coming out swinging, or, strictly speaking, even advocating for that date - only saying that someone has done so and nobody has yet to argue with them! UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 13:08, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm not saying that Frantz is correct, only that her view has not (yet) been superseded by more recent research, which is what the original note seemed to imply. Ca. 1100 is a good compromise.

I'll be sticking my nose back out of this article now, so let me just repeat that I think it's really excellent work, and produced with amazing speed. You have a gift for these archaeological bibliographies, and Frantz certainly deserves the attention. I'm pretty familiar with her published work, but a lot of the personal information was new to me, and I really enjoyed reading it. (One parting shot: I suspect that Natalia miscopied the Princeton letter about Meteora, and that Frantz wrote "the most amazing place I have ever seen", not "the most amazing place I have even seen". You can't correct it, of course, because that's what your source says, but on the principle that one should not include information that is almost certainly wrong, maybe it would be best to choose a different passage to illustrate her enthusiasm?) Anyway, great job. Cheers, Choliamb (talk) 13:46, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Choliamb (talk) 13:46, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm going to boldly claim MOS:TYPOFIX on that one: If there is a significant error in the original, follow it with [sic] (producing [sic] ) to show that the error was not made by Wikipedia. However, insignificant spelling and typographic errors should simply be silently corrected (for example, correct basicly to basically) -- to me, the correction is so obvious that it falls into the second of those. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 15:30, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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

Reviewer: Z1720 (talk · contribs) 16:05, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Starting review. Comments will be posted momentarily. Z1720 (talk) 16:05, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (inline citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Comments below:

• At five paragraphs, the lede is too long. Please summarise it to 3 to 4 paragraphs. I'll take a closer look at the lede once this is addressed.
  • I've made a few edits for brevity: we're now at 444 words by a rough count on Microsoft Word. Per MOS:LEAD (all emphasis mine):
    • As a general rule of thumb, a lead section should contain no more than four well-composed paragraphs
    • The lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article
    • As a general guideline—but not absolute rule—the lead should usually be no longer than four paragraphs
    • Most featured articles have a lead length of about ... 250 to 400 words.

In other words: MOS:LEAD, which is the relevant guideline for GA standards, explicitly doesn't put a hard limit on lead length, but rather advises taking any suggestion of lead length only as a general rule of thumb. The overarching principle is to create a condensed summary of the article whereby no key point is left out, but neither is anything explained more verbosely than necessary. Even by the terms of those guidelines, we're 11% off the recommendations for an FA, which I think would be within tolerances even if we were taking that as our standard. I think on balance the lead is what the MoS asks for: however, if you do think a particular detail is excessive or could be explained more precisely, please do point it out. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 21:00, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

The longer the lede is, the less likely a reader is going to read it. Here is some information in the lede that might be removed:

• "Frantz was born in Minnesota, lived briefly in Scotland following the early death of her father, and lived for most of her life in Princeton, New Jersey." -> "Born in Minnesota, Frantz lived for most of her life in Princeton, New Jersey." The article has two sentences on her living in Scotland, so I do not think this information is important in the lede.
• "assisting Lucy Talcott with the records of the project," Why is it important for the reader to know who she assisted?
• "where she worked as an assistant to Carl Blegen, another archaeologist turned agent, " Why is it important, in this article, to mention this person and who they were in the lede?
• I think the second and third paragraphs can be merged together after the cuts, and possibly the third and fourth paragraphs.

I look forward to these thoughts. Z1720 (talk) 01:47, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

All reasonable, though equally I think all have tradeoffs:

• The early death of Frantz's father is a major event in her life: I think this is a good way to get it in. Her time in Scotland is also significant as the time that she first picks up photography: this is set out in the article. This is probably the smallest tradeoff of them all, but I must admit that saving 11 words also seems like a fairly small benefit.

• Since this information is important for the lede because this is where she began photography, the fact that this is where her photography began should also be in the lede. Z1720 (talk) 14:19, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

• Talcott is a major figure in Frantz's life: sources regularly refer to her as Frantz's lifelong companion, and you'll notice she pops up a lot in this article.

• If Talcott is a major figure in Frantz's life and should be mentioned in the lede, then this fact should be included in the lede. Z1720 (talk) 14:19, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

• Again, so is Blegen, especially for her OSS work: in many ways, he's the (only) thread between her many different espionage, diplomatic and cultural roles. Generally, we should introduce people that the reader is unlikely to know by name, and I think it's both interesting and significant that this relationship was between two archaeologists, rather than Frantz working for a career spy, as might reasonably be assumed if unclarified.

• If this is important in her biography, then why he is important should be mentioned in the lede. Z1720 (talk) 14:19, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

• They could, but equally, long paragraphs are less readable, certainly if no major cuts are made. I'm reluctant to create long chunks of text to satisfy a guideline that explicitly says it isn't to be followed religiously. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:30, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

• I realise that there are a lot of important details in her life that can be included in the lede, but longer ledes are less likely to be read; if they are not read, then readers will learn nothing about this person. The lede is important to introduce the most important aspects of Frantz's life, and anything that does not fulfil that purpose should be removed. This might mean that you will have to increase your criteria of what is most important. I agree that 4 large paragraphs is also not ideal, but in my opinion some information needs to be cut. I have given some suggestions, and I can give more, but ultimately it will be your decision on what to remove from the lede. Z1720 (talk) 14:19, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not sure I follow this line of suggestion, I'm afraid: you've suggested lots of things to add here. I can see the intention behind trying to get the lead as short as it can be, but I don't understand the arbitrary insistence on getting down to four paragraphs, which isn't supported by the MoS or the GA criteria. I find it particularly hard to believe that many more readers will read the article if the line break between the last two paragraphs is removed. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 15:15, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

  @UndercoverClassicist: The lede needs to be shorter. Five paragraphs are a symptom of the problem, as right now combining paragraphs would only make them too long. What I'm trying to ask is: does the information need to be in the lede to understand this person's biography? If so, the lede needs to explain the importance. In my opinion, her contributions need to be in the lede because they are directly related to her work and notability. I don't think various people who worked with her need to be in the lede because, while their contributions to her work are important, their connections to her biography are not as important as her contributions. I suggest that you go through the lede with higher criteria of what to include, remove information that is not as important, and if needed, explain the significance of why these people or Scotland are mentioned. If you want, I can also give additional examples of what could be removed. Once these cuts are made, hopefully the lede can be reformatted into 4 paragraphs, but that's a later goal. Z1720 (talk) 16:25, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

  I've done a bit more here: we're now at under 400 words, which is within the range suggested by MOS:LEAD for an FA. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 17:52, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

• "Frantz started her career in the Athenian Agora excavations, conducted by the ASCSA, in January 1934,[19] assisting Lucy Talcott, the excavation's recording secretary, in the Record Department." Too many commas are negatively affecting the flow of this sentence. I suggest a rewrite.
  • Fair cop: split halfway. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 21:00, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
• Source check: Version reviewed. No concerns with earwig.

• Refs checked with no issues: 19, 40, 59, 65, 70, 71

• Ref 5: "For the name of Frantz's mother, see Vogeikoff-Brogan 2019." If it is not important in the article to mention the mother's name, then do not put a note like this in the references. This is telling the reader to do extra research, which is unnecessary.
  • Not sure I understand this one: her mother's name (Mary Kate Frantz) is mentioned in the article, in the sentence cited to reference 5. The note is simply to indicate that there are two sources supporting that sentence: one supports that name, the rest supports everything else. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 21:00, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I misinterpreted what this note was doing: I don't think notes in references, suggesting where to verify information, is necessary. I have not seen that in articles before, and usually this type of information is given in a note, not in an inline citation. Nevertheless, its inclusion will not affect its GA status. Z1720 (talk) 01:47, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

• Image review: no concerns, copyright licences are fine.

Those are my comments. Please ping when the above are addressed. Z1720 (talk) 18:29, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

• @Z1720: As requested: replies above. Thanks for your time and comments so far. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 21:00, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

• @UndercoverClassicist: Responses, particularly to the lede. Z1720 (talk) 01:47, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

• @UndercoverClassicist: Notes about lede. Please ping me when ready. Z1720 (talk) 14:19, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

  @Z1720: As requested. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 17:52, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

The lede has been improved, and I think it meets the GAN criteria. With a little more work on perfecting the prose, and some more trimming of the lede, I think this can be nominated to FAC. For now, this is a pass for GAN. Congradulations. Z1720 (talk) 17:59, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Bruxton talk 19:52, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that Alison Frantz's photographs played a crucial role in the decipherment of Linear B? Source: * McCredie, James R. (June 2000). "Alison Frantz" (PDF). Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 144 (2): 215. JSTOR 1515634. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-11-02. Retrieved 15 October 2013.
  • ALT1: ... that the archaeologist Alison Frantz brought the Fulbright Program to Greece? Source: * McCredie, James R. (June 2000). "Alison Frantz" (PDF). Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 144 (2): 215-216. JSTOR 1515634. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-11-02. Retrieved 15 October 2013.
  • ALT2: ... that the archaeologist Alison Frantz worked in the Office of Strategic Services during World War II? Source: * Meritt, Benjamin D. (1943). "Report of the Chairman of the Committee on Publications". American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Sixty-Second Annual Report, 1942–1943 (PDF). p. 33. Retrieved 2024-01-21 – via American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/BrewGroup

Improved to Good Article status by UndercoverClassicist (talk). Self-nominated at 19:57, 7 March 2024 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Alison Frantz; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

Interesting substantial article, on fine sources, offline sources accepted AGF, no copyvio obvious. All hooks work for me, but I'd prefer the original as the most unusual. How about using the image which clearly adds a time frame? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:00, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Image isn't PD: it's only on the article under FUR, so I don't think it can be on the main page. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:04, 14 March 2024 (UTC)