Talk:Battle of the Trench

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Battle of the Trench has been listed as one of the Warfare good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
June 28, 2008	Good article nominee	Listed

Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on March 31, 2014, and March 31, 2016.

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Ikrima ibn Abi Jahl was a leading commander

~~Ikrima ibn Abi Jahl was a leading commander along with Abd Al Al Wad according to his own page. فضائل الصحابة (talk) 12:59, 15 May 2024 (UTC)~~ Blocked sock. R Prazeres (talk) 18:42, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"According to his own page" because you added it yourself without citing any sources. Misleading statement aside, other Wikipedia articles don't count as sources. If the information is supported, add citations to reliable sources. R Prazeres (talk) 16:57, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

~~::I didn’t add anything onto the page Amr ibn Abd al-Wud, stop involving yourself in topics you have no knowledge of. فضائل الصحابة (talk) 09:53, 16 May 2024 (UTC)~~ Blocked sock. R Prazeres (talk) 18:42, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You did it literally right here, after you had already added it here. Both times unsourced. And your personal attacks are familiar. R Prazeres (talk) 16:16, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 21 September 2024

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Please change any instances of Prophet "Muhammad" to "Muhammad (Peace be upon Him)" or similar. I believe it is a sin in Islam to not include the latter part. Thanks! Azmaine21 (talk) 16:52, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: See WP:PBUH RudolfRed (talk) 18:05, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please try to hide your bias better

Just read the Britannica article for how to be neutral and try not to present stories in the worst light possible. Present history openly, be honest about sources, differences in sources, when it's your opinion etc. That kind of thing. 129.12.158.116 (talk) 06:13, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

GA concerns

I am concerned that this article no longer meets the good article criteria due to an overreliance of block quotes and some uncited statements. Is anyone willing to address these concerns, or should this go to WP:GAR? Z1720 (talk) 19:16, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What in particular do you find problematic in the article? Not that I am denying your claim - I also think it has its fair share of issues. Daminb (talk) 15:07, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Daminb: Would you like me to tag the article with "citation needed" templates to indicate uncited prose? I think in the "Islamic primary sources" section, the large block quotes without analysis from secondary sources is problematic. I also do not think the Quran should be relied upon as a source of information, but rather this battle's mention in the Quran should be written about, with analysis from more recent secondary sources giving context to the quotes. Z1720 (talk) 18:10, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I mean go ahead with your suggestions for citations, I guess. Although for "Islamic primary sources" I think it does not make sense to include secondary sources; the rest of the article uses them. I get your concern about the giant block quotes, though. In my opinion, it would be best to just summarise the positions of the primary sources with our own, more concise wording.

Also, I would like to ask you, do you see any issues in the neutrality of the tone of the opening section. I have been going over a certain problematic user's edits all day, so I can no longer tell what is neutral and what is not. I rely on your judgement. Daminb (talk) 18:25, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Z1720 Also, I get your concern about the Qur'an in the other sections. Again, we could either summarise, remove (since it is not the primary sources section), move to primary sources and summarise, or just add secondary source's comments of the verses in the main section. I think all are equally good options (although remove would be a bit of a bummer, to my mind). Daminb (talk) 18:35, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Daminb: Regarding the Islamic primary sources section: I think it should be removed wholesale. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate list of information, and these quotes from primary source should not be listed without context, as secondary sources will be able to verify what is historically accurate from the texts, what historians cannot verify, and why differences in the facts of each primary source might be different. The battle's mention in primary sources can be talked about in a "Legacy" section or something similar, describing why writers wrote about the event and when it was described, with context and analysis of the primary sources cited to secondary sources. Z1720 (talk) 18:45, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the "tone of the opening section" are you referring to the lead, aka the first paragraphs of the article? I do not think the whole text from the Qur'an is necessary, as I do not know why is it included in the article when more recent sources will be able to verify the historical accuracy of statements more easily. Z1720 (talk) 18:45, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Z1720 I think that simply summarising the information in primary sources is enough to pass the "indiscriminate list of information" criteria because we are not making the whole article a summary, but I could be wrong, so do correct me if needed. In addition there is no need to be concerned with the historical accuracy of the primary sources since they are literally put into Primary sources section; any reasonable person would treat the information with a grain of salt. Of course, secondary commentary is more than welcome.

About the outright deletion section - it is something to be thought about more extensively. It is a tradition in the Islam-related pages at this point, just take a look at the search! I do not have a strong opinion on its inclusion or removal.

By "opening section" I mean the part which is categorised as "(Top)" on the contents on the left. Daminb (talk) 19:17, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think most of those articles should remove their "Primary sources" sections. Articles "should be based on reliable, published secondary sources, and to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources." (WP:PSTS). Furthermore, "A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge." The historical accuracy of the Qua'ran or any primary sources from that time cannot be verified by educated persons today, as the events happened too long ago for today's scholars to definitively verify. Information from those primary sources should not be presented as information in the article without analysis from secondary sources. If readers want to read those accounts of this event, we can link them in "Further reading". Z1720 (talk) 20:11, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I guess you have a point, Wikipedia is not the best place for these sources. The "Legacy" section idea sounds good. I think that including primary sources in a section "Analysis" would also be acceptable to a certain extent. Daminb (talk) 20:24, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lead section

Per the above, I read through the lead. I made some copyedits as I went along: feel free to revert anything that you think is not an improvement. After removing some opinionated adverbs, I think the lead is fine. Citations are not necessary in the lead per WP:LEADCITE, as the information should be in the body of the article and cited there. I do not think the last sentence of the lead is necessary, as it is about the result of a different battle. Z1720 (talk) 19:49, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Z1720 I believe you did fantastic with the rewording. I decided to edit in the "only" before merchants again and remove the last sentence, but I am open to reverting the change. Daminb (talk) 20:08, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]