Talk:Aspasia

message: Fronticla, it is not POV to call someone "influential." I am not sure why you cannot seem to grasp this. Calling Pythagoras, for instance, "influential" in no way implies that I like or dislike him; it just means that his teachings impacted a lot of people. It is important that we note Aspasia's historical impact in the first sentence. Otherwise, the sentence just tells us she was "an immigrant" and that she was "the lover and partner of the statesman Pericles," which fails to explain why she even has an encyclopedia article in the first place. --Katolophyromai (talk) 21:10, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes it is POV in the context of the first sentence of an article here.  Anyone who has influenced even one person can be considered "influential", depending how one looks at it.  It's best to keep the intro sentence simple and stick to the facts. Fronticla (talk) 22:38, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: First of all, you seem to be misunderstanding what "influential" means; in order to be properly described as "influential" a person must have influenced many people (or at least a noteworthy number of people with high significance), not just a few random people. Second of all, the introduction is simple and factual the way it is already stated; I do not understand why you seem to think that calling Aspasia "influential" is somehow opinionated, because it is not. Calling someone "famous" is not opinionated either; it just means that a large number of people have heard of the person and has no implication whatsoever of how the writer feels about him or her. --Katolophyromai (talk) 22:49, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Influential" 

message: The text says, "Her name, which means "the desired one . . . ."
I think we need a source for this, or a breakdown into the component elements. Is it Greek?
The Perseus encyclopedia interprets it as "Warmly Welcomed," but again without a source or support.
NotkerQ (talk) 19:11, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meaning of the name "Aspasia" 

message: Reviewing this old featured article as part of WP:URFA/2020, I am concerned that it may not meet the modern FA criteria. Most significantly, the article relies heavily on ancient writers – Plutarch, Xenophon, Thucydides, etc. – outdated nineteenth-century books, and sources of questionable reliability (e.g. a bachelor's degree thesis). By contrast, more modern sources – for example, this book (and its many reviews), this book, this article, this book, this article, and others – are cited only sparsely or not at all. This is particularly problematic since modern scholars seem to be skeptical of the traditional accounts of Aspasia's life, as the article explains. Some text lacks citations altogether. The lead is short, and the sections on literature and art need expansion. Verification may also be a problem: for instance, a scholarly consensus claim that "these statements are generally regarded as false" doesn't seem to be backed up by the cited source, and the same is true for the claim that "It is apparent that she belonged to a wealthy family" due to her education. If these concerns are not addressed, the article may be taken to featured article review, where editors will consider whether to delist it. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 19:53, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that there's a need to bring this article up to scratch if it is to remain featured.  I think I can get access to Madeleine Henry's Prisoner of History, which looks like the obvious starting point. Aside from the sourcing issues, I have structural questions about why we relatively uncritically give a biography of Aspasia first and only afterwards point out that the ancient sources are almost entirely unverifiable, frequently written long after Aspasia's life, and generally pretty dubious.  And I suspect the "modern literature" and "in contemporary art" sections can be amalgamated into some sort of more structured "Reception" section. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:00, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I've now started making notes on Prisoner of History. Next on my list is Rebecca Futo Kennedy's Immigrant Women in Athens, which has a chapter devoted to Aspasia. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 19:03, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[WP:URFA/2020]] notice 

message: — Assignment last updated by Patt0400 (talk) 18:04, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: History of Science to Newton