Talk:Dragon/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Squeamish Ossifrage (talk · contribs) 21:33, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Intending to review this. Further comments pending. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 21:33, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

@Squeamish Ossifrage: Thank you very much for taking the time to review this article. I really appreciate it. --Katolophyromai (talk) 03:22, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

First pass review

1a: the prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct Much of the article breaks down dragons into geographic categories, which is very likely the only sane way to do this. But that makes the "Ancient world" section awkward. Are animal inspirations for dragons only applicable to the "Ancient world"? Clearly not, as the section even suggests that California's alligator lizards could serve as inspiration for dragons (more on this later). It is necessary to have at least some grouping by time period, because it is the dragons discussed in the "Ancient world" section that ultimately developed into the later dragons of European folklore. I cannot describe the origins of the traditional western "dragon" unless I have already covered the ancient dragons that gave rise to it. --Katolophyromai (talk) 03:22, 19 April 2018 (UTC) Likewise, I have to follow "Ancient world" -> "Indo-European mythologies" -> "Ancient Greece and Rome" in order to find content about the dragon in the Book of Revelations (in a paragraph that starts by talking about Herodotus. That's probably not how a reader would expect that content to be presented. What's the cutoff for the "Ancient world"? You can see the problem in the section on the ouroboros which jumps from Ancient Egypt to medieval alchemy. The traditional cutoff date for the "Ancient world" is usually given as 476 AD, with the deposition of Romulus Augustulus, the last emperor of the West Roman Empire, by the Germanic warlord Odoacer. That is, of course, a completely artificial date and there really is no exact date that we can definitely say marks the end of the "Ancient world" and beginning of the "Middle Ages." The date of what constitutes as "ancient" are often pushed much later for northern Europe, since it was not Christianized until much later. The Book of Revelation was written during the late first century AD (probably during the reign of the emperor Domitian or thereabouts) on the Greek island of Patmos. That puts it very much within the confines of "Antiquity." Furthermore, although the author of the Book of Revelation is obviously a Jewish Christian, the work is best situated within its Greco-Roman historical context, especially since the "dragon" described in it is most closely in line with the Greco-Roman drakon or draco. (By the way, the correct title of the book is "Revelation," which is singular, not plural, since the whole book is one long revelation. It really irks me when people say "Revelations," because that is not the correct title.) The chronological leap in the passage about the ouroboros is a necessary evil, in my view, unless you would prefer that I write about the ouroboros twice in two completely different sections, which I think would just be even more confusing. If you would like me to do that, though, I can move the last part about the ouroboros in medieval alchemy to the "Western Europe" subsection. --Katolophyromai (talk) 03:22, 19 April 2018 (UTC) Furthermore, the structure problems are again apparently when we deal with dragons outside of Europe. Persian mythology, Bhutanese tradition, and Chinese / Japanese / Korean content are all bundled under "Orient", but the only section dealing with Indian folklore and myth is in the "Ancient world" -> "Indo-European mythologies" -> "Vedic India and Avestan Iran" subsection. The resulting problems in emphasis very nearly rise to being a neutrality problem rather than just a quibble with section headings. How is this a neutrality problem? The Vedic myths clearly need to be under the "Indo-European mythologies" subheading, because that groups them with related mythologies. Vedic mythology is one of the earliest and best attested Indo-European mythologies and a major source for comparative mythology; that is why it is currently the first section under that subheading. --Katolophyromai (talk) 03:22, 19 April 2018 (UTC) @Squeamish Ossifrage: I have now reorganized the article. The Indo-European mythology section has now been disbanded and I have moved part about India to the "Southwest Asia" section under "Orient." --Katolophyromai (talk) 11:47, 27 April 2018 (UTC) Specific grammar / wording concerns: * "is linguistically cognate to" is awkward. "is ... a cognate of" is the more common construction. All fixed. --Katolophyromai (talk) 03:22, 19 April 2018 (UTC) The latter half of the section about the Great Red Dragon of Revelations is... awkward, using "Dragon" as if it were a proper name (and in one case "Dragon the Great"). The source cited uses "Dragon" as a proper name and I have to follow what it says in the source. The translation of the passage from the Book of Revelation used in this paragraph uses the word as a proper name as well, and I cannot change how the author of the source chose to translate the passage. Using dragon as a common noun in this context would be original research, unless I were to find a different source that provides a different translation and does not use the word dragon as a proper name. --Katolophyromai (talk) 03:22, 19 April 2018 (UTC) 3a: it addresses the main aspects of the topic So, the big question for me, first and foremost, is the demarcation problem. The article presents the history of dragon folklore in (generally speaking) the Middle East in terms of a variety of vaguely serpentine mythological creatures: mušḫuššu, Python, Ladon, etc. What distinguishes these serpentine "prototypical dragons" from other sundry mythological snakes? Basically, how did you determine when something was dragon enough to be a dragon for inclusion here? In particular, the article seems to have determined that the various amphisbaenoid creatures of world myth aren't dragons, as none of them are included here, although there are certainly sources willing to call them dragons (see, for example: Carlson, John B. (1982). "The Double-Headed Dragon and the Sky: A Pervasive Cosmological Symbol". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 385 (1): 135–163.). The word dragon has become widely and commonly applied to any mythological creature with serpentine qualities, in both popular and academic writings. All of the "sundry mythological snakes" you refer to would qualify as dragons as long as they have some kind of supernatural qualities. Python, Ladon, and the other dragons in the "Ancient Greece and Rome" section are explicitly referred to in Greek texts using the word drakon, which is the root of the modern English word dragon. They also provided much of the material for later European dragon myths. Even if this article were only about the traditional European dragon, I would definitely have to include information about the dragons in Greek mythology, due to their vital role in the development of the myth. For one thing, our idea about dragons guarding things comes, to a large extent, from the classical drakons. The mušḫuššu is widely referred to as a "dragon" in academic writings on the ancient Near East. I personally would have liked to have taken a much stricter definition of the word dragon than it has in common parlance and written this article solely about the "dragons" of European mythology, since the word dragon, after all is a European word that has only latterly and rather spuriously come to be applied to mythical creatures elsewhere. Unfortunately, that approach is barred to us completely, since the word has been so extensively used to refer to any serpent-like mythological creature, regardless of how closely that creature actually resembles a traditional "dragon" or where in the world stories of that creature come from. If we did not at least talk about the East Asian long in this article, I am certain people would start a revolt on the talk page, since the word "dragon" has come to be applied to them so frequently and extensively. Of course, long are so utterly different from the traditional European definition of a "dragon" that, if we discuss them, we also have to include every other kind of mythological serpent. I do not know which "amphisbaenoid creatures of world myth" you are referring to, but I would prefer not to expand our definition of the word "dragon" to include mythical creatures with features belonging to animals that are not snakes but resemble snakes. I think that the definition is already too broad as it is. --Katolophyromai (talk) 03:22, 19 April 2018 (UTC) Are there no dragons, by any definition, outside of Europe, the Ancient Near East, India, and and East Asia? Depending in part on how you approach the demarcation problem above, that might mean the Congo's Mokele-mbembe (described as "half-dragon" to Hagnebeck), the Sisiutl of the Pacific Northwest, any of several entities from Mayan culture (such as Xiucoatl), and some native Peruvian forms. There is nothing in the definition of a "dragon" that means that it necessarily has to come from Europe or Asia. Obviously, the word originates from Europe, but, as I have explained above, it has developed a ridiculously broad meaning. My knowledge mostly pertains to the mythologies of Europe and the Middle East, but, as far as I am aware, while the word "dragon" is sometimes applied to creatures from outside Europe and Asia, this application does not generally seem to be quite as common. I also could not find very many sources about "dragons" from other continents, least of all scholarly ones. I therefore saw fit to omit them. If you really think they need to be covered, I might be able to dig more and see what I can find. --Katolophyromai (talk) 03:22, 19 April 2018 (UTC) Is there more to say about etymology (and nomenclature, in general)? Dragon itself, via French, is indeed a comparatively recent addition to English, but drake (with the same Latinate origin) dates back to the Old English of Beowulf. As does "worm" as a dragon-synonym (and the origin of the modern fantasy "wyrm" which is, ironically enough, the Old English spelling). Indeed, in Beowulf those even coexist: "Hwäðre him gesælde, þät þät swurd þurhwôd wrätlîcne wyrm, þät hit on wealle ätstôd, dryhtlîc îren; draca morðre swealt." (emphasis mine). * Heraldry? This article is even in Category:Heraldic beasts, but I see no significant discussion of the dragon as a heraldic charge. Currently, the heraldry navigation template even points at this article, so there's an especial disconnect there. * Astronomy? Ptolemy put a dragon in the sky in the 2nd century, and I'm fairly sure that there are dragons in the stars of other cultures as well. I will see what I can find about these three topics. I will be very busy for the next two weeks, though, so I do not know how much time I will have to look for information. I was not expecting this review to be picked up so swiftly and I thought I was going to have to wait at least a few months before someone finally came along to review it. I guess either the subject of the article attracts decent attention or the rate of GA reviews is finally starting to grow less backlogged. --Katolophyromai (talk) 03:22, 19 April 2018 (UTC) @Squeamish Ossifrage: I have added paragraphs about dragons in medieval heraldry and in ancient Greek astronomy. I am still looking for sources about the etymologies of alternative words for "dragon." In the meantime, are you still there? I left extensive replies to your comments here five days ago, but you still have not responded to any of them. I understand that you are busy and have other things to do, but it is extremely difficult for me to know exactly what changes you want me to make when you do not respond for days on end. --Katolophyromai (talk) 18:37, 23 April 2018 (UTC) * I'm concerned about your placement of the "Modern depictions" section, because it suggests that the only modern depictions of dragons are drawn from the European tradition. But that's certainly not the case. I have moved it, per your request. The "Modern depictions" section was originally at the end of the article, but I moved it under the "Occident" heading because all the examples discussed in it are of western dragons. I do not know of other kinds of "dragons" making major cultural appearances, but I imagine that is probably because they are appearing in their countries of origin and, well, I live in the United States, so I do not see the movies they are making or read the books they are writing in China or wherever. --Katolophyromai (talk) 03:22, 19 April 2018 (UTC) 4: Neutral I'm a little concerned about the reliance on Bane for determining what counts as a dragon. Or, indeed, for much of anything. The article's approach to this topic is primarily a folkloric and mythological one, which is probably the correct way to go about things. But Bane doesn't have any credentials in those fields. She's a fiction author, fantasy roleplaying supplement author, and self-described "vampirologist". Indeed, in the work cited, she admits that browsing Google Books for 19th century or earlier sources was one of her primary means of research! Google Books, which, incidentally, happens to be my main way of finding sources as well, is almost completely spammed with children's books about dragons, so I could hardly find any scholarly sources on the subject. I took the best sources I could find. I tried Google Scholar, but that turned up mostly children's books as well. I have been able to find a few decent, scholarly works for this article, but they only support certain parts of the article and fail to comprehensively cover the whole scope of it. This has repeatedly frustrated me and I have had to leave out some dragon stories that I otherwise really wanted to include, such as the story of the Lambton Worm, but, alas, while I could find tons of children's picture books, I was unable to find a single scholarly source about it. Even our article on the subject was of no help. I suppose I can just remove all of the information cited to Bane if you would like me to. --Katolophyromai (talk) 03:22, 19 April 2018 (UTC) 6: Illustrated, if possible There are a lot of images here. I haven't yet undertaken an image review. It's possible that there are too many images; I'm not entirely sure how compliant the big inter-sectional rows of images are with regard to WP:GALLERY. Given the vast number of radically different ways in which dragons have been portrayed and the vast number of different stories, I think that all the images are necessary for illustrative purposes. Nonetheless, if you insist that I need to remove them, I will remove them. --Katolophyromai (talk) 03:22, 19 April 2018 (UTC) Other This review is still in progress. I haven't completed a thorough prose sweep, or an image review, or a final check for other problems. But there are at least enough big structural / topic concerns for me to place this one on hold for now. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 22:06, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

@Squeamish Ossifrage: It has been ten days since I replied to all of your comments here and I have pinged you multiple times, but you still have given absolutely no response to any of my questions or replies. Are you still there? I cannot address your criticisms if you do not respond to clarify and elaborate on what you have said. I am trying not to be impatient, but, if you do not respond within the next five days, I will close this review and renominate the article so that a more responsive reviewer can take it. --Katolophyromai (talk) 16:03, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

• My apologies for the delay. I had some unexpectedly internet-free travel. Let me look over the changes in the next day or so. That said, one of my foremost concerns is still the inclusion criteria. What criteria do you use to determine whether a given mythological creature is or is not a "dragon" for the purposes of this article? If that standard is "has been referred to as a dragon in one or more reliable sources", then there are significant lacunae. Otherwise, I'm not clear on what the standard is. A more thorough re-review will be forthcoming. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 17:30, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Second Pass

I think this article is much-improved from my first examination. Unfortunately, I think it still has quite some ways to go. In a large part, that's because this is a big topic area. The broader a topic is, the harder it is to clear the quality bars. Also, to some extent, I'd like to apologize. I should have done a far more exhaustive analysis in the first pass; some of this should have been caught then.

@Squeamish Ossifrage: Thank you very much for your feedback. I would appreciate it if you would read my comments below before failing the article. Once again, thank you for your time. I am not sure if I still plan on eventually bringing this article up to GA status, but, if I do attempt such a feat, I will certainly enlist the help of more editors who know more about mythologies outside my area of expertise. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:54, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Content

I think the restructuring of several of the sections greatly benefited the article. However, there are still content issues, mostly related to what isn't here yet.

• I think there's probably more to say on the origin of the dragon myth beyond what's listed here. Consider, for example: Blust, Robert (2000). "The Origin of Dragons". Anthropos. 95 (2): 519–536. JSTOR 40465957. which postulates physical observations of rainbows as origins for dragons (via an intermediate layer of rainbow serpent mythologies dating to the Pleistocene).

Hmm... I am highly unconvinced that a paper suggesting rainbows as the source of dragon mythologies is worth taking seriously enough to include in our article. I do not expect to include every explanation that has ever been put forward; I think that just the most popular ones and the ones with the most scholarly support will be sufficient. Do we have any sources indicating that this whole rainbow-dragon hypothesis is widely accepted by scholars? --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• I'm glad to see some mention of the dragon as a heraldic charge, but I really think there's more to say here. Ultimately, I wouldn't be surprised if this topic actually needed to be spun out to its own article: Dragon (heraldry), most likely, and mentioned here in summary style with a section hatnote. But, since we're a long way from there, this article has to carry some of the burden. That means, most liklely, some discussion of the history and development associated with the charge, which starts with the Dacian Draco, then the Roman draco, through early English dragon standards, and into formalized heraldry. Also, I'm fairly certain that the symbolism of the charge can be sourced. Source quality is especially important here, as early associations of various people and regions with dragon symbols (and heraldry in general) has suffered from historical inflation.

I will try to find some more information on this subject. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• There's some significant problems with Asian coverage, mostly because of the reliance on Bane. More on that in sourcing. In particular, there may need to be more effort to distinguish between Hindu cultural myths and Buddhist traditions.

I have completely removed all references to Bane and all information gathered from her book. This meant removing the entire sections about Korean and Vietnamese dragons. I will try to see if I kind find the same information someplace else. I do not know if I can, though, since scholarly writings on the subject seem to be few and far between, so we may just have to omit those. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• In general, the South Asia section might be the most under-developed prose passage currently in this article.

* I would re-order the sections to go Southwest Asia -> South Asia -> East Asia, from a strictly geographical perspective.

Done. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

* Regional etymology probably belongs in the "East Asia" parent section rather than under "Chinese dragon"; it's odd seeing Vietnamese and Korean terms at the head of the Chinese subsection.

There was a second explanation of the Chinese word for dragon in the "Chinese dragon" section and the explanation in the section lead was uncited, so I just removed it entirely. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• The quoted passage on the Neolithic origins of the eastern dragon needs to be attributed in text if you're going to quote directly. That said, I don't see a compelling reason to do so here. Consider rephrasing to avoid the direct quotation. Also, is there any more recent scholarship on this topic?

What do you mean "more recent"? The source cited is from 2008; that was only ten years ago. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• I don't think the Chinese section is presented in anything like a chronological order. For example, the Shan Hai Jing (at least in its finalized form in the Han Dynasty) is much later than any of the Warring States Period material.

I have tried to reorganize the section in a more chronological order, but I am not sure if it is even possible to arrange it completely chronologically. I honestly know very little about southeast Asia at all and I am mostly just following whatever I find in the sources. I am confused about the chronological order myself. My main areas of knowledge are the ancient Near East and the classical eastern Mediterranean. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• Emphasis and comprehensiveness is also a problem in East Asia. The Dragon Kings of the Four Seas are given a captioned illustration, and half a sentence of prose coverage, despite their relative importance. There's no mention at all of the Azure Dragon in other contexts, such as the Four Symbols (in China, or their equivalents in Japan, Vietnam, and probably just about everywhere else in the region) or in Chinese astronomy. In general, this section has a fundamental problem; it focuses on individual dragon stories while eliding the major cultural themes.

Once again, I think the problem is a result of the fact that I know virtually nothing about southeast Asia. I am just following what I find in the sources. The sources barely mention anything about the Dragon Kings, so I assumed they must not have been particularly important. I have never even heard of an "Azure Dragon" until now. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• I really think you're going to have to confront the issue of "dragons" from other regions. In particular, that means the pre-Columbian Western Hemisphere. The source I mentioned in the first pass is a decent place to start, I suppose (Carlson, John B. (1982). "The Double-Headed Dragon and the Sky: A Pervasive Cosmological Symbol". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 385 (1): 135–163. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.1982.tb34263.x. [and available via academia.edu]). In general, I think there's more published regarding dragons or their ilk in Aztec, Mayan, and Olmec mythology than in any North American traditional culture.

• Entirely separately, there's the issue of the Maori taniwha, which are referred to as dragons rather commonly, despite being even further removed from the "traditional" Western dragon than other mythological entities sidled with the term. You'll want to be somewhat choosy with sources here in order to avoid fringe theorists that explicitly try to syncretize Maori beliefs with Chinese or Western mythology.
• That probably goes for sources connecting the Australian Aboriginal rainbow serpent to "dragons", also.

I do not really know very much about dragons in pre-Columbian American, Aboriginal Australian, Polynesian, or African mythologies, though. (Indeed, I actually know hardly anything at all; I was only vaguely aware until now that there were creatures in those mythologies that were commonly referred to as "dragons.") I think that this article really has to cover such an impossibly broad topic that the only way it will ever be brought up to "Good Article" status is through a massive collaboration by editors with different areas of expertise, because its scope covers too many cultures for any one editor to be knowledgeable about all of them. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• I rarely say this about any article, but I think the "Modern depictions" section needs more development. I'm somewhat concerned by the structure of this section, for one thing. I'm not sure that the transition from Carroll's Jabberwock (and note: the poem itself is "Jabberwocky", but the creature is "the Jabberwock") to the harmless dragons of children's literature is well-executed (Tenniel's parody of Carroll notwithstanding, the Jabberwock is not a harmless comic character!). Likewise, the prose here suggests that the harmless dragon has largely ceased to be after the 1960s, but I'm not entirely sure that's well-founded despite Nikolajeva's claim. Is there more to source on this subject? Finally, while it's obviously easier for a Western editor to source depictions of Western dragons in Western media, it's a systemic bias issue to avoid modern depictions of other dragons entirely.

I am not aware of any depictions of other dragons, though. It is also extremely difficult to find scholarly sources about dragons in modern entertainment because it seems scholars generally do not write much about such vulgar things. If they do, I suppose I must be looking in all the wrong places. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Images

I remain convinced that this article is non-compliant with WP:GALLERY. Trying to select from a cornucopia of images is one of the harder editorial tasks. Nevertheless, that's what policy demands here. The good news is that licensing seems in order (indeed, pretty much everything here is from Commons, which makes life relatively easy). * I think the snake picture is superfluous. The Wawel Dragon bones are fine.

I have removed the snake image. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

* There are two images for Cadmus (one inline with text, one in the Ancient Greece and Rome gallery); I'd cut the second.

I have removed it. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

* There are two images for Heracles slaying various dragonish things. I'd keep either the vase painting with the Hydra or the relief plate with Ladon, but not both. My preference would be the former, personally.

I have removed the second image. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• The cetus mosaic is an attractive image so far as it goes, but I don't even see where the cetus is discussed in text. You cannot introduce content exclusively in an image.
• MS Harley 3244 is fine, as is an illustration of Saint George slaying the dragon. No objections to the one chosen; you can probably safely remove the other two Saint George images from the section gallery.

I have removed them. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

* The Shakespeare pull quote doesn't seem to be discussed to attached to any text. Cutting that might give you room for at least one more image in this section.

I have removed the quote. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

* If you're going to have an image for the Book of Revelation, you certainly only need one.

I have removed all of them. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

* I like the Red and White dragons illustration. You may be able to shuffle around image placement to rescue that from the gallery.

Done. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• You have two Welsh flags in the gallery. You don't mention the flag of Wales in prose. In any case, the red dragon flag of Wales in the gallery here isn't the flag of Wales (at least, not since 1959). The current flag of Wales is this one. An expanded heraldry section might offer room for one of these, although it's possible to just relegate heraldic dragon images off elsewhere.

I have removed both flags from the gallery. The red dragon flag was in the article before I came and the gold one was added by another user while I was rewriting the article. I personally never really cared for either of them. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

* The Liber Floridus dragon is cute, but probably superfluous.

I have removed it. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• In the Eastern Europe section, is there room to inline that illustration of the Wawel Dragon on the left?

No. There is no room at all to move it there without creating an "image sandwich." I have kept the image, placing it underneath the first image of Zmey Gorynych. It hangs over into the next section, but oh well. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

* I'd cut the rest of that gallery completely; you don't need three images for Zmey Gorynych, and the prose doesn't even mention Vahagn, so there's no need for an image of statue of him. Likewise, that statue from Varna is cute, but totally unconnected with the associated text.

I have removed the gallery and all of the images in it. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

If anything, you need better images for some of the Asian topics.

• Your only image for South Asia is of Pakhangba, who isn't mentioned in the text at all! This section's prose needs a lot of work, so exactly what images you need (and can fit) will depend on how the text develops.
• Likewise, the bulk of the prose on Persian mythology deals with the azhdahās, but the associated image is of a dragonslayer who is only name-dropped in a list of others.

* I'm not sure that the dragon character infobox is a good use of space here, but can probably be convinced otherwise if you're attached to its use here (it already appears in Chinese dragon, though).

I have removed the infobox. It was there before I came along and I was never particularly fond of it, but I figured that some people might find it useful. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• Is there any sort of Warring States Period or even Han Dynasty image that can be used to illustrate all the prose about stories of those eras?

None that I know of, but, obviously, once again, east Asia is not my area of expertise. I tried searching, but the only ancient images I could find were the belt plaque of the lung ma that is already included in the article and a depiction of a dragon dance from the Han Dynasty, which was originally included in this article, but was deleted off the Commons for some legal reason that I do not exactly remember. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• I'm not thrilled with the image chosen for Zhulong; it's a 17th-century illustration of a work composed 2000 years earlier. And frankly, it's not a very eye-catching piece.

This is the only image of it that I could find. It is either that one or no image at all. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• I'd snip the image of the dragon boat race, as that's not mentioned in prose. Likewise, the Longshan Temple sculpture and Fengdu Ghost City pictures, unless you're able to work in more dicussion of temple ornamentation or the like. Also, choose one image for a dragon dance; this isn't the main article on the topic, after all. The one currently inline is certainly colorful, but you might also consider a picture that gives a clearer idea of what's going on.

The dragon boat race is mentioned in the prose; nearly half of the last paragraph is entirely devoted to talking about the dragon boat race. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• The Qing dynasty flag might be able to be moved inline, especially if you remove the character infobox.
• Something to illustrate Vietnamese or Korean dragons? One potential example might be an image of one of the dragon figures from the Seoul Olympics opening ceremony.

I have removed the sections about Vietnamese and Korean dragons because they relied entirely on Bane. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• The caption for the Smaug image is misleading. As currently worded, it suggests that this an illustration from (some edition, at any rate) of the book itself; in actuality, this is fan art. You identify who Smaug is in the prose, so you can probably shorten the caption considerably to dispel the confusion, but should credit the artist (David Demaret).

I apologize. In my mind, "illustration" just means it is an image intended to show a scene or character from a work of fiction. My definition does not necessarily require that the image be produced by a professional and printed in an actual edition of the book. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• As with the South Asia section, how many images you retain, and what those are images of, will largely depend on what you do with the prose here. I imagine you'll want to keep Tenniel's Jabberwock. I like the Smaug image, and can't really argue with the public domain Hungarian Horntail model picture, either. I'd cut the Crotian carnival image, certainly, because it doesn't illustrate anything referenced in text. Having some sort of illustration of a D&D style dragon seems imperative; the one currently here is... not particularly appealing, however. And, of course, if you expand this section, you may need a non-Western image as well. I'm not entirely sure how to arrange those images, but... it's a start.

The Croatian carnival image was added by another user after I had finished rewriting the article. I did not like it either, but I did not want to offend the user by reverting his or her edit. The image of the DND dragon that is currently in the article is the only one I could find on the Commons. As a general rule, if there is a poor quality image in the article, it is usually either because I could not find a better one to illustrate the same point or because some other user added it and I did not want to revert him or her. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Sourcing

• Bane is probably the single most problematic source used in this article. To be blunt, I don't think her work is reliable at all, which is a common trait in these capsule-summary "encyclopedias" of mythological elements. As regards this article, her treatment of the nāga is... problematic, to say the least. Her East Asian content is less obviously troublesome, but frankly, that may just mean that I'm not familiar enough with the actual material to recognize what's wrong. Replacing Bane as a reference here is going to be a lot of legwork, because you cite her for quite a bit, but I think that's ultimately in the best interests of accuracy.

I have completely removed all citations to Bane as well as any information that was cited to her book. I used her as a source because I tried looking for better ones and could not find any. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

* I'm unable to determine the reliability of the etwinning.gr website (as it does not render properly for me), nor the ensani.ir website (as it returns a unhandled exception error at the time of this writing).

Both of those sources were in the article long before I came along. I have gone ahead and removed both sources, as well as any information cited to them. The etwinning.gr site seems to have only been cited because some editor a long time ago felt it necessary to include the Greek spellings of names for the Greek authors mentioned in the article and that source was used to provide the spelling. The ensani.ir site is more problematic, however, since the entire "Southwest Asia" section about Iranian dragons is cited to it. That section was the one section I barely even touched, because I could not find any sources on the subject and it (at least superficially) appeared to have a source supporting it. The website, however, is entirely in Farsi, a language I cannot read and have no knowledge of, so there is no way to confirm if it actually says any of the information attributed to it. I was able to write brief, but some well-cited, discussion of Avestan dragons in the "South Asia" section. Hopefully that will make up for the material I removed. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

* I'm fairly certain that onmarkproductions.net (cited here as the "A to Z Photodirectory of Japanese Buddhist Statuary") cannot be considered a reliable source. Among other concerns, some of its text explicitly cites Wikipedia, leading to concerns about circular referencing. Additionally, the site itself is entirely the work of one author (Mark Schumacher), who doesn't appear to have any background that would satisfy the exceptions in WP:SPS.

I have removed the citations to website as well as all information that was cited to it. That source was in the article long before I came along, so, unlike Bane, that one is not my fault. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

* iMDB is never a reliable source for any purpose.

I have removed it from the article, as well as all the information sourced to it. Once again, that one was in the article long before I came along. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• Some of the sources in the Bibliography don't actually appear to be cited anywhere in the article. I noticed this for the Manning-Sanders source (because I was trying to see if that was used appropriately). I didn't audit comprehensively, so there may be others.

There was already a sizable bibliography before I came and, since I do not like to remove reliable sources from an article, I just left all the sources there and added to them. The ones that are not cited are probably the ones that are leftover from before I rewrote the article, although I think most of them were not actually used in the original article either. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Beyond the concerns I have for the GA standard, I have quite a bit of history reviewing references and reference formatting for the Featured Article process. I've found that many people undertaking a GA push are at least interested in the bronze star as well. Note that none of the issues below are problems at the GA level, but since I was auditing sourcing and references, I thought I'd offer additional notes:

• Some of this sourcing is probably okay for the GA level, but would fall short of the "high-quality" sources required for FA (such as hellinon.net).
• You have some book-style sources in references (rather than in the bibliography and connected via sfn). Typically (when using sfn, anyway), journal and web referenecs are cited directly, while book-format sources are listed in the bibliography and then cited with sfn. Consistency is the goal. None of this is a GA-level requirement.
• Website references aren't formatted consistently.
• Actually, neither are other references. Immediately evident, sometimes book sources have publisher locations. Even at the FA-level, publisher locations are optional, but it's all-or-nothing; you either always need them, or always need to omit them.
• A few uses of hyphens in place of endashes in page ranges (for example, the Hartsock source, which has a collection of other formatting issues).
• Sources not in English need a language tag in their cite template.
• ISBNs should be standardized to properly-hyphenated ISBN-13s.
• Book sources that predate the ISBN system (or don't have an ISBN assigned for whatever other reason), such as Gould's Mythical Monsters, should ideally have an OCLC number instead.
• Journal articles should have DOI links, where available (or, failing that, JSTOR links where available).

I have no intention of ever trying to bring this article up to "Featured Article" status. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

I realize that's a daunting and exhaustive list of article concerns. I do think this has the foundation of a good article, just not—yet—a Good Article. I'm inclined to close this GA to permit additional research and development, but from my time at FAC, I know that sometimes revision and expansion can be surprisingly quick. I'll leave it to your discretion whether you'd prefer I keep this open for another week or two or wrap it up for now and revisit the situation when you're ready for GA2. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 16:25, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

You can go ahead and fail the article immediately. I do not think it is possible for this article to ever be brought up to "Good Article" standards without a massive effort involving many different editors with different areas of expertise. The scope is simply too impossibly broad for any one editor to be an expert on it all. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)