09-18-2014, 10:26 AM
Like it or not, if you use a search engine to find out something related to Ancient warfare a Wikipedia article is likely to be the topmost hit.
With some notable exceptions, most articles on this subject are poor, some are frankly appalling. Wikipedia is the highest profile medium available for the dissemination of good quality information about our shared field of interest. I think that it is a great pity that more well-informed and articulate people are not involved in improving this interface with the general public. All too often inaccurate information is being presented as fact on Wikipedia.
I would present the following article, that I had a major hand in writing, as an example of what can be achieved:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komnenian_Byzantine_army
In particular the repository of freely available images (Wikimedia commons) is very sparse on many aspects of Ancient warfare. I know that many people using this site have images of armour and weapons, reconstructed or original, that would be invaluable if made open to the public via Wikipedia articles. For example there are no useful images of such things as Boeotian helmets and xiphos or machaira swords - even the Dura cataphract graffito is missing.
I would appeal to the people who contribute to this site to have a look at Wikipedia and possibly do something to improve the representation of those subjects that we all find fascinating.
With some notable exceptions, most articles on this subject are poor, some are frankly appalling. Wikipedia is the highest profile medium available for the dissemination of good quality information about our shared field of interest. I think that it is a great pity that more well-informed and articulate people are not involved in improving this interface with the general public. All too often inaccurate information is being presented as fact on Wikipedia.
I would present the following article, that I had a major hand in writing, as an example of what can be achieved:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komnenian_Byzantine_army
In particular the repository of freely available images (Wikimedia commons) is very sparse on many aspects of Ancient warfare. I know that many people using this site have images of armour and weapons, reconstructed or original, that would be invaluable if made open to the public via Wikipedia articles. For example there are no useful images of such things as Boeotian helmets and xiphos or machaira swords - even the Dura cataphract graffito is missing.
I would appeal to the people who contribute to this site to have a look at Wikipedia and possibly do something to improve the representation of those subjects that we all find fascinating.
Martin
Fac me cocleario vomere!
Fac me cocleario vomere!
