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Walls of Babylon

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The Walls of Babylon
The Walls of Babylon
  • Source: Roscher, Wilhelm Heinrich (1906). "d) Die sieben Weltwunder (θεάματα, ἔργα μεγάλα)". Die Hebdomadenlehren der griechischen Philosophen und Aerzte (in German). Teubner. pp. 186–193. Retrieved 2025-04-20.
Created by Onceinawhile (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 83 past nominations.

Onceinawhile (talk) 23:30, 7 October 2025 (UTC).

General eligibility:

Policy compliance:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
  • Cited: Yes - Offline/paywalled citation accepted in good faith
  • Interesting: Yes
Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
QPQ: Done.

Overall: Maximilian775 (talk) 18:35, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

  • @Onceinawhile and Maximilian775: I'm not sure whether this article or the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is more accurate, but the Walls of Bablyon seem to be included on some lists but not in the most traditional/widely accepted canon of seven. Could the discrepancy be corrected? theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 03:04, 21 November 2025 (UTC)
    Hi @Theleekycauldron: they are both right and this is what makes them so interesting – the wording is carefully drafted to ensure accuracy. As the Walls article says, they were celebrated in antiquity as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It is the "in antiquity" that is the important language – as the seven wonders article shows (see the list of known lists, which follows Roscher), they were the joint-second most frequently cited Wonder. The "canonical" seven is a list invented accidentally in early modern times, following the Octo Mundi Miracula. Even the Octo actually intended the "Babylonis Muri" (Babylonian Walls) to be part of the list, but later interpretations ignored its label and focused on the image of the hanging gardens. Long story short, this is what makes it is great did you know. Onceinawhile (talk) 07:45, 21 November 2025 (UTC)
    @Onceinawhile: Ah. In that case, would you be willing to go with:
    Because the Walls don't exist anymore, I think "were" might be interpreted a bit ambiguously. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 17:08, 21 November 2025 (UTC)
    @Theleekycauldron: yes, either of those are fine. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:59, 21 November 2025 (UTC)
    approving both, promoter can decide which to use :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 21:06, 21 November 2025 (UTC)
  • @Onceinawhile and Maximilian775: One more question: the quotes in the footnotes are incredibly long, and do not appear to be from freely-licensed sources (correct me if I'm wrong, please), making them copyright violations. Could these be whittled down to a few sentences each? (please Reply to icon mention me on reply) —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 06:32, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
    @TechnoSquirrel69: fair point – I have cut it down, so the longest quote is just 150 words. Fair use for quotations is usually considered 200-300 words in a long (5,000-10,000 words+) work. Onceinawhile (talk) 18:08, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
    Better, but they still look fairly long, and I'm not sure they're needed in their entirety in order to be verifiable, but I'm happy to defer to a second opinion from Maximilian775 or theleekycauldron. I'm curious — where did you get those word count figures from? I don't see anything specific in the non-free content policy. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 18:39, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
    I can’t recall the source of those numbers, but they came from a wikipedian experienced in copyright matters and they tie to what can be found widely online. For example, Faber & Faber state: "up to 250 words of prose, or multiple extracts up to 800 words"[1] Or a college library here: "a quote of 250 words from a 300-word poem might be less fair than a quote of 250 words from a many-thousand-word article."[2] See User talk:Onceinawhile/Archive 3#Quotations in footnotes for some of the discussions on this I can recall. Onceinawhile (talk) 08:52, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
    I say meh; It's not clear what the bar for "extensive" is in Wikipedia:Non-free content#Text, but you can quote more when the source is longer. I think I err on the side of "it's fine" because, like, I don't see this as so egregious as to implicate any lawbreaking, which is really what those policies are meant to guard against. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 03:39, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
  • No opinion on the quote concerns, but more about the hooks. Since most of the common versions of the Seven Ancient Wonders do not specify the Walls of Babylon but rather the Hanging Gardens, would it be better to contextualize the hook as something like "...that the Walls of Babylon (pictured) were included in some versions of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World?" It would at least be a more accurate hook than the current options. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 09:30, 1 December 2025 (UTC)
"Some" would lose the most interesting part of it, which is that it was the (joint) second most frequently cited in the ancient sources. Onceinawhile (talk) 10:50, 1 December 2025 (UTC)
Interestingness or hookiness should not be used to sacrifice accuracy. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 11:41, 1 December 2025 (UTC)
Precision is important. "Some" loses precision, for no gain in accuracy. Onceinawhile (talk) 15:58, 1 December 2025 (UTC)
As much as I think we are talking ourselves out of an intriguing hook for no good reason, how about:
Onceinawhile (talk) 19:09, 1 December 2025 (UTC)
Either works. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:11, 1 December 2025 (UTC)
I agree with the nominator that those hooks aren't more accurate than ALT0b. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 15:24, 4 December 2025 (UTC)
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