Talk:Hubert Maga

Semi-automated peer review
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GA Review at Talk:Hubert Maga/GA1

 * GA Review at Talk:Hubert Maga/GA1. I'm kinda busy, so this may take a few days. Others are always free to join in... Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 21:19, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

1970 Election Table
I'm brining this here for wider concensus. I have election results for the 1970 election, and the question is, are they relevant here? ~  EDDY  ( talk / contribs / editor review ) ~ 01:05, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Kutuklui Affair
The following paragraph seems contradictory: "The Council lost popularity with the Kutuklui Affair.[93] By decree of Maga and the rest of the council, Togolese opposition leader Noe Kutuklui was officially expelled from Dahomey on October 27, 1971,[94] where he had been precticing law since the late 1960s. It was at the request of General Etienne Eyadema, president of Togo, as Kutuklui had been involved in several plots against Eyadema's military government. The Council's decision to extradite him spurred demonstrations in Cotonou. Maga was inable to carry out his decision; Alphonse Alley protected Kutuklui and took him to an unknown place outside of Dahomey. Col. Alley received no punishment whatsoever for his role in the Affair.[93] "

In the second sentence, N. Kutuklui is said to be expelled, but in all the following sentences, as well as in the caption to the picture, he is said to be extradited. Does anyone know which is correct?

Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.213.41.2 (talk) 16:21, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Some comments as requested
Omitting the lead, as I always deal with that after the main content, both when editing and when reviewing. And I'm not checking refs or other nitty-gritty stuff, this is just off the top. --Philcha (talk) 09:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Education and teaching career

 * "Voltaic" links to Mossi,which does not contain the word, while Volta is a disambig page. Readers who lack your knowledge will be confused - including me. Since the article is long enough already (as I commented re Leon M'ba, politicians in ex-colonies are difficult subjects because there's so much background to explain plus issues that don't arises with non-colonies, like the role of the colonial power), I suggest you make sure there's a support page that explains "Voltaic" decently - with at least 1 good ref to protect it from WP:AfD. --Philcha (talk) 09:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * How does "where his teacher was Emile Derlin Zinsou's father" contribute to understanding Maga? My first impression was that this was just a "nice to have" detail, but a text search shows several later mentions of Zinsou. I think you need to give a very brief explanation up-front (< 6 words if poss) of why Zinsou was significant for Maga. Remember this is EN.WP, and most readers know squat about African politics, e.g. I don't know who Thabo M'beki's successor in S. Africa is, you can't get much more ignorant than that (perhaps "Who's Mugabe" would be worse). --Philcha (talk) 09:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Since the religious / tribal divisions of Nigeria have been a major source of that country's troubles ever since independence, I feel you need to explain Maga's switch in religion - if it was not a big deal in Dahomey / Benin, even that would need explanation as it woudlbe unusual in Africa. --Philcha (talk) 09:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * "the daughter of a prominent Brazilian of Fon origins from Ouidah" needs explanation. I had to think for a minute then realised that the Brazilian football team is multi-coloured and the darker ones (such as Pele) are obviously W African (E Africans are much slighter). A reader who has little knowledge of both Africa and sport would be lost. Then there's the question of how this Brazilian came to be in Dahomey. --Philcha (talk) 09:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * "Marriages between northern and southern Dahomeyans were uncommon at the time" - why? Possible reasons include sheer distance and perhaps cultural factors. --Philcha (talk) 09:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Any idea what attracted Maga to politics? The great majority of school directors, etc. don't become trade union leaders. In "western" countries whose politics I've read about, trade union leaders generally want political influence but few seek political office. Why was Maga different? --Philcha (talk) 09:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * How did Maga's wife contribute to his gaining influence? --Philcha (talk) 09:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Early political career

 * What's a "general adviser"? How "elected"? Another difficulty with articles about political leaders whose career spans across independence day is that you need to explain 2 political systems, colonial and post-colonial. --Philcha (talk) 09:36, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Why did Maga deny that Peperty suggested the Groupement Ethnique de Nord'? --Philcha (talk) 10:09, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Re "each candidate had to give the names of another who would occupy the second seat in the event that the other party's first candidate came in third or below" you need to explain the electoral system. It looks like some form of proportional representation, but which? --Philcha (talk) 10:09, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I'll stop here becuase I hope you've got the basic idea now - how much you need to explain. --Philcha (talk) 10:09, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

A few other thoughts
After your first draft of an article on an African politician, you need to list (perhaps in a personal sandbox page, mine has all sorts of construction materials, including stuff I removed as too detailed and will re-use elsewhere sometime) you need to list what needs to be explained and where the best place for an full explanation is, beef up the relevant supporting articles and then return to your main objective. In the case of Maga, I think you need a good supporting article on the history post-colonial politics in Benin. Politics of Benin focusses on the current system and regulations etc., so it may not be a good candidate. History of Benin is shorter, but looks like it needs a lot more on the pre-colonial and colonial periods; when that happens the artcile might get rather long. My inclination (off the top of my head) would be to create a title like Post-colonial political history of Benin; you can develop the first version of the content at e.g. History of Benin and make your provisional title (e.g. Post-colonial political history of Benin) redirect to that; then if History of Benin gets too long, you can make Post-colonial political history of Benin a real article instead of a redirect, and move the relevant content there. I'm actually in the middle of a cycle like this: I rewrote Cambrian explosion because the preceding version was unintelligble to non-specialists; Martin, who'd given me a lot of support, advice and refs for content, thought the result was scientifically quite good but was too long and contained too much about individual critters, and I largely agreed; he set up the  Cambrian explosion task force to build a set of supporting articles that could handle a lot of the details; while working on part of this "to do" list (Halwaxiid) I realised there were serious gaps in my knowledge of invertebrate zoology (I sometimes couldn't explain to myself what the academics were talking about), and to fill these gaps I've been working on articles about major invertebrate groups (6 GAs so far, a couple more will hopefully achieve GA soon, I daren't count how many to go). --Philcha (talk) 09:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Because there's so much background you need to establish for articles about African politicians, you need to think in terms of projects rather than individual articles. Sometimes the supporting articles can be quite short, like Cercle (French colonial), to which "Roger Peperty, the French chef de cercle of Natitingou ... " links. I've had to create similar small explanatory articles a few times, e.g. Crurotarsal - you can leave them really short (like e.g. Dead Clade Walking), provided you add a ref or two to support the explanation you give and to prove  notability, so that it's not in danger of  deletion. In other cases the supporting article will be worth developing into a GA in its own right, e.g. Chelicerate (a major sub-divion of Arthropods). Taking the supporting articles to GA first has advantages: they're easier to get to GA / whatever, which gives you encouragement; it's easier to develop your editing techniques because you're not wrestling with such a huge mass of details; you build up a stock of refs and text you can re-use (selectively!) in "the big one".
 * Also because there's so much background you need to establish, you need to keep down the article's length by eliminating unnecessary details. For example there was a discussion recently about how much biographical detail was required. If in doubt, raise such issues at Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_nominations - you'll get advice, and it will make reviewers think about what's most important (GA reviewing is often about trade-offs and priorities) - the advantage for you is that reviewers' responses become more consistent. --Philcha (talk) 09:36, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you should try getting a few less difficult subjects to GA first. After looking at this article and Leon Mba, I find the idea of writing about African political leaders quite challenging, and I've had some success with big subjects in zoology and paleontology - not to mention that my first GAs in those areas were smaller topics. --Philcha (talk) 09:36, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Maga and the "uneducated"
There are three instances in this article which refer to Maga's influence amongst the "uneducated", but the article never clarifies what exactly this means. Would someone with a few years of schooling be uneducated? What about someone with no schooling who was nonetheless literate? The reason I raise this issue (and I don't want to sound like I'm nit-picking) is because "uneducated" is a loaded word, both in terms of the people it describes and of what it says about Maga. Only one of the three instances of the word in this article is sourced: to a 1966 book called "African Powder Keg" (a sensationalist title), about which I can find very little information. It's certainly not an up-to-date source reflecting recent scholarship. Can anyone elaborate on the subject? Or, better yet, is there someone who can clarify its meaning and revise the article accordingly? Tigercompanion25 (talk) 19:52, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
 * You could see if you could get African Powder Keg if it has any clarification. By uneducated I assume it is meant "without formal schooling." That may be a better way of phrasing things. I haven't had the books for several years, so I can't really comment too much. ~ EDDY  ( talk / contribs ) ~ 20:01, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I was thinking the very same thing, just ironic really how he gained influence among those without formal schooling yet he was by profession a school master. --OJ (talk) 08:11, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

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