Talk:Liwonde National Park

Expanded and updated draft
On behalf of African Parks via the Wyss Foundation, and as part of my work at Beutler Ink, I am submitting an expanded and updated draft for consideration. You can view my proposed draft here.

The current article includes a significant amount of unsourced content. The "History" section has just two inline citations, displayed after just the section's last sentence. The "Flora", "Fauna", and "Tourism" sections are unsourced in their entirety. I've worked to create an accurate, neutral, and appropriately sourced overview of the park, including its history, wildlife, partnerships, and tourism. I believe all the sources used to create the draft are appropriate, and African Parks has provided feedback to ensure accuracy.

I seek uninvolved editors to review the draft for accuracy, neutrality, and verifiability, and hope they'll conclude that the proposed draft is a vast improvement over the existing article. If reviewing the draft in its entirety is problematic, I'm happy to break this edit request into multiple requests to make reviewing easier. I plan to notify WikiProject Malawi of this edit request, and may reach out to editors at WikiProject Protected areas, too, if needed.

This edit request is part of a series to create and expand several Wikipedia articles related to African Parks. You can learn more here: User:Inkian Jason/African Parks. Thank you. Inkian Jason (talk) 17:46, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Hello, Smmurphy. On behalf of the nonprofit organization African Parks via the Wyss Foundation, and as part of my work at Beutler Ink, I've submitted an expanded and updated draft of the Liwonde National Park article for consideration at Talk:Liwonde National Park. I am looking for someone to review this draft for accuracy and neutrality, and to copy over content appropriately as a replacement of the current article, which is almost entirely unsourced.

Since you're a recent member of WikiProject Africa, I thought I'd reach out to see if you are interested in taking a look at the proposed draft. My requests for help at several WikiProjects have gone unanswered for a while now. Might you be willing to take a look at the draft?

Thanks for your consideration. Inkian Jason (talk) 15:51, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Hello . Thank you for your message. I would be happy to help. Do you know if there is a process for external review of WP:PAID edits along the lines you are asking? Giving your draft a quick review, I don't see many problems. As I know there may be some COI, I did notice the tourism section included a promotional statement by the Scotsman. It is common to see statements like that one on many wikipedia pages, but I would not use it and it does not pass the guideline, WP:NPOV. Promotional statements that I would find less problematic would be citations of the destinations place on reliable best of or top-10 type guides, relative prices, or relative tourist population. Also, per DAILYMAIL, The Daily Mail is not considered a a reliable source and should probably not be used. In my opinion, if you made those changes, you could go ahead and copy-paste it with clear COI mention in the edit summary. Smmurphy(Talk) 19:38, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply. This link, which appears in the edit request template at Talk:Liwonde National Park, may be helpful: Template:Request_edit/Instructions. I don't edit articles directly because of my conflict of interest, so I am looking for a volunteer to copy over the markup appropriately. I've removed uses of Daily Mail, as well as the Scotsman quote. If you're satisfied with the remainder of the draft, are you willing to replace the existing article's markup with the draft's markup? Inkian Jason (talk) 21:09, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks . It looks ok to me, although I think you should replace the material, so that authorship is clear. Do you mind if we move the above material (my response and your response to me?) to the talk page of the article in main space and continue the conversation there? That way it is easier for future editors of the page to find our discussion. If it is ok, go ahead and copy-paste both our comments and ping me. Then I'll look it over one more time. Smmurphy(Talk) 17:35, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Sure, no problem! Feel free to adjust as needed, but I will collapse this section here and copy the discussion over to the article's talk page. Thanks! Inkian Jason (talk) 15:57, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

I've copied over the discussion from your user talk page, per your request. Thanks again for your willingness to help. 15:58, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
 * , thanks, this looks good to me. You should go ahead and paste your draft into the mainspace. Smmurphy(Talk) 19:48, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for reviewing and approving the draft, Smmurphy. However, in order to best comply with Wikipedia's COI guidelines, I'd prefer not to edit the article directly, if you're willing to copy and paste the draft over the existing article on my behalf. You're welcome to reference my user name and/or edit request in the edit summary if you want to provide attribution that way, then I can close the edit request. This page suggests, "The best and easiest way to [provide attribution] is in the edit summary accompanying your implementation. A suggested edit summary form to do so: Content changes/additions per edit request on talk page by User:Name of user  ." Thanks again. Inkian Jason (talk) 19:59, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I see, WP:COIRESPONSE in particular does suggest that someone else should edit the page on your behalf. Sorry I misunderstood. I'm going to update this page to reflect the changes you suggest. Smmurphy(Talk) 15:52, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Can I request one more group of changes and ask a question. I think the lede should be a bit longer, see WP:LEDE for some advice. Second, you write "according to CNN" and "the Daily Record reported" for two facts about numbers of species. Is there any chance you could cite a more scientific source for those two facts? If I was picky, I'd tag those with . In general, when the facts you cover are scientific, I'd prefer a more scientific source. For instance, a BirdLife publication puts the number of bird species at 380 (Dowsett-Lemaire FR, Dowsett RJ, Dyer MI. Malawi. Important Bird Areas in Africa and Associated Islands. Pisces Publications and BirdLife International, Newbury & Cambridge. 2001:539-55.). A Wilderness Trust census of elephants gives 545 in 2011 (http://www.wildernesstrust.com/portfolio/liwonde-national-park-aerial-census/), and African Parks' estimate in their annual report for 2016 (after translocating 500+) is 578 (https://www.african-parks.org/sites/default/files/uploads/resources/2017-05/2016_African_Parks_Annual_Report_Impact_Defined.pdf). While those annual reports are not strictly independent, I like them as a scientific source better than articles in scientific journals, unless you know of any reason not to trust them. Smmurphy(Talk) 16:35, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your feedback. I've made a few changes to the draft by: 1) including the Wilderness Trust's animal population estimates based on the 2011 survey, 2) adding the number of elephants reported by African Parks in their 2016 annual report, and 3) adding a link to the article confirming the presence of more than 380 bird species. I also listed the additional bird species mentioned in the article. I assumed it was best for me to avoid using the African Parks source, given my conflict of interest, but I have included it based on your feedback. Feel free to tweak the draft further as needed. Inkian Jason (talk) 17:43, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I understand the conflict, but my guess is that African Parks-created information is the ultimate source for CNN or whomever, and our reader would be well served to see it cited - especially as I don't see any of the journalists citing African Parks.
 * Ok, reading one more time for COI issues, I think the article is ok. I see a number of non-COI issues still. One, the phrase, "... in 2008. Buffalo and rhinoceros may have also been relocated" seems odd. There is a lot of coverage of rhino relocation and if it occurred there would be something (my understanding is the source is talking about a proposed project). I'd say drop that bit about Buffalo and rhinos. Thank you for including the references I suggested. I would remove some of the popular journalism references where those sources are duplicated. I'd also recommend sorting things out a bit when sources differ, for instance with the number of bird species (300, 380, more?) or elephants (800, 578?). My suggestion is to pick the best (here I mean most accurate) source and use that number. Also, I gave you the full citation for the birdlife.org report, avoid using bare urls for references.
 * What do you think about these (non-COI) article issues? Different editors have different styles and preferences, so if you think I am over-emphasizing scientific sources (which are more like primary sources) compared to journalism (which is more of a secondary source), let me know and we can talk about it? Also, I'd like to see the articles references pared down - for instance [37] is used once and that fact has multiple citations in other sources, Donda et al 2014 should be removed or moved to the references and references. Finally, do you plan to make minor edits to the page once it is in main space (I think you should, I understand COI concerns especially for major rewrites/changes, but for less major edits I'd prefer to see you editing)? I'd like to make some of my own changes to the page but won't have time for it until later in this week or even after, and I'd hope you would feel comfortable copy-editing me and fixing any mistakes you see that I make, etc. Smmurphy(Talk) 18:19, 31 October 2017 (UTC)


 * I am fine with using African Parks reports if the sourcing meets standards. I removed the sentence about the possible relocation of buffalo and rhinos, and attempted to format the BirdLife URL correctly (you might want to double check). I think the journal references are very beneficial to the article and help by providing secondary coverage. I'm not comfortable determining which sources are "most accurate" for using to confirm animal population estimates. I see value in providing estimates by multiple sources, especially when they show population changes over time. I support your preference to incorporate scientific sources into the article, but also recommend keeping the journalism. Ultimately, the choice is up to volunteer Wikipedia editors, not me. I do invite you to copy over the proposed draft, before or after you make the other changes you see fit. I understand your position regarding editing once the article is live, but I prefer to stick to the bright line as that's what the majority of editors seem to prefer. Inkian Jason (talk) 18:58, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you very much for copying over the draft. I have just 2 requests: 1) Are you willing to remove the tag at the top of the article which reads, "This article contains content that is written like an advertisement", now that the text has been updated? 2) Reference #33 needs some formatting help (my fault!) This diff shows how to make the inline citation display properly. Otherwise the article looks great! Thanks again for reviewing the draft and for updating the article. Inkian Jason (talk) 15:30, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
 * No problem. I'll look at the ref, and I'm planning on removing the tag once I've cleaned it up a bit. Most importantly, my feeling is that this is a geographic and scientific article, but the focus of the text is on the value of the park to visitors. For an encyclopedic article, more should be written on the relationship between the park and local communities and more written about biodiversity from the standpoint of researchers and ecologists rather visitors interested in seeing birds and charismatic megafauna. To me, the current text focuses on the interests of tourists and thus, the article still reads like an advertisement. I might have some time today to try to fix this (at lest fix it in my view), but certainly by the end of next week. Smmurphy(Talk) 15:59, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Please let me know when you're finished with your edits so I can share any concerns or close this edit request. Thanks again! Inkian Jason (talk) 18:56, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I don't have a better timeline of when I'll be finished than by the end of next week, I hope. Smmurphy(Talk) 21:27, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
 * No worries, take your time. Inkian Jason (talk) 21:49, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I've removed the advert tag and am finished with my more intensive editing of the page. I still think there are more references than necessary and that some of the references could/should be trimmed, but I'm comfortable that the text is sufficiently encyclopedic that the advert tag can come off. Let me know what you think. Smmurphy(Talk) 18:52, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for letting me know. I'm mostly concerned about some content moves. For example, the "Elephants" section has information about other animals ("") See also: "" Additionally, there is information about non-rhinos within the "Black Rhino" section, and information about elephants in the "Big cats" section ("") I'm not sure this much subsectioning is required, but ultimately that decision is made by you and other editors. Do you think you might be able to revisit these sections? As a reminder, this version shows how the content was organized beforehand. Thanks for removing the tag from the top of the article. I might have some additional minor requests after further review. Inkian Jason (talk) 19:19, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Good point. I just reorganized the sections substantially, let me know what you think. Also, if you would like, the section on Black Rhino conservation efforts stops over a decade ago. If you have anything to hand, it would be nice to add (or propose) a bit more about what is going on now - how many animals remain, what other relocations have happened or are planed, etc? Smmurphy(Talk) 19:35, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks again. I have some additional requests: Thanks again for your work on this article. Inkian Jason (talk) 20:11, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I noticed this diff removed porcupines from the list of animals, and took the list out of alphabetical order (not sure if that matters or is standard, I find it helpful to make sure everything is included!).
 * Similarly, this diff removed some bird species, which were sourced. Is this because you preferred one type of sourcing over another? Ideally, the article would mention all sourced species, right? As noted above, putting the list back in alphabetical order might be helpful.
 * I wonder if the sentence "According to CNN, there are approximately 800 elephants in Liwonde, as of 2017." should be moved to the end of the "Elephants" section?
 * In the sentence starting "Since 1990, Elephants, Black rhinos...", "elephants" and "black" can be lower cased.
 * Can you italicize "Microcoelia ornithocephala", which is a specific species? I'm concerned about the addition of a red link because readers see no common name or link to click on for more information about this plant.
 * Can you lower case "Miombo", and italicize "Albizia harveyi" and "Adansonia digitata", which are specific species? Again, I am concerned about the addition of a red link (Albizia harveyi).
 * For the "Black Rhino" section, can you lower case "Rhino" to make the section heading compliant with Wikipedia's manual of style (or change to "Black rhinoceros" if we want to use the animal's full name)? Do you also mind adding commas after "In 1993" and "In 1999", and replacing "15 km^2" with " 15 km2 " to show the measurement conversion automatically? Finally, "Rhino" can be lower cased in the section’s last sentence.
 * I noticed this diff eliminated a population estimate for hippos. Is there any reason why?
 * Porcupines are not really large mammals (although this is arguable) and are so common in Malawi (although this is true about some other animals I left in) that it seems silly to mention them. Alphabatizing a list isn't required and isn't always obvious (for instance should African buffalo be alphabatized based on "African" or "buffalo"?) I prefer to group by reference, but can alphabatize if you prefer. Picking which items from a long list is tricky, and I prefer to base such a list on a single source or criteria. For the mammals, I didn't have one, so left what you wrote, excepting removing porcupines. For plants, the same except I added some based on the birdlife reference's broad description of the different bio-zones in the park. In those two cases, it would be preferable for the lists to be more clearly not indiscriminate, but it is too far outside of my skill set to do a great job on it. For the birds, since there are not many birds that have threatened status but there is a "reduced biome" status, which was the basis of the tables in birdlife I pulled the list from, I felt that was a good method of selection. I couldn't figure out what criteria was previously used, but it just seemed random (indiscriminate lists are frowned upon as OR, see Source list). I don't care about alphabetical order, but you are free to reorder of course. I left the elephant count next to the other census sentence. Both of those sentences can/should be replaced by a newer, multi-animal census result if/when one is performed. I think I fixed the capitalizations and italicizations you mentioned and pipe-linked the orchid and tree species to their genus. I left Rhino capitalized for "Liwonde Rhino Sanctuaries" because that was how it was in the source, which describes it as a unit within the park. Let me know if you have any other edits you don't feel comfortable making yourself. Smmurphy(Talk) 20:44, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Also, I dropped the extra hippo census because it was older than the count given in the other sentence and seemed extraneous. Smmurphy(Talk) 20:47, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I didn't think of this until today, but if you wanted, we could submit something from our edits to Did you know. If there is a hook you are interested, I'd be happy to submit it. If accepted, this would put the article on the front page of wikipedia for a day in about a month. But we would have to submit something today to be eligible (there is a 7 day limit). Smmurphy(Talk) 20:54, 8 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your reply. I have a few additional requests:
 * "Can you change "subsistance" to "subsistence" (correct spelling)?
 * Can the sentence "" be moved in front of "", so the content is in chronological order?
 * Can you lower case "Sable" in the "Black rhinoceros" section?
 * In the "Big cats" section, can you swap the order of paragraphs so the content appears in chronological order? Actually, the following sentence could probably be removed, and the two paragraphs merged (but still re-ordered): "Park officials still plan to reintroduce lions and leopard, as of 2017."
 * In the "Birds" section, can you add a paragraph break after ""? Then, can you move the sentence "" in front of the sentence "", so the content appears in chronological order?
 * In the "Flora" section, can you change the period after "fever tree" into a comma, then remove the comma that appears right after? The second comma after "fringing tributaries" can also be removed.
 * I think the first word in "albizia harveyi" should be upper case.
 * This might be all of my requests. Thanks for offering to submit a DYK hook on my behalf. What about, "" Or, ""?
 * Once these final concerns are addressed, I will close this edit request and give African Parks an update on the status of the current article. Thanks again for your thorough review and assistance. Inkian Jason (talk) 21:14, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Ok, I think I've done those. I've also nominated to page to DYK, see Template:Did you know nominations/Liwonde National Park. I changed the first hook a bit, I can still tweak it if you think it should change more - in my experience no one is likely to look it over for a few hours/days. Smmurphy(Talk) 21:33, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * it has been suggested at DYK that a fact involving elephants paired with the image used in the lede might be nice. I thought about using one that discussed the relocations and I noticed that our source doesn't say that the number of elephants in 486, but rather 500. I removed on source on that sentence (it was the Gulf Times one), but looking at that, it only says 500 as well, I think. Do you know where the 486 number comes from? Or am I missing it in one of the articles? Also, do you have a suggestions about a good DYK about elephants? Smmurphy(Talk) 23:45, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
 * There has been a lot of shuffling around and editing since I published my original draft, so feel free to change 486 to "approximately 500" elephants, if needed. I think the previously suggested DYK hooks are more interesting than one we could come up for elephants, but maybe, ""? Also, in the "Elephants" section, do you mind changing "Nkhotakota Game Reserve" to "Nkhotakota Wildlife Reserve", and removing the duplicate comma after "kudu" in the "Fauna" section? I just noticed these while taking another look at the article. Inkian Jason (talk) 16:43, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks, you really have done a lot of the heavy lifting here. Googling "486 elephants" Liwonde gives a few results, but I'm going to leave it at "approximately 500" because it isn't clear if 488 elephants were moved but two died or 486 were moved and two died, and getting into that level of detail seems over-specific given my uncertainty (if I'm misreading and it is clear to you and you have a preferred wording and source, let me know). Smmurphy(Talk) 17:56, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Request to update link and name of park
Would you be willing to change "Majete Game Reserve" to "Majete Wildlife Reserve" in the "Elephants" section, since the Wikipedia article has been moved (see Talk:Majete Wildlife Reserve)? I am trying to update links throughout the encyclopedia, but I don't edit articles directly because of my conflict of interest. Thanks for your consideration. Inkian Jason (talk) 19:56, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Done. Smmurphy(Talk) 20:48, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Inkian Jason (talk) 20:50, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Edit request for "Big cats" section
Hello again. I noticed an anonymous editor made an unsourced addition to this Wikipedia article. I wanted to offer a citation to help verify the claim, and I've altered the wording slightly, based on the source provided below. There are other sources available to use, if this one does not meet standards.

I propose the following markup for the "Big cats" section (no changes to the current first paragraph, so you can focus on the green text):

In May 2017, African Parks relocated four cheetahs from South Africa, becoming Malawi's first wild cheetahs in twenty years. The two female and two male cheetahs were the first large predators to be reintroduced to the park, after being absent from this part of the country for around a century. Endangered Wildlife Trust's Cheetah Metapopulation Project and DNPW assisted with the relocation.

In May 2017, African Parks relocated four cheetahs from South Africa, becoming Malawi's first wild cheetahs in twenty years. The two female and two male cheetahs were the first large predators to be reintroduced to the park, after being absent from this part of the country for around a century. Endangered Wildlife Trust's Cheetah Metapopulation Project and DNPW assisted with the relocation.

Liwonde park officials had hoped to introduce female lions in 2012. The last reported sighting of a male lion was in 2015. Park officials still planned to reintroduce lions and leopard, as of 2017. In February 2018, African Parks relocated two male lions from Majete to Liwonde. The DNPW, the Dutch Government, and the Lion Recovery Fund assisted with the relocation, and there are plans to introduce as many as twelve more lions from South Africa.

Since you helped implement the proposed draft, do you want to take a quick look at this article improvement, too? As a reminder, I am working with African Parks via Wyss Foundation to improve several Wikipedia articles about Africa's national parks. Thanks. Inkian Jason (talk) 17:06, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your help, Smmurphy. Inkian Jason (talk) 17:32, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Livond National Park
Regarding this series of edits, do you mind sharing any sources describing the park as "Livond National Park"?

I am bringing this to your attention as well, in case you are interested.

If sourcing cannot be provided, I think mention of Livond should be removed. Thanks! Inkian Jason (talk) 19:47, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Never mind, the changes were reverted. Inkian Jason (talk) 16:15, 30 October 2019 (UTC)