Talk:Riyadh International Book Fair

Help desk
, I am sorry this AfC submission has dragged on for so ridiculously long. I have worked on this article, trying for balance and more independent sources; the topic is notable and there are independent sources, so I'm sure that it will pass review soon. This isn't strictly necessary, but I can't find a suitable illustration; have you been to the fair? Did you take any photos you could upload to Commons? HLHJ (talk) 06:33, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Can't find illustrations... Does anyone have any? HLHJ (talk) 21:09, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Sourcing
Sourcing this article is interesting. The event is run by the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Culture and Information, and the government also controls all the media in Saudi Arabia, so there are no domestic independent sources. Some publishers are also a bit beholden. Some notable bloggers are actually better sources than the domestic conventional media (especially reporting on their own direct experiences). And no doubt there are lots of good non-English-language sources, and I would welcome their inclusion. HLHJ (talk) 00:38, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

I've inline-text-attributed claims made by non-independent sources (and contrasted them, where they contradict). This seems to be a highly-politicized event. HLHJ (talk) 21:42, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Publisher reliability, on-record
“Riyadh book fair is the most important book fair in the Arab world in terms of sales and attendance. This is not in question,” said Adel Al Hawshan, owner of Tuwa Media and Publishing. “This book fair accounts for at least 70% of our sales, and I know the number is similar to many Arab publishers.” The first is contradicted by independent sources; the second estimate seems a bit high, too, really, considering that more independent sources say that there are a half-dozen or so Arab-world book fairs which have larger attendance than Riyadh, in some cases by a factor of two.

Given the financial pressures not to contradict the government, which also makes inflated statements of size, I don't think we can rely on on-record statements of publishers to be accurate. HLHJ (talk) 04:18, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Miscellany
-- Hoary (talk) 13:32, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
 * "2003-2005 Saudi Arabian protests" (so redlinked): What were these? I don't notice any mention of them within any article.
 * "It was criticized for lacking technical computer science books": Wondering whether this meant (A) "computer science books aside from the very elementary" or (B) "either technical or computer science books", I looked in the (ho-hum) source. This supports neither; I therefore removed this particular criticism.
 * "Some were arrested (3, according to Sabq.org,...)". This appeared twice; I removed one.
 * "three, according to Sabq.org": Two sources are provided: one at zeenews.india.com and another at al-bab.com; neither at sabq.org. Ummm?
 * "he has had no contact with his family" → "as of [WHEN?], his family had not heard from him"?


 * Revisiting the five above, ten days later:
 * The first: Still a mystery.
 * The second and third: I fixed both (as explained above).
 * The fourth and fifth: I should have looked into the linked sources. I've now done so, and edited accordingly. Neither is any longer an issue.
 * The first remains an issue. Just what were the "2003-2005 Saudi Arabian protests"? (, do you know?) -- Hoary (talk) 04:10, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Fixed. (See the subsection immediately below.) -- Hoary (talk) 01:42, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

"2003-2005 Saudi Arabian protests"
I asked about the redlink "2003-2005 Saudi Arabian protests" back on 21 March. Even now, the article says: "The 2003-2005 Saudi Arabian protests saw calls and petitions for a constitutional monarchy and more electoral power." The source provided for this just talks of "a wave of human rights petitions in 2003-05". I can't criticize this article for en:Wikipedia's deficiencies elsewhere; but anyway all I see elsewhere in en:WP about these protests is:
 * Signs of discontent continued. [...] More than 300 Saudi intellectuals – women as well as men – signed a petition in September 2003, calling for far-reaching political reforms. A month later, police had to break up an unprecedented rally in the centre of Riyadh calling for political reform. More than 270 people were arrested. (Modern history of Saudi Arabia)

(There's no mention of this petition in Histoire de l'Arabie saoudite or even 2003_في_السعودية.) So, HLHJ (or anyone else), how about "From 2003 to 2005 there were petitions for human rights and a constitutional monarchy"? (I hesitate to make the edit myself, because I know very little about the subject area.) -- Hoary (talk) 02:13, 26 March 2020 (UTC)


 * What say? (I'd like to wrap up this DYK nomination this weekend; indeed, today if possible.) -- Hoary (talk) 21:46, 26 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Sorry, yes, that would be OK; I trust you have no objection to my restoring a link later if I can find/write up something suitable to link it to. I have seen a few references to this period in different sources, so I think it's likely doable. HLHJ (talk) 01:23, 27 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Good: I changed the text in the article accordingly. Putting aside for a moment the question of more general protests over the two year period, it seems to me that a petition signed by "[m]ore than 300 Saudi intellectuals" would definitely merit a paragraph somewhere, and very likely a section of an article, or indeed an entire article. So yes, as a user of en:WP, I'd very much welcome one or more more bluelinks in this part of this article. -- Hoary (talk) 01:41, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Consistency of dates and spelling
Noticing that the great majority of dates were in DMY format but that a minority were in MDY format, I switched examples of the latter to the former and added a template to the top of the article announcing that DMY applied. I hope that nobody minded/minds.

The article now is a bit of a mishmash of spellings considered American and spellings considered British. Eventually, somebody's going to complain, and somebody's going to have to spend quite some time Briticizing the American or Americanizing the British. (Yes, yes, somebody might want it to be Canadian or whatever. But I'm trying to keep this simple.) The later this happens, the more work it's going to be. So, as you're the de facto creator of the article, I recommend that you choose, quickly. If you're as little interested as I am in such matters, I gently recommend "Oxford spelling" (sufficiently neutral to be used by the UN): start by simply plonking at the top of this talk page, and work from there. -- Hoary (talk) 13:14, 22 March 2020 (UTC)


 * NB I'm not saying that regularization of spelling is a requirement for DYK. It certainly is not. But the earlier it's started (in one direction or another), the less work will be required to complete it. -- Hoary (talk) 01:28, 24 March 2020 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) Um. I'm afraid you're right, I don't use any of those spellings. I don't know if there are automated tools for this... I think I may be even less interested in such matters, and I'm inclined to feel that if anyone were to complain about my spelling inconsistency, they are welcome to standardize it (I think this is the first time I've had my inconsistency mentioned on Wikipedia). The MOS guideline does request a consistent style, but the idea of consciously learning and remembering to use a standard national spelling, which must be more complex than the illustrating table, fills me with despair. It seems there's no requirement to have a tag, though I suppose it might be advisable if a lack of tag would cause conflict. Thank you for the recommendation; Oxford Spelling's "-ize" makes sense, as even Britons and Australians do in fact voice that consonant (but then, "analyce, paralyce, catalyce" as pronunciations? while I'm glad that Oxford spelling opposes spellings "in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic", I'd feel that phonetics should trump etymology). I do have strong opinions on date order; I like YYYY-MM-DD, which makes alphabetical order chronological and is very handy for data processing (plus it's ISO 8601), and I'll accept naming the month rather than numbering it, because while language-specific it's unambiguous and regexes are my friends, mostly. As that's not an option, DMY is fine; I think I just took the default from the sources. Thank you for having done some of this tedious formatting. I'm strongly inclined to leave the rest of the task to someone who enjoys it, as I know some editors do... HLHJ (talk) 04:05, 24 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Really, it's no biggie. Toward the end of my first comment, "and work from there" was carelessly phrased; I should instead have written "and interested editors can work from there". (Oh, and I like YYYY-MM-DD too, for those very same reasons.) -- Hoary (talk) 05:52, 24 March 2020 (UTC)