Talk:Structural violence in Haiti

Poverty bad?
I just knew that this was going to turn out to be some college project. The professors book, I suppose?

Anyway, Wikipedia does not take a stance on poverty or health. It is neither "good" nor "bad." We neither favor nor oppose it. We report it. 75% of people earned less than the nation's poverty standard. Fine. But Wikipedia does not care. It is an encyclopedia. Please report in WP:NPOV fashion.

Most people in rural areas have no running water, no flush toilets, nothing that we would call a "road." More like a enlarged pathway where vehicles can take their chances, if you happen to own one and most people don't. No 7-11, no Wal-Mart. They do have food! People are happy, probably happier than in the United States. I confess that these conditions probably do not apply in the cities, though. Girls are generally taken out school in any third world country to learn the home arts. Probably true of Haiti. Education does little good since there are few jobs. The most learned figure out a way to emigrate! If you give them all a good education, expect to find them on your doorstep ten years from now! :)

While it's "nice" to read that someone thinks they have all the answers, the answers are stupid at worst and naive, at best.

Just think about one thing in any country: how do you stop corruption? That is number one in developing a working government. India has tried de-corrupt its police for dozens of years. It seems to be succeeding but it isn't easy. First, you have to find a way to pay police (for example) a working wage.

In Haiti (as in most third world countries, and not excluding parts of eastern Europe), you run when you see the police. They will fleece you. If they don't, their families don't eat! Student7 (talk) 21:58, 26 March 2014 (UTC)


 * The trouble about overstating the problem is you lose your audience. If I call people "Baby-killers" for supporting pro-choice, how many people will stay in a voluntary audience? "Structural violence" is that kind of overkill and seems to attract overstatement by redundant phrasing and pov adjectives and subjective summaries before the data is presented.
 * Some of the data is pretty good. But try to watch overkilling a sentence. Just the bare facts. In Haiti, that is often enough. Student7 (talk) 19:04, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Peer Review
Overall, your article is very well written and informative! However, your introduction states a rather direct tone that “Haitians are financially impoverished. There are social inequalities” – is it appropriate to say this of all Haitians, and of their entire society? Are there any competing views with these conclusions? Consider editing this, for it seems a bit direct and biased.

The article explores several compounding factors and impacts, yet perhaps it does not fully address all of the “insufficient supportive infrastructures” that influence and support the structural violence. Try to integrate “Causes,” “Management,” and “Disease Rates,” in addition to government/policy/dictating power, potential deficiency in agriculture and water, and more detail regarding the violence (injury/inequality).

Lastly, there is quite a bit of data at the end of your paragraphs/ideas that I feel you should explain a bit more, or integrate in a more impactful way. You are well on your way to an outstanding article! CarolineABrigham (talk) 03:53, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Let facts speak for themselves
It okay to say that "99% of the people are unemployed. (reliable citation)" It is not okay to characterize this as a "bad thing." It is not an encyclopedia's place to judge data. It is okay to say "this is the highest unemployment rate in the world. (rs)" Student7 (talk) 21:53, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

student7 edits
hi student7, thank you for making edits to this article. just a suggestion: instead of continuously entering the article to make numerous edits. it is strongly recommended that you provide your guidance, input and feedback via talk page and allow the student to read your comments and feedback and then make the appropriate changes. this wikipedia article was created as part of a semester course and encompasses a series of assignments. this is the reason why a course banner with the period during which the course is taking place, was placed at the top of the talk page: to inform well-intending wiki contributors to note that it is part of an on-going college course. entering and making repeated self-edits is very disruptive to the learning student, as well as the professor who is trying to teach the course.

secondly, while i understand that you are trying to help ensure that wikipedia remains neutral and follows the encyclopedic style, some of the word choices which are you flagging as un-neutral or bias, such as "violence" from the description of structural violence and "burden" in disease burden (from more recent edits) are actually proper, academic terminology. i strongly recommend a good practice of doing a quick search on terminologies which you are concerned with before flagging them. if you search on Google, you can find that these are either neutral or academic terminologies. For instance, with regards to disease burden: the WHO uses the term global burden of disease (GBD) to measure the burden of disease using the disability-adjusted-life-year (DALY). it is a formal metric system See: http://www.who.int/topics/global_burden_of_disease/en/ Also, your change of the word choice from 'violence' to 'dysfunction' does not make much sense to me, and I am commenting this as someone who have studied in depth academically on the topic of "structural violence." the use of the term 'violence' in this academic topic, is not an overstatement. please only make content-based edits to topics of which you are an expert of. thanks! Benongyx (talk) 05:20, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I appreciate what the student is trying to accomplish. I don't perceive this as placing a burden on me or other editors. I appreciate that this was a "well-researched" article, but editing in any other manner is as intimidating to me as it has been to the student. We have had delays for newbies in the past. None for editors. I don't think there should be any.


 * Note that the student had the option of implementing it (since the draft had been accomplished offline, most probably) in sections with a notation that updating was underway. template hangon maybe. That would have given editors an early crack on language which might have translated to an easier time with the rest of the article.


 * BTW, it was unclear to me if any of my edits, however supported by Wikipedia policy, were going to be accepted! The fact that some of my edits are questioned is was what I feared for all my edits.


 * Characterizing disease as a "burden" is pov. Wikipedia is neither for nor against disease! That sociology uses it, is their problem, not one that the encyclopedia should have to cope with separately, when it is at variance with Wikipedia policy.


 * As far as "violence" used to describe something that "just happened to arise" in a society, in order to "get attention from the general public" this seems more like a WP:Avoid neologisms IMO. Not receiving an education is not "violence." It's just the way it goes in Haiti and most of the third world. It is not Wikipedia policy that the third world must try to duplicate in any way, the politics, education, health standards, and the materialism of the first world. Redefining the words "burden" and "violence" to suit someone's agenda for the third world is clearly pov. WHO has an agenda. It is pov and should be changed when used in Wikipedia. All large sources are eventually pov and have to be ignored or skipped, no matter how WP:RS they are otherwise. That is the nature of the real world as opposed to the npov encyclopedia we are trying to create.


 * I agree that "dysfunction" is not much of an improvement on the original. Wikipedia should report, where possible, without using adjectives giving away the editors bias.


 * I'm sure that the professor has insisted on the use of the word, and there is "all kinds of history" behind the use of the word "violence", despite the fact that no one outside academia has ever heard of it used in that fashion or would recognize it. Mark me down as sympathetic to the student, not quite as much for the professor. Student7 (talk) 23:54, 6 May 2014 (UTC)