User:Javij-s/Mercenaries in Post Colonial Africa/Jeremytorres1151 Peer Review

General info

 * Whose work are you reviewing?

Javij-s


 * Link to draft you're reviewing
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Javij-s/Mercenaries_in_Post_Colonial_Africa?veaction=edit&preload=Template%3ADashboard.wikiedu.org_draft_template
 * Link to the current version of the article (if it exists)
 * DOES NOT EXIST

Lead
Overall, the lead does a pretty good job at clearly and concisely describing the article's topics and reflects almost all of the content added. The author gives us a generalized version of the history of mercenaries in Africa before, during and after the cold war in the lead which does a great job at summarizing what lies ahead in the rest of the article since the following sections go more in depth of how mercenaries have functioned in Africa during these different political periods.

Content
Virtually all of the content added is relevant to the topic and up to date. The content not only covers mercenaries in Africa in the 20th century but also highlights the role that they are still playing in the continent which suggests this content is very up to date. I think something that is missing here is some examples of these mercenary groups. You talk about mercenary groups in a very general sense and I think an additional section or even within the current sections of specific examples of perhaps the biggest or most influential groups would help address this missing content (I know you talk about the Russian Wagner Group but I am guessing there are many other notable groups out there). I have never heard of the role mercenaries play in Africa so I do believe that this content covers an important topic that often goes unheard and shows how they have interacted with the continent.

Tone and Balance
Given that this topic deals with groups that are violent and dangerous (and often white supremacist in nature), I understand the inclination to use a tone that portrays them in the negative light they deserve but, I do think the article could use some work on neutrality. Any wikipedia page on terrorist organizations or violent groups is going to inherently seem more biased because they usually commit terrible atrocities that need to be highlighted but there are certain phrases or words that you use that maybe aren't as neutral as they could be (i.e "turn a blind eye", "friendly", etc). Something else that I wanted to add here is that things that highlight the United States or Western involvement in supporting terrible organizations such as the ones being discussed here are often viewed as anti-American or anti-Western but these are the realities of the situation so I think they need to be highlighted and you do a good job of that.

Sources and references
I can not find any major issues with the sources and references used. They come from a wide range of sources (African, western, etc) and I appreciated how you put a peer-reviewed scholarly African source as one of the source you focused your article on. Based on a quick google search of the topic, it does appear that there are a lot of contemporary news articles on the roles that mercenaries (particularly Russian ones) are playing on the continent in 2022 so I think those can perhaps be examined and used to provide additional information for the current mercenary situation throughout the continent.

Organization
I found the article to be very well organized. I think you did a really good job at organizing the subsections in chronological order because it makes things much easier to read. There are no major grammatical mistakes that I managed to pick up on and I think that this contributes to the clear and concise tone that the article has as a whole

Images
There are no images but there is a table that is empty. I am assuming the final draft will have something in that table and I think tables in general are helpful for these articles so I am excited to see what you add there.

For New Articles Only
Based on my reading of the notability requirements, it appears this article meets all of the said requirements (significant coverage, 2-3 secondary sources independent of subject, etc). My google search of the topic shows that there is extensive coverage of it and the sources provided by the author appear rather reliable since many of them are scholarly and peer-reviewed. The article also does a good job at leading to other pages that help define what a mercenary is, the role Operation Condor played in all this and many other things that contribute to the discoverability of the article.

Overall Impressions
Overall, I thought this was a very solid draft that definitely improved my knowledge on the role that mercenaries have played in Africa since the 1960s. Some suggestions I would have is to be more specific because it could be a bit general at times. I also think making additions to the section on 'Mercenaries as Actors for Former Colonial Powers' about the role they played during direct colonialism in Africa would improve the article. Perhaps more discussion of the contemporary situation would also be beneficial to the overall quality of the article since there appears to be a decent amount of literature of the current mercenary situation in the continent.

Peer Response
Thank you for your feedback! I will in fact be either filling in the table, or changing how the information within it is presented, I am not quite sure yet. I will be sure to add more information on the Wagner group and other modern mercenaries, as I agree that that will add a lot to the article.