User talk:HOA Monitor

As 2013 nears its end, the Horn of Africa seems to be entering a new period of turbulence: events in South Sudan this week bring the country to the brink of civil war -- a tragedy that can hopefully be avoided. Events in Sudan suggest subtle shifts and power struggles behind the scenes. Ethiopia enters its first full year in the absence of it former PM, Meles Zenawi, and Eritrea continues to haemorrhage, as thousands of its people flee the country each month. In Somalia, a political reshuffle brings a political unknown into the spotlight as PM, at a time when Al-Shabaab is flexing its muscles and reorganizing itself. All the more important that Wikipedia pages on the region be up-to-date and accurate.

Welcome back/PMPF
Hey HOA Monitor, welcome back. I'm a bit of a military specialist, and it would be good to have somebody also doing international security affairs as well as we start to rebuild WP's coverage of Somali areas... Buckshot06 (talk) 10:55, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Hey Buckshot06, I hope I can be of use. My day job keeps me busy, but I've been working on Somalia and neighbouring countries for quite a while now, and would like to see WP become a genuine reference on the Horn of Africa rather than a proxy theatre of war for partisans and propagandists - of which there has been (in my opinion) too much of late HOA Monitor (talk) 15:01, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
 * What's the highest priority? I can certainly spend some time on the PMPF if you think that would benefit from some joint work. Buckshot06 (talk) 23:28, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Buckshot06 Hard to say where to start, but the PMPF article seems as good as any: it's currently crafted as a largely promotional piece designed to defend the force, rather than to assess all points of view. Controversies over the force's establishment and the role of a foreign PSC in its formation and training seem to have been glossed over. And much of the text is unsourced or poorly sourced. Perhaos we'll make better progress if we work on it together.HOA Monitor (talk) 14:16, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Great. Please feel free to lay down a work programme for the PMPF and I can do some bits while you do others. Khatumo/SSC may be a next possibility after that. Buckshot06 (talk) 18:26, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. I propose to begin by revisiting the Overview and Support sections, introducing the controversies that emerged relating to the UN sanctions regime and related questions of international law.
 * I also think there's a need to review sourcing: in several places, the Puntland government's assertions appear to be taken at face value, without qualification or corroboration, raising possible POV issues. I am also concerned by the heavy reliance on Somalia Report as a reference, since its editor in chief has acknowledged that he was on the payroll of Erik Prince, who was also the architect of the PMPF. 12:19, 4 June 2015 (UTC)HOA Monitor (talk)
 * I'll follow your lead initially, because my knowledge of the PMPF is currently once-over-lightly; basically I get the impression that it was a private force of the President, or some such. Buckshot06 (talk) 21:51, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

That's essentially correct: as far as I know, it has no status in Somali or Puntland law and reports directly to the P/L presidency -- not via the Ministry of Interior or Police chain of command.HOA Monitor (talk) 12:52, 5 June 2015 (UTC) I notice that the articles doesn't make reference to Saracen, but only to SCS, which superseded Saracen much later. Is Saracen's involvement something you'd feel comfortable working on? HOA Monitor (talk) 14:05, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Happy to go after Saracen re PMPF for you. My starting point would be with the Group of Experts' reports, but would you direct me to any other particular sources? Buckshot06 (talk) 00:01, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

The Monitoring Group reports are certainly a good place to start, and can usually be corroborated through reference to other respected open source content (NYT, South Africa's Independent, etc.). A 2013 documentary film, The Project, is intended to promote the PMPF but also includes footage of PSC personnel taking part in kinetic operations, and other behaviour alleged by the force's critics. Unfortunately, I can't find any footage but the trailer via open source. If you can find it, it's worth watching.HOA Monitor (talk) 10:07, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how you'd like me to proceed in regard to this article. Should we wish to introduce a less positive view that the PMPF's official site (for crying out loud, it's a clear mirror of an early version of this page!!), we're going to have to make extensive revisions directly against 26oo's wishes. The denigration of the SEMG reports is laughable, given the circumstances, but we will have to continue making such revisions directly against his wishes. Now I can do that, as I demonstrated, but it's only going to work if you and to a lesser extent Cordless Larry are willing to make such revisions as well. How can I best assist you? Cheers and best Buckshot06 (talk) 05:53, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Buckshot06 Based on experience to date in revising this article, I propose that we (1) Continue to insert material from reliable sources on the PMPF, whether from the UN or elsewhere (there is plenty of objective reporting on open source); (2) Continue to review current content and sourcing for inadequate references (as per the reference to Puntland's piracy law) or undue reliance on interested parties, such as the Puntland authorities or Somalia Report. While such references need not be deleted (unless unsourced or inaccurately sourced), they should be balanced by less prejudicial POVs. How does that sound for a start?HOA Monitor (talk) 14:10, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi, HOA Monitor, your recent edit says that the UAE officially denied it until 2013 but I can't find it in the source given how large the document is. Please include the page number. 26oo (talk) 15:38, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Buckshot06 (talk) 08:03, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Contests
User:Dr. Blofeld has created WikiProject Africa/Contests. The idea is to run a series of contests/editathons focusing on each region of Africa. He has spoken to Wikimedia about it and $1000-1500 is possible for prize money. As someone who has previously expressed interest in African topics, would you be interested in contributing to one or assisting draw up core article/missing article lists? He says he's thinking of North Africa for an inaugural one in October. If interested please sign up in the participants section of the Contest page, thanks.♦ -- Ser Amantio di Nicolao Che dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 01:22, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Invite to the African Destubathon
Hi. You may be interested in participating in the African Destubathon which starts on October 15. Africa currently has over 37,000 stubs and badly needs a quality improvement editathon/contest to flesh out basic stubs. There are proposed substantial prizes to give to editors who do the most geography, wildlife and women articles, and planned smaller prizes for doing to most destubs for each of the 53 African countries, so should be enjoyable! Even if contests aren't your thing we would be grateful if you could consider destubbing a few African articles during the drive to help the cause and help reduce the massive 37,000 + stub count, of which many are rated high importance (think Regions of countries etc). If you're interested in competing or just loosely contributing, whether it's a river in Malawi, a Nigerian footballer, or a South African civil rights activist, please add your name to the Contestants/participants section. Diversity of work from a lot of people will make this that bit more special. For those of you who signed up to the North African contest, that will hopefully be held in the new year. Thanks. --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:11, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Women in Red World Contest
Hi. We're into the last five days of the Women in Red World Contest. There's a new bonus prize of $200 worth of books of your choice to win for creating the most new women biographies between 0:00 on the 26th and 23:59 on 30th November. If you've been contributing to the contest, thank you for your support, we've produced over 2000 articles. If you haven't contributed yet, we would appreciate you taking the time to add entries to our articles achievements list by the end of the month. Thank you, and if participating, good luck with the finale!

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Welcome to the Months of African Cinema Global Contest!
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The Months of African Cinema Contest Continues in November!
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