Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/2012 Guinea-Bissau coup d'état/archive2


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by GrahamColm 23:02, 20 January 2013.

2012 Guinea-Bissau coup d'état

 * Nominator(s): Lihaas (talk) 01:34, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured article because it has completed GA criteria recently and thus isnt too far off FA with perhaps a few changes. It is also a topic that is deficient of FA (Africa) and would be the first African politics FA.And that were not going to find a more clearer and detailed version of the events anywhere else. Ive done the article virtually by myself by collating data from various places and no single source covers this as much. The previous FA failed because of needless edit warring, which has now been resolved and the article is stable. Lihaas (talk) 01:34, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Oppose I imagine that sourcing would be a problem for an article like this, but I don't think that this is up to FA level at present I'm afraid as it doesn't seem fully comprehensive and fails to make use of sources other than news reports. My comments are as follows:
 * My overall concern is the number of times the article uses terms like 'reportedly', 'reported', 'according to' and even 'were said to' when describing events. If we're not confident about the details of what happened and when, FA criterion 1b can't be met.
 * The background section is lacking as it provides few details of the longer term developments which lead to the coup and it's paragraphs don't provide much context
 * In particular, starting off with "The media has highlighted the country's instability" isn't a good way to begin - is the country actually unstable? (and what makes the website of a radio station in Arizona a good source for such a claim? - especially as the story has since been taken down). Surely there are expert sources on the country's history (the first page of a Google Scholar search of post 2009 papers on 'Guinea-Bissau coup' returns these two useful-looking journal articles published in 2012, , as well as other slightly older articles which look useful for material on the country's recent history). These two articles published by the International Institute for Security Studies also look useful: , , and I'm sure that there's lots more out there.
 * The lengthy material in which various national leaders, foreign ministers and international organisations are quoted saying how bad coups are doesn't seem to serve a useful purpose. Such comments are pretty predictable (almost no-one is in favour of coups!), and the section would be much improved if it focused on the concrete action which took place in response to the coup.
 * Why are only news reports given as citations? The International Crisis Group has issued a report on the coup as well as several pre-coup reports, as has the Institute for Security Studies, and I'm sure that other foreign relations think tanks, academic experts and specialist publications (eg, the various Jane's publications and foreign relations journals) have done the same.  International groups and NGOs also often put out useful and reliable reports on these topics - Freedom House's annual report has material on the coup, for instance . Reports published by the United Nations Integrated Peace-Building Office in Guinea-Bissau may also be useful - this report in particular. All up, there seems to be no need to rely exclusively on news reports and you've missed out on drawing on the available expert assessments. As such, criterion 1c doesn't appear to be met either I'm afraid.
 * As a random spot check, the source given for the infobox figure of "200+" Angolan troops opposing the coup does not support this figure (the NY Times story says "As many as 200 Angolan troops have been present in the country"), and does not state that the Angolan forces actually played any role in opposing the coup. The article does not provide any other sources to support this claim of Angolan forces being involved in the events beyond a claim made by the junta to justify their actions, which isn't a reliable source for presenting this as fact. Similarly, I'm not seeing a source for the claim that "50%+ of the Armed Forces (predominantly Balanta members of the army)" took part in the coup. Nick-D (talk) 09:53, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Oppose, at least at the FAC level, on prose. Don't worry about some of this stuff at other levels of review, I'm just trying to give you a good sense of what's needed at FAC:
 * "a heavy presence of military personnel and equipment making its way": wrong word; a "presence" doesn't move around
 * "the state-owned media being": Not wrong, but per WP:PLUSING, at least give some thought to rewording.
 * "The next day people had started": wrong tense; use past perfect when you're referring to events that are in the past relative to that spot in the narrative.
 * "amidst orders for the leaders": after leaders were ordered (or before ... that's the problem with "amidst" here, it's vague on this point)
 * "a presidential election between Carlos Gomes Júnior and Kumba Ialá": this sounds like there were two candidates, but in the second paragraph, we find out: "Both candidates and the president were initially arrested".
 * "for support from Angola to reform the military": sounds like intervention rather than support.
 * "third placed candidate in the election": better is: third-place candidate
 * "Manuel Serifo Nhamadjo, becoming": WP:PLUSING
 * "re-scheduled to run at least two years into the future": put off for at least two years
 * "An interim government will administer Guinea-Bissau in the meantime": future tense or present?
 * That's just the lead, so there's more to do here than I can generally cover during one FAC. - Dank (push to talk) 13:46, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Cant the opposes just be "comments"? Im working right now on answering these.Lihaas (talk) 03:36, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * In answering the second comments first:
 * done
 * done
 * Not sure, but is "Though a curfew was imposed the following day, people had started to venture out of their homes; while the junta also ordered the arrest of the leaders of the former civilian administration to turn themselves over to the authorities." okey?
 * The first part of that does fix the two problems I mentioned. - Dank (push to talk)
 * see above
 * done
 * "call for Angola help to reform the military" better? Im not sure i follow that this one needs change.
 * Yes, that works. - Dank (push to talk)
 * general norm is this way, but done.
 * done
 * better? "re-scheduled for at least two years into the future"
 * What I suggested is better. - Dank (push to talk)
 * "interim government is tasked with administering" better?
 * Yes, that works. - Dank (push to talk)
 * Any meore help here?Lihaas (talk) 04:00, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * That's it for now, let's see if anyone jumps in here and helps with the rest. - Dank (push to talk) 04:08, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Fixing the one you suggested...though isnt "put off" less formal?
 * "postponed" and "delayed" are fine. "rescheduled" (no hyphen) usually has a sense of fixing a time, and I get the sense that no date was set here. - Dank (push to talk) 04:35, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The first issues:
 * Due to the nature of this being less than a year old many sources were to media (other politicial considerations occurred in September with some hindsight. Also the "reported" is only in the 1 section, which was in need of the second pair of eyes. Ive reworded.
 * Not sure what you mean as ackground is not supposed to be detailed (hence wikilinks). It deals with theinstability, the military prone to government and Angola's involvement. Ive reworded and added sources.
 * Isnt it the point of background to highlight WHY such an incident took place. Ie- prone to instability (even after the events there was a semi-coup attempt of sorts). I believe the source there is syndicated.
 * I can reword to say "immediate reactions" and "international responses" but the content has been agued to death on WP as relevant even if "obvious" (obvious to who? not ALL readers are editors and have that mindset)
 * adding more sources
 * The Angolan troops were supporting the civilian administration (which is cited on the page), which was the opposing side to the mlitary who conducted the coup. Other source added (which was in the article)Lihaas (talk)
 * The news story you've just added clearly doesn't support that material (it actually says that the coup was conducted by "Unidentified soldiers" and "it was not clear what faction or factions of the military had carried out Thursday's attack). The NY Times story does not state that the Angolan forces played any role in these events, much less acted in opposition to the coup as you're trying to claim here. Nick-D (talk) 05:29, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Which first story are you referring to?
 * The Angolan presence was cited as instability factors by the ICG link you gave. What Im saying is the Angola factor was supportive of the civilian administration in opposition to the military (2 sides of infobox). "military presence in the country of his (prime minister) ally, Angola, including its part in security sector "Lihaas (talk) 05:45, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm referring to the reference 2 as used in the infobox. Given that you're claiming that sources say things they don't and your 'improvements' to the article's references have been pretty minor (adding a couple of the articles I pointed out, including the abstract of one) with no attempt to draw on the broader literature on this topic to improve the article, I'm not going to engage with your above responses in detail. I don't think that this should be a GA given the weakness of the referencing, much less a FAC. Nick-D (talk) 09:01, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Ummm, is been a few hours. I never said im done. I dont spend all the ime here. I just added severak kb over a few hours. I asked for other stuff as well. Im responding to what you said. Instead you resort to such non-AGF responses. Kudos on your "help" with FAs. At any rate, there was an exhustive GA review that was more frutiful because of helpful (and workable) reviewers. Ive never been impolite or non-AGF here. But reading your statement shows the futility of engaging with you (as yu explicitly mentioned). Yep, Im supposed to dedeicate every second of my day to add content from all sources. Not to mention pay an exporbitant sum to add to a FREE encyclopaedia from what you added! And an admin? OH well, such are the ways..Lihaas (talk) 09:30, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll see what the improvements are then; in your above post you didn't indicate that you were going to continue to add material, and are arguing that sources say things they plainly don't. Nick-D (talk) 09:51, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Suggest withdrawal to allow time to address the points raised by Nick and Dan away from the time-stress of FAC. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:18, 20 January 2013 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.