Wikipedia:Peer review/South African Scout Association/archive2

South African Scout Association

 * Previous peer review
 * A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for January 2009.
 * A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for January 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because it recently failed as a FAC, and I would like to find out what should be or could be improved in the article.

Thanks, -- YiS, Jediwanna   be  13:31, 6 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Where is the FAC review? It is not connected from the Talk page.  Also, I note the automated review calls for more inbound and outbound links.  When i check "what links here", I notice many links, including Protected areas of South Africa, which happens to seems unusual so I go to check on what is the relationship, but then I can find no link to South African Scout Association from there. doncram (talk) 09:12, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * FAC review is linked in the article milestones section on the Talk page. Majority of those links are due to the South African topics template that is included on most South African pages. -- YiS, Jediwanna   be  12:25, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for explaining. The milestones were within an unexpanded box and i didn't realize that.  Odd that South African Scout Association should be on a "South African topics" template.  It doesn't look right to me in that template's "Culture" section:  "Art · Cinema · Cuisine · Education · Language · Literature · Music · Poets · Public holidays · Religion · Sport · Media · Scouts."  One particular proper noun youth organization does not compare with Education or Literature or Media or other topics.  I'll comment on the template's talk page. doncram (talk) 02:25, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Later: It's not just an issue for that template page, it's an issue for this article. A previous reviewer and/or automated reviewer was concerned that there are not enough in-bound links.  Putting it onto the template page does not provide appropriate links of the kind desired.  It would succeed in tricking an automated review, and it makes it difficult for human reviewers to evaluate the inbound links. doncram (talk) 19:47, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I understand what you are talking about. However I believe that the article has been part of the template for quite a while (longer then I've been editing the article I think). I see that it has been removed now. -- YiS, Jediwanna   be  06:33, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Comments by doncram I think you have a good article here. Here are my first thoughts; i shall return later to add more specifics.

My most major reaction reading this is surprise that it was not asserted that Scouting began in South Africa, which is what i thought. It is here represented that scouting began in England in 1907 and then spread here, and it is presented mysteriously how it started here. It was as if the blueprint for Scouting was posted on the internet, and started popping up everywhere. This is in contrast to my awareness of how the Girl Guides / Girl Scouts movement started in the United States, from the very specific founding of a first group by one person who had in mind starting a larger movement. Or at least that is how it is represented in a historical article regarding it that i read (specifically the PDF document linked from Juliette Gordon Low Historic District, a U.S. National Historic Landmark. It was started by an adult who thought it would be a good thing;  it did not develop, grassroots style from the youths themselves. (Not saying u implied the latter, but it was what i was imagining, given lack of details similar to Juliette Gordon Low's specific actions.)

In fact, the Baden-Powell article states: "In 1899, during the Second Boer War in South Africa, Baden-Powell successfully defended the city in the Siege of Mafeking. Several of his military books, written for military reconnaissance and scout training in his African years, were also read by boys. Based on those earlier books, he wrote Scouting for Boys, published in 1908 by Pearson, for youth readership. During writing, he tested his ideas through a camping trip on Brownsea Island that began on 1 August 1907, which is now seen as the beginning of Scouting." It is imperative that these earlier roots in South Africa of what became the formal scouting movement be claimed and explained in this article. Also, I am not a sociologist, but I imagine that there was a lot special about South Africa's terrain, peoples, conflicts, and the nature of the British rule that formed a milieu relatively ripe for the idea of scouting movement to emerge. The British military activities there involved, I project, lots of camping and patrols and tracking and so on, which were attractive features for a program that swept the world, so to speak. I expect that this milieu was NOT present in other areas of the world at this time that the world was ripe (perhaps) for a scouting-type movement. Romantic ideas of the American west and its Indians / native Americans did inspire, I think, Campfire Girls and other organizations, which I think postdated Boy Scouts, but the actual era of scouting-type missions for military purposes was long over, beforehand, while I believe it was semi-real still in 1904 in South Africa. I project that there must be learned articles in peer-reviewed history journals which accurately and rather completely describe this early history. Get thee to a library, and SHEESH, TAKE SOME CREDIT! And please tell about the Mafeking siege. Get a copy of Baden-Powell's 1904 booklet and include quotes from it and include illustrative copies of original pages in this article. Also, please research and explain how scouting formally got started in this county in 1908. Was it British military men, currently serving or post-service, who knew Baden-Powell, who opened the first troops, when where how etc?

Hope this helps for a start. I hope you don't mind my perhaps breezy style here. I am continuing to read the article carefully, and will give you further comments later. Meanwhile it would be useful to have your responses to these initial comments. doncram (talk) 19:47, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the tips. I will try to find more information, unfortunately most of the libraries I have access too are rather limited in their selection. -- YiS, Jediwanna   be  06:33, 20 January 2009 (UTC)