Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 March 5

= March 5 =

UN Security Council presidency (done)
In case anyone here may feel up to the matter, see Wikipedia:Help desk#Infobox formatting. Please feel free to comment there. Thanks in advance for any assistance. Hildeoc (talk) 01:52, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

✅--Hildeoc (talk) 23:35, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

1958 US aircraft incident
Today I've spotted a story by Trend News Agency which says in particular (translated): "In 1958, an American plane that violated the air borders of the Azerbaijan SSR from Iran was shot down by Soviet fighter aircraft which took off from an airfield in Kurdamir. The plane crashed on the territory of Aghdam District. Of the nine crew members, four ejected and survived. At that time, Heydar Aliyev was appointed head of the special operational-investigative group of the State Security Committee of Azerbaijan (KGB) which was sent to the scene".

Cross-checking this sent me to the 1958 C-130 shootdown incident but several details do not align: that the airspace was violated from Iran, that the plane was shot down and landed in Azerbaijan, etc. This biography of Heydar Aliyev on page 35 briefly mentions his "interrogation of the pilots of the American Douglas aircraft, who parachuted out in Azerbaijan", but acknowledges there were at least two made-up stories in his biography. Is this another embellishment or something else? Brandmeistertalk  15:37, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
 * On details not aligning, I don't see listed as a reference. Skimming through the section titles it might not be appropriate for a WP reference, but only full-length work i see and maybe useful for resolving details. fiveby(zero) 18:51, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Boundless Informant data collection


Do we have any explanation for minor states with no longstanding US disputes (e.g. the Sahel states and Nepal) getting high levels of data collection? I can understand small countries in significant regions getting attention, e.g. Azerbaijan because it's next to Iran, but all these less-developed, no-big-disputes-with-US African countries being dark red just seems weird. Boundless Informant doesn't give even rough numbers by country, and nothing is said on the image's description page, but it's sourced from an NSA image, so it's not original research. Nyttend (talk) 20:35, 5 March 2023 (UTC)


 * The only red I see on that image is in Jordan, Iran, and Pakistan. However, the Sahel region has been rather unstable in the 21st century, with Boko Haram, the local al-Qaeda affiliate, the local Islamic State affiliate, Russia's Wagner Group, and various local militias vying for influence, while migrants trying to get to Europe flow through... AnonMoos (talk) 21:00, 5 March 2023 (UTC)


 * What colour are countries like Niger and Chad? Nyttend (talk) 21:09, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Dark green (least data), the same colour as Iceland. Sudan and Algeria are slightly lighter green, Libya lighter still, Yemen is yellow, Kenya and Saudi Arabia light orange, Egypt is dark orange. -- zzuuzz (talk) 21:25, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I'd add that on the images with DNR data, such as [[Media:Boundless_Informant_data_collection_-_Aggregate.jpg]], Niger, Nigeria, Mali, and some others are a slightly lighter shades, indicating more data. Again that'll probably be all that Boko Haram. Chad is still dark green though. -- zzuuzz (talk) 22:09, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Ug. They need to hire colourblind people like me to design these maps' colour scales :-)  Thank you for the correction, and now that makes a lot more sense.  Could you improve the Boundless Informant article with a section listing countries by colour group?  File:Boundless Informant data collection - DNI.jpg lists its source links, so you could cite that for the whole section.  I'd be interesting in doing it if I could.  Nyttend (talk) 06:33, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Using a Digital Color Meter app (available for Macs and Windows), you can easily see the RGB values of pixels in digital form. --Lambiam 12:36, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

There seems to be an assumption that the color-coding is related to how much data the NSA collects, which may be valid. However, the reason may not be a lack of interest, but perhaps a lack of data. Mali and Chad, for example, are going to have only a tiny amount of data as compared to New Zealand. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 14:55, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't know if you mean "total data" or "data of interest". Mali, at least, is a hotbed of Boko Haram and some Tuareg movement that I forgot. The government is pivoting from French military presence to Russian Wagner Group. It seems interested for the NSA although the total traffic is much less than in New Zealand. --Error (talk) 20:14, 6 March 2023 (UTC)