Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Mozambican War of Independence

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 review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 07:46, 15 March 2007.

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Mozambican War of Independence

It is with great pleasure that I nominate the "Mozambican War of Independence" article, created by User:SGGH. This article which tell us about the conflict which resulted in a negotiated independence of Mozambic, is extemely well written and referenced. It already has a GA status, but after reading it I came to the conclusion that it has the makings of an FA article. Tony the Marine 03:38, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment:At first glance it looks nice. Copyright paranoia makes me ask about the licences for image:Kaulzaarriaga.jpg (seems to be copyrighted) and Image:FAP GU.jpg. Furthermore, almost thirty (rough count) of the 70 references come from one source, isn't this somewhat one-sided? Other than that, looks a well-referenced and informative article, although I'm yet to read it fully. --Ouro (blah blah) 10:37, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I will address those points about the images tonight, the FAP GU one existed on Portuguese Colonial War for some time, so hopefully will be okay (though I know it's no real indicator). It is 30 out of 76 references, but I have tried as much as possible to ensure that that one ref supplied the bare facts, names and dates and such, thus minimalising the impact of the ref (as many other refs will cite the same information). As I said, will investigate the images tonight, if their removal will aid FA then let me know and I'll take them off. Thanks for the comments Ouro! SGGH 16:05, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The thing goes like this - the image copyrights always make me scratch my head, but when it says copyrighted or fair use on them, this basically amounts to 'proceed with caution' and probably wait till someone who is more well-versed in copyrights gives you the green (or red!) light. In FAs fair use images need to have adequate rationales to use them (as this is the best work of Wikipedia, all the way down to why the images are appropriate here and there), and I'd say these two are okay. As for the one source it just made me think that it could be too one-sided, especially that it's a US government-related source, so POV. Anyways, thanks for your clarification and good luck! --Ouro (blah blah) 16:34, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, the author of the source in question used a huge amount of sources himself which are all listed there, so I personaly would vouch for its NPOV, plus it doesn't make many bold statements of observations which would suggest it had a POV to get across SGGH 17:03, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Cool. Thanks! --Ouro (blah blah) 17:17, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support, as nominator. Tony the Marine 20:46, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment: Seems nice, and it can't be commended enough having decided to cover such a topic so subject to systemic bias. Iì'll just make some observations, and pardon if I'll be deliberately iper-fastidious :-):

• I have considerable doubts that Malawi played an important enough role to put it among the combatants in the warbox; apart this, Tanzania seems to have played a more relevant role than Malawi(Area Handbook for Malawi, also Escape from Violence), that anyways assisted the FRELIMO only since 1972.(The Last Bunker: a report on white South Africa today). fixed
• Regarding the casualty figures, can On War be trusted to respond to WP:RS? new reliable refs and figures
• The first two sub-sections of "Background" is not very satisfying, as it leaves paragraphs utterly unsourced, and when sourced using just Encarta. This is especially problematic for FRELIMO, due to its importance. Among those I mean are:
  • "Control of Mozambique was left to various organisations such as the Mozambique Company, the Zambezi Company and the Niassa Company, who were provided money and slaves by the British Empire to work in mines and construct railways. These companies penetrated inland from the coastline, setting up plantations and taxing the local populace who had until then resisted encroachment by the colonists." fixed
  • "In 1926, political changes in Portugal increased their interest in the African colony, and in 1951 Mozambique became an official "overseas province". However, calls for independence arose shortly after World War II in light of the independence granted to many other colonies worldwide after the conflict was over."ref'd
  • "These problems are generally cited by historians as being key factors in the growing unrest." (also a weasel words problem here) removed
  • "The Marxist-Leninist Mozambique Liberation Front or FRELIMO (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique) was formed in Dar es Salaam, the largest city in neighbouring Tanzania, on 25 June 1962. It was created during a conference, by the merging of a number of political figures that had suffered the aforementioned punishment of exile, and various existing nationalist groups, including the Mozambican African National Union, National African Union of Independent Mozambique and the National Democratic Union of Mozambique which had been formed two years earlier. A year later in 1963, FRELIMO set up headquarters in Dar-es-Salaam under the leadership of sociologist Eduardo Mondlane, and began to call for independence from Portugal." refed
  • "and it was Nikita Khrushchev in particular who viewed the 'underdeveloped third of mankind' as an opportunity to weaken the West. For the Soviets, Africa represented a chance to create a rift between western powers and their colonial assets, and create pro-communist states in Africa with which to foster future relations." refed
• More in general, the article has too much unsourced paragraphs or paragraphs just partially sourced. I believe these should all be sourced.
• Important: the assassination of Mondlane, does not seem to repose on reliable sources; it sends to a dead link, and a second source for a so important statement would anyways need at least two distinct references to confirm it's historical consensus Mondlane was killed by his own. And also, "This resulting in a temporary power struggle for control and instability within the nationalist group.", is important, and requires good sourcing.
• More generally, as observed, a more extensive use of sources would be helpful. There are also some passages that could be found slightly pov: for example, "An experienced Portuguese journalist described it", can be seen as hinting in a given direction; for WP:WTA "argue" would be better, and "experienced" shouldn't be added even if it seems obvious (unless the term is used by F. X. Maier, the source of note 61) have fixed the journalist sentence
• Also, did the Portuguese have colonial (i. e. African) troops from some ethnic groups and regions rather than others? Was the FRELIMO more popular in certain areas rather than areas, and did its marxist belief generate difficulties? Were there serious disputes on policy and leadership? 24'000 regs, 23'000 africans fought there, but I am unable to find info on what you are asking at the moment, but I will keep looking
• A last note: shouldn't something more be said of the impact on the civilians of the war? again, will look

--Aldux 22:37, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll begin work to address these points tomorrow, cheers SGGH 22:58, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

i have managed to take care of some of these points, particularly the removal of a couple of PV sentences and by {finally) tracking down some casualty figures. I have marked points above that i have looked at, hope that is okay SGGH 23:23, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

So far approx. 12 new footnotes have been added to rectify the issues mentioned above. I will continue to react to points raised here as the article is evaluated for FA. Thanks for all points so far SGGH 11:38, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment: Some formatting is needed, to unify notes. To this, I would observe: 1) is the "further reading" section really needed? 2)Should Rhodesia be among the combatants in the warbox? It supported the Portuguese, but the Rhodesians start serious operations in Mozambique only after the end of the war. 3)Is a "further reading" section really needed? 4) Also, I'm afraid "Location of the provinces" section is a bit out of place; I don't see exactly why it's there (there are interwiki links if it has to show where to search for).--Aldux 01:29, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Have addressed the above points, should book references and online references be under the same heading? Or should i split them into references and bibliography, as I have done now (just until this question is answered) SGGH 16:21, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

IMO they should be unified under "references" section. Also, you should remove all those books that are not used in the inline citations. Also, if you could find a way to use more Henriksen's Revolution and counterrevolution it would be great, because it is generally considered the best book written on the Mozambique independence war, and would provide a useful leg to Westfall's essay. Also (just a hint), why don't you try giving a look a [1]? It offers pages samples of books, offering this way precious info.--Aldux 20:20, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I found Malyn Newitt's A History of Mozambique which gave me 5 new citations, and have combined those two secs into one of "references". And each one there is used for inline citations, and there may be a couple in the notes that arnet in references, I will fix this now. SGGH 20:44, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Support: If those links included in the 'External Links' section are used as sources, I don't think there is a need for the external links section. That said, if they are not included as sources it's most likely because the information provided is not useful and probably unencyclopedic, so that's questionable as well. Besides that, I think this is a good article and I'm happy to support it. JonCatalan 04:06, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

The USMC one is cited to throughout the article, and is linked to in the references section so I guess that means it doesn't need to be there? The FRELIMO site I just thought would be interesting and useful to see if you were researching the topic. Shall I remove both do you think? and thanks for your support! SGGH 08:54, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Is there anyways to incorporate information from the FRELIMO site into the article in order to put it under the references section? JonCatalan 23:07, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't have a history section that I could find, and is probably pretty POV, will see. At work now :D SGGH 08:42, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment: Sorry for deserting you in the last couple of days. You're proceeding great: in my opinion the only things that need a bit of work is the notes and the references, to unify them. You could also consider removing some of the references involving Westfall's essay; if you use him for all a paragraphy, you don't have to leave a citation for him in every sentence. And continue with the good work!--Aldux 22:34, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

• Oh, and obviously, Support. The remaining issues are very minor.--Aldux 22:36, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support Great article. Well done to author(s).-- Zleitzen^(talk) 23:06, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks guys! I will work on citing bigger chunks to the westfall essay to reduce number of citations, as long as it is still clear where the info comes from. SGGH 08:47, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I have removed some of the westfall refs (possibly about 6 or 7 of them at the most) and left larger chunks of text ref'd to westfall rather than reffing it every other line, but I have been rather conservative in this removal as I am ever worried about leaving facts in the article looking unref'd. Hope my efforts have helped slightly though! SGGH 11:52, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose on image issues;

Image:FAP GU.jpg - is obviously not a screenshot; has no source information and no fair use rationale - should be deleted as is. fixed

Image:General Augusto dos Santos.jpg no source information, so there is no way to verify if the license is true

Image:Kaulzaarriaga.jpg no fair use rationale

Image:MozambiqueIndep.jpg, I can't see anything to suggest that the history channel owns the copyright to this image or that they allow anyone to use their images fixed

Also, the captions are pretty uninformative, see WP:CAP for some pointers.--Peta 01:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunatly I didn't upload the FAP picture so can't comment, but I felt the captions were pretty informative for the images of troops, aircraft and the helicopter. With the other images, I don't fully understand what I can put other than what they are, the name of the person or the dam from space, but will see WP:CAP when I get a minute to get some pointers. Cheers! SGGH 08:51, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I have replaced the FAP image with a new one. SGGH 10:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I have tinkered with the licences of a couple of the others, but am not too sure about copyright, could someone advise me? Or perhaps shoul I just remove the images which have copyright problems? (these are the images of the two generals, and the image in the infobox) as the FAP one i fixed. Captions wise, I think they adhere to WP:CAP quite well, they are all informative now as much as they can be. SGGH 11:15, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I have replaced MozambiqueIndep.jpg with an okay one from commons, incidenatlly the FAP one was okay. SGGH 17:19, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Plenty of new images now, all commons okay'd. The two general ones are in still place at the moment. SGGH 17:25, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

And I have added my fair use rationale of: "I believe that these images are of public domain because they are of a military nature. The image is soley used with the purpose of depicting the person or action mentioned in said article" SGGH 20:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Main image now infact replaced by a compositie of 4 images from commons which all have all rights released. SGGH 22:03, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Please follow the instructions given here for the fair use rationales on the two portraits; I suggest you copy the one for historic images. --Peta 00:06, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose for now; there is a lot of work needed, but it should be doable at FAC. Dashes and hyphens are used incorrectly (see WP:DASH). Full dates are not wikilinked (see WP:DATE). Footnotes are stangely placed; this one could be after the punctuation (... and the exile of large numbers of political intelligentsia also contributed to a growing political unrest[4] that, ). Numerous footnotes are just bluelinks, without last access dates, publisher, and author/date of publication when available (see WP:CITE/ES). References need work, similar to footnotes. Missing puncutation here indicates need for ce (By the time of the Carnation Revolution, 100,000 draft dodgers had been recorded[57]). Wikilinking seems to fall off mid-article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

A couple have users seemed to have gone through removing "wikilinks to common words" will take a look at that, and fix the wikilinks, footnotes, punctuation right now. SGGH 23:24, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

• The only blue hyperlinks now in footnotes are the encarta ones and 'Eduardo Chivambo Mondlane Biography at Oberlin College', both of which has retrieval dates in the References section. Hope that answers that point :)
• fixed the punctuation mentioned
• fixed wikilinking ongoing (please note that i try to avoid repetitive links, which is why number of links decreases as article goes on, obviously, and also you can't link month + year links to any year before 1999.)
• all external links have their retrieval dates.
• I confess I'm not entirely following your comments about dashes, I can't locate any problems in the article but will have another trawl through, please be kind enough to point out any I miss!

SGGH 23:36, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

• Better; this date needs to be fixed—I'm not really sure how, but at least the year is linked on full dates. On the 10th or 11th of October 1966,[33] This partial date should not be wikilinked: March 1970. There are still solo years wililinked in several places, example: By 1972, however, there ... Same here: By 1973, FRELIMO were also mining civilian towns and villages ... Also, why are towns and villages wikilinked? I hope our readers know what they are. See WP:CONTEXT. I left notes on SGGH's talk page about minor tweaks still needed on refs. There are still wikilink problems, for example see Lisbon. A common term like that should only be linked on the first occurrence. There seems to be a problem here: By the time of the Carnation Revolution, 100'000 draft dodgers had been recorded. I don't see that number format at WP:MOSNUM. Almost there ! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:55, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Worked on formatting issues myself, striking my object. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:47, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Sandy, appreciate it! SGGH 10:46, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

• Object again, new problems, 1a, article needs a copy edit. The lead has an incomplete sentence (Thus ending 470 years of Portuguese colonial rule in the East African region.) Do we refer to countries as "her" on Wiki (This particular project became deeply linked with Portugal's concerns over security in her overseas colonies.) This sentence is tortured (Politically also, FRELIMO lodged a protest with the United Nations about the project, and also with such negative reports of Portuguese actions in Mozambique, much foreign financial support was withdrawn, though the dam was finally completed in December 1974.) Etcetera. I'm really curious about Support votes registered when the article had tons of structural issues, and has prose problems as well. I do hope reviewers review articles they support. These are only examples; fixing them only won't suffice. Pls arrange for an independent copyedit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:25, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I have requested a copy edit from the league, and invite any other users to help copy edit also, and will have a look myself. SGGH 09:02, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Zleitzen has also very kindly been doing some copy edit work. SGGH 09:03, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Striking my object then, since Zleitzen is a capable writer; I do wish reviewers would review before supporting, so I wasn't so often in a position of lodging objects :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:47, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks SGGH 13:50, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Apologies Sandy. My support was based on the great coverage and use of sources, which is very rare for modern history articles on these kinds of subjects. Take a look at Rwandan genocide or Nigerian Civil War. Yuk. I have been firmly "told off" and am paying my penance with copy-editing duties. I promise not to so enthusiastically support an article before adjusting typos and fragmented sentences etc again! -- Zleitzen^(talk) 14:35, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

"great coverage and use of sources, which is very rare for modern history articles on these kinds of subjects" thanks Zleitzen :) and thanks to all for their comments! The article would never improve without objections such as those from Sandy and Peta, and Zleitzen's copy editing work has been invaluable... SGGH 15:05, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah, SGGH, you should never thank somebody for his criticisms or else somebody may feel in duty to add his ;p. I've been looking and the article is really great; but I feel one note should be removed, as it's weak regards WP:RS, that is Secret Warfare: Operation Gladio and NATO's Stay-Behind Armies - Chronology. The webpage leaves me uneasy also because it's anonymous; and since the topic covered by the note has (Mondlane killing) been treated by many sources, I think it would be easy to replace. I'm also very happy to see the AllAfrica link has been removed; this is good, because AllAfrica links die very early, for this we advise not to use them at the African noticeboard. Two last things: is Magaia really necessary among the commanders? Wasn't he subordinated to Mondlane, and as such, mentioning shouldn't be necessary in the warbox? And I'm a bit perplexed with this wording: "The paramilitary forces of the FRELIMO were commanded by Filipe Samuel Magaia, and received training from Algeria"; don't you mean "the military wing of the FRELIMO was commanded by Filipe Samuel Magaia, whose forces received training from Algeria."? Well, it's only my two cents. Ciao, and great work Zleitzen and Sandy with the copyediting and formatting!--Aldux 17:40, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I have addressed the rewroding and WP:RS issues that you addressed, but I personally believe that Magaia should be in the commanders list, as he was the military commander of FRELIMO, whereas Mondlane was the political leader. SGGH 19:08, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

All issues raised on the talk page have been addressed by Zleitzen, Jmabel or myself. SGGH 08:42, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.