Talk:2007 Swazi general strike

Notability

How is this not notable, FEARgod? Compare 2007 Guinean general strike, for instance. —Nightstallion 12:56, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Guinea had casualties, was on the headlines and was on step from civil war, this not. --TheFEARgod (Ч) 14:37, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see at all this story on major news services: [1] [2] --TheFEARgod (Ч) 14:39, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

So what? The country's largest union has called for strikes, and all the opposition parties are supporting it. Just because Swaziland is so small that BBC and Jazeera appear to ignore it is no grounds to discredit all the other news sources which carry the story. I'm sorry, but this seems very WASP-centric to me. I'm fairly certain notability is NOT an issue here. —Nightstallion 13:21, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Is the Guardian good enough for you as a major news source? —Nightstallion 13:50, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I've asked other users who are generally interested in African topics to state their opinions on this case; I hope that's okay with you. —Nightstallion 14:38, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I was asked. My opinion is that it is definitely notable. Everyking 15:02, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I disagree; general strikes are not notable - they happen in some countries (Israel) almost every week :) Just because something is newsworthy doesn't make is encyclopedia-worthy. Number 57 15:23, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, as one source states, this is the largest public showing of civil disobediency since 1996, so I think we can say this is something more notable than the daily strikes in Israel or Italy. ;) —Nightstallion 15:50, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Newsworthy is the same as encyclopedia worthy, provided it is covered by multiple sources. Everyking 16:36, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I have to disagree with Feargod and Number57. his appears one of the main political events in the country in 2007, and if it had taken place in Canada nobody would even dream of starting this discussion. I'm sorry, but I can't help feeling the smell of systemic bias.--Aldux 17:58, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with what Aldux said, and would have said it if he had not beat me too it. This is a major event, it is covered by multiple independent sources, so it is by definition notable. Thanks to Nightstallion for writing about it. Picaroon (Talk) 18:14, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

In the Swaziland context, this general strike is notable. They don't happen every other week there. A demonstration of 5000 in a country of 1 million where political parties remain illegal is notable. It is a demonstration against a new constitution promulgated in 2005 that came into effect this year, delayed for a decade by conservative royalist forces in a process widely criticized by human rights organizations and western governments. The new constitution still does not provide for legal political parties. Consequently trade unions work closely with illegal parties and frequently act as a proxy for them. Rejection of the new constitution by opposition forces is notable. On the other hand, another notable feature is that apparently officials permitted the demonstration, in contrast to some previous violent repression against similar demonstrations. The AP carried a story on the strike which Forbes put on its website (e.g.), Google News shows 46 story links, it is being widely covered in South Africa, the strike has drawn statements of support both from the COSATU union federation in South Africa and the TUC in Britain. The strike apparently hit the banking sector hard and essentially shut down work in the sugar industry (Swaziland's main export) but did not affect a number of other sectors, according to the AP report. (I lived in Swaziland in 1988-89, wrote a Ph.D. dissertation on its history, and follow events there reasonably closely. In historical terms, this is and will be a notable event in the history of the country. It will be noted in analyses of protracted struggles between royalist and opposition forces dating back to the late 1980s).

Chris Lowe 06:19, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

My instinct would be this is notable. Per WP:N, an event is notable if the event itself has been significantly covered in multiple independent reliable secondary sources. I note that the proposed guideline WP:NOTNEWS, which would have significantly raised this bar for newsworthy events, failed to reach a consensus and hence was dropped. We also should be wary of systemic WP:BIAS - Swaziland has far fewer newspapers per million people than, say, England, but it would be a mistake to think that means events in Swaziland are less notable. Given that international news media have been cited for four sources, I cannot see how the notability guideline is not met. AndrewRT(Talk) 21:30, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Nightstallion asked me to comment on this matter. In the context of Swaziland, I can how it's notable for folks in Swaziland, as Cclowe has noted. For the rest of the world, I have doubts about notability (for example, ask any random joe to locate Swaziland on a map), except in a trade union context. In short, I see both sides.- Thanks, Hoshie 06:27, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Why does the rest of the world matter? Should Swazi awareness of a political issue in the U.S. or a West European country be considered an important factor in whether an article on that subject belongs? This is preposterous. Everyking 23:36, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

• From an inclussionist point of view, in this case we see definitely some grounds for notability (i.e. acceptable coverage in international media), and given the doubt, the inclussionist point of view says "include" - and a new encyclopedia article is born.
  
• From a deletionist point of view, we have an article on the database that probably won't be heavily visited, that will probably lose all traffic in a few months, and the article hasn't found itself in headlining, mainstream news.
• I would say that the inclussionist point of view should be given the benefit of the doubt - consider that the Swaziland may have strikes in the future, the strikes' relevance to the politics of the country, and finally the little content we already have on African issues (see Systemic Bias) it would be beneficial to the encyclopedia to "collect" articles - even the "lesser notable" ones -- so that ultimately a better encyclopedia is written.
  
• In closing, keep the article, and a merge is probably not out of the question, but a merge to what? "Swaziland#Labour" or "Swaziland#Employment" or "Swaziland#Workforce" ?
  

Rfwoolf 14:39, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Update

This article has been flagged as needing an update for some time. Anyone familiar with the current status of this 'ongoing' strike?--Derek Andrews (talk) 17:25, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Dead link

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--JeffGBot (talk) 18:12, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 2

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  • In 2007 Swazi general strike on 2011-05-27 15:19:44, 404 Not Found
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--JeffGBot (talk) 18:12, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

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During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

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--JeffGBot (talk) 18:12, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

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--JeffGBot (talk) 18:13, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

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