Talk:Bombing of Mokha

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by CSJJ104 (talk) 17:58, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

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• ... that the bombing of Mokha in Yemen by Saudi Arabia-led coalition was described as of the "deadliest" attacks by Saudi Arabia against Yemen, leaving 65-150 dead including 10 children? Source: CNBC, Reuters
  • Reviewed: 2022 U.S. Open Cup Final

5x expanded by Mhhossein (talk). Nominated by Mhhossein (talk) at 12:17, 22 July 2022 (UTC).

• @Mhhossein: Can you provide a QPQ for this? Thanks, Z1720 (talk) 03:58, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
• No QPQ was provided within seven days of the nomination, despite a ping above and activity elsewhere. This is purely procedural and the nomination can resume if a QPQ is provided. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 05:41, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Having done dozens of DYKs so far, due to the usual backlog, it takes numerous days for the QPQed nominations to be reviewed and promoted. It is just a surprise seeing this comment and ridiculous for a QPQnomination to be closed solely for lack of QPQ. The QPQ will be provided within the coming days. --Mhhossein ^talk 10:43, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

It's per a recent recent rule change to DYK. See WP:DYKCRIT: Ideally, a QPQ should be submitted within a week of a nomination. After one week, and a reminder to the nominator, a nomination may be closed as "incomplete." Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 10:58, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Nominator was notified of the lack of a QPQ on July 30. This nomination should be rejected if no QPQ is supplied within a week from then, that is August 6. Flibirigit (talk) 16:44, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

• Nominator has provided a QPQ so the nomination can now proceed. A full review is still needed. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 11:41, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

• Cited: - ?
• Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: A few issues need to be addressed:

• For some reason, DYKcheck reports this as not sufficiently expanded, but a manual comparison of before and current (as of 20 August) shows an expansion of just over 5x prose content. So I'm accepting the length as sufficient.
• (Earwig finds some similarity with the Reuters article, although I think it's because of the quotations.) Not really an issue, imo, just wanted to note that I checked that.
• The article also needs an inline ref directly after each sentence containing a quotation – maybe just duplicate some of the refs.
• Currently the hook prose is in the lede, but the source cited there does only speak of "more than 120 dead", which is not what's written there. It would probably be better to write this as "65(inline one) to 120(inline two) dead" or something. The "150" currently in the hook is definitely wrong – this many were wounded, according to US News (btw this is not cited in the infobox).
• The article needs some copyediting, for example "The airstrike hit the residential area in dedicated to the plant workers." I can help with that if needed, although some things are quite obvious.

Nothing major and all these things can be fixed. @Mhhossein best ping me when you are done. --LordPeterII (talk) 10:23, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Thank you LordPeterII. The CNBC source clearly says "a power plant in Mokha that killed at least 120 people". I have changed the lead wording so that it shows the correct sourcing for the number of dead and will as GOCE to copyedit the page. How about the following hook:

Alt1: ... that the bombing of Mokha in Yemen by Saudi Arabia-led coalition was described as of the "deadliest" attacks by Saudi Arabia against Yemen, leaving 65 – more than 120 dead including 10 children?

--Mhhossein ^talk 13:09, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

@Mhhossein: My issue was primarily with the hook fact not corresponding to a cited article sentence. This is now resolved, but I find that with the dash it looks weird. How about instead:

• ALT2: ... that the Bombing of Mokha was described as one of the "deadliest" attacks by a Saudi Arabian–led coalition against Yemen, leaving between 65 and more than 120 dead?

This removes also the duplicate "Saudi Arabia" and "Yemen", so the hook is shorter and I think it is still very clear. --LordPeterII (talk) 17:01, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Okay I just realized I also removed the "children" part, feel free to add that back in (I was worried it would be too long, but with the dupicate country names removed it is quite short now). And I also piped a link to the Saudi coalition, not sure if you want that or not. You can propose another modified hook if you want, until we find something we both like. --LordPeterII (talk) 17:04, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, then I suggest going with the version including the children toll.

• ALT2a: ... that the Bombing of Mokha was described as one of the "deadliest" attacks by a Saudi Arabian–led coalition against Yemen, leaving between 65 and more than 120 dead, including 10 children?

It is 186 characters which is not too long. --Mhhossein ^talk 10:32, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

@Mhhossein: Yes, that's short enough. I will approve that hook once the copyediting is done (and some bare sources converted to use citation templates, but I will look at that myself). --LordPeterII (talk) 19:36, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

• @LordPeterII: It's been almost a month since the last comment here and it doesn't seem like the copyediting has been completed yet. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 07:15, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
  • User:Narutolovehinata5, I did some copyediting. Mhhossein, you owe me. Drmies (talk) 01:16, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
    • Thank you Drmies. How can I repay your kindness? --Mhhossein ^talk 13:39, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
      • User:Mhhossein, a gin and tonic will do, or a reading suggestion for your favorite book in the language of your choice (but translated in English, haha). Drmies (talk) 14:29, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
        •  Done [1] --Mhhossein ^talk 07:39, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
        • @LordPeterII: Can you complete the review? --Mhhossein ^talk 10:44, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
• All the issues are resolved and LordPeterII has not been active recently to verify that his Copy Edit request is already fulfilled. Asking for review from another interested user please. --Mhhossein ^talk 07:39, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Because of the ambiguous way the sentence is constructed, it can be read to mean that the bombing was done by the Saudi Arabian-led coalition, or it can be read to mean that the attack was described by the Saudi Arabian-led coalition. The cited source article stated it this way: "A Saudi-led coalition airstrike hit a funeral hall with thousands of mourners... ...in one of the deadliest single attacks of the country’s civil war, a U.N. official said." Using similar language, it could be rephrased this way:

• ALT3: that the Bombing of Mokha by a Saudi-led coalition airstrike was described as one of the "deadliest" attacks of the Yemeni Civil War, leaving between 65 and more than 120 dead, including 10 children?

In that regard, the ambiguity is avoided and the sentence is also a very close read to the way it is phrased in the original source article. Regards, AzureCitizen (talk) 01:21, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

@Mhhossein and AzureCitizen: Sorry, I was ill & then very busy irl, am checking in quickly to finish this and other things. I agree ALT3 is better still, I can see the ambiguity. Also thanks @Drmies for doing the copyediting. If anyone could take a look at the sentence "The airstrike hit the residential area in dedicated to the plant workers" that would be great, it's the only thing that still reads weird imo, not sure what it's supposed to say.

Approve ALT3. –LordPeterII (talk) 15:00, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

User:LordPeterII, done. Thanks. Drmies (talk) 15:07, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Uh oh, looking more closely at this after reading the part above about hitting a residential area dedicated to plant workers versus the source article talking about hitting a packed funeral hall, apparently these are two different air strikes. The residential area bombing was in Mokha in July 2015 and the funeral hall bombing was in Sanaa in October 2016. That should probably be worked out before proceeding further? Regards, AzureCitizen (talk) 15:31, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

@AzureCitizen: Can you clarify what you mean? There definitely must not be a mix-up with other airstrikes. I read the source for the sentence that now is The airstrike hit the residential area with housing for the plant workers from The Independent as being about the airstrike on Mokha. Where is the one about Sanaa? –LordPeterII (talk) 16:34, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

It's the second sentence in the second paragraph of the article's lead, which reads "The attack was one of the deadliest attacks by Saudi Arabia against Yemen", and uses this source from CNBC, which is actually referring to the 2016 Sanaa bombing instead of the 2015 Mokha bombing. Does that help? Regards, AzureCitizen (talk) 16:39, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Ah yes, now I got it: The CNBC source is indeed primarily about a later airstrike on Sanaa. In fact, that news article is even more confusing because it mentions three separate airstrikes: The one on Mokha in July 2015, one on Mastaba in March 2016, and finally the (at the time) most recent one on Sanaa in October 2016. It says: Saturday's attack comes after a Saudi-led coalition March 15 airstrike on a market in Yemen's northwestern city of Mastaba that killed at least 119 people. Saudi forces reportedly used U.S. munitions in that strike, which at the time was described as the second-deadliest of the Saudi campaign, after a July 2015 attack near a power plant in Mokha that killed at least 120 people. The article and the DYK hook really only need the comparison here, which means that the minimum 120 deaths for Mokha is a sad second place in deadliness at the point of the CNBC article. I remember that this had confused me as well a while back, so good catch, if not an actual error. It would have been an easy mistake to e.g. slip in the wrong number (140 for Sanaa) from that news into the article. I checked twice and it didn't, so I think we're good. –LordPeterII (talk) 16:47, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Looks good and it all makes sense now. Thanks for parsing that out! AzureCitizen (talk) 16:55, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Mokha or Mocha

@Theleekycauldron: Hey, did you consider the reliable sources used in this article before moving it? Mhhossein ^talk 04:33, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Hey, @Mhhossein! I was sure i responded to this... I considered the reliable sources at Mocha, Yemen, as well as adjusted Google ngrams data. Come to think of it, I didn't see it as definitive – you're welcome to revert under MOS:VAR, if you'd like. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 06:27, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi Theleekycauldron, 'Mokha' is the common title used when the incident is covered by the sources. I double checked the ones used in this page, which actually are the most relevant sources I found when I was authoring the page. --Mhhossein ^talk 06:39, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

@Mhhossein: I gathered that too – it's your call :) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 06:40, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

@Mhhossein and Theleekycauldron: I think the issue is that the letter "خ" is transliterated in different ways. Duolingo spells it as "kh" for me, so maybe that's the newer variant, compared to the historically more prominent "ch". It's actually worse in German, we have Mokka, which leads to a needlessly bad pronunciation – if it was spelled "Mucha" in German, we'd actually have a 50% chance of pronouncing it mostly correct (that is, almost like an Arabic speaker would). Alas, historical transliterations were a little imprecise. I've adjusted the Mokha (or Mocha) article to give all the possible spellings in the lede there, maybe that will help clarify things for confused readers. --LordPeterII (talk) 10:43, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

I assume it's /x/, like the hebrew Heth? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 17:16, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

It would transcribed as 'kh' these days, yes, but it's known in older sources as "Mocha". That's the dilemma. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:22, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Thank you guys for your interest. --Mhhossein ^talk 10:35, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

@Theleekycauldron: Probably? I don't know Hebrew, but yes, it's kinda like the "ch" in "loch". --LordPeterII (talk) 11:01, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that's right - the other advantage of Mokha is that it prevents pronunciation like the coffee. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:37, 1 September 2022 (UTC)