Talk:La Matanza

Latest comment: 1 year ago by Catlemur in topic GA Review

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History of El Salvador at Britannica.com

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Requested move 19 February 2020 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved to "La Matanza". (non-admin closure) Cwmhiraeth (talk) 14:25, 26 February 2020 (UTC)Reply



1932 Salvadoran peasant massacreLa Matanza – I'm fairly certain that ALL major works of scholarship on this event refer to it principally as La Matanza, not unlike, to refer to a similar event, La Violencia. To give a few examples, Thomas Anderson's definitive work on the subject is entitled, Matanza: El Salvador's Communist Revolt of 1932. The relevant chapter in Christopher White's History of El Salvador is "La matanza and beyond". The book To Rise In Darkness also calls it La Matanza, with one chapter entitled Memories of La Matanza. There is no other commonly accepted name. Currently, our Wikipedia article uses two different names, "1932 Salvadoran peasant massacre" and "1932 Salvadoran farmer uprising", neither of which are used frequently by scholars. If anyone thinks La Matanza might be too generic, the next best title would be "La Matanza (El Salvador)". LoosingIt (talk) 03:02, 19 February 2020 (UTC)Reply


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

GA Review edit

This review is transcluded from Talk:La Matanza/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Catlemur (talk · contribs) 11:02, 24 November 2022 (UTC)Reply


I will begin this review shortly.--Catlemur (talk) 11:02, 24 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

  • "Geometric mean estimate: 10000 ⋅ 40000 = 20000 {\displaystyle {\sqrt {10000\cdot 40000}}=20000}" - I seriously doubt the use of the geometric mean estimate is appropriate here, this looks like WP:OR.
    • Removed   Done
  • "national income fell 50 percent from the year prior" - National average income, GDP or something else? Please clarify.
    • Clarified   Done
  • "Due to the results of the elections" → "Due to the result of the elections".
    • Fixed   Done
  • "as Hernández Martínez's government effectively canceled the results of the elections" - Rephrase this to avoid repetition.
    • Fixed   Done
  • "The communists' primary inspiration for revolution were the Bolsheviks and the 1917 October Revolution." - This is essentially a repetition since the October Revolution was Bolshevik led.
    • Rephrased   Done
  • "Businesses and homes were destroyed by rebels as a part of looting," - As far as I understand looting is a form of forceful theft, so this needs to be rephrased.
    • Rephrased   Done
  • "HMCS Skeena and HMCS Vancouver" - HMCS should be included in both wikilinks.
    • Fixed   Done
  • The first paragraph of the Subsequent government killings section should be moved to the Rebellion section. Since it still describes its suppression.
    • Moved   Done
  • "and handed over those who tried to flee back to the army." - Specify that they were handed over to the Salvadoran army.
    • Fixed   Done
  • "René Padilla Velasco, Martí's lawyer during his show trial, argued that Hernández Martínez forced Martí to launch the rebellion as a final "desperate" effort to prevent him from consolidating dictatorial control of the country." - This sentence should probably directly precede the one describing Martí's execution in the Subsequent government killings section. Else it kinda looks like a spoiler.
    • Moved   Done
  • "the uprising is commemorated on every 22 January." → "the uprising is commemorated annually on 22 January."
  • The Aftermath section makes it clear that indigenous Salvadorans were targeted but not the reason why. Pipil rebels are mentioned as a separate party in both the infobox and the lede but not in the main body of the article. The infobox and the lede are intended to summarize the contents of the article instead of presenting new information, see WP:LEDE and MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE. So all new information and the respective references need to be moved to the main body of the article.
    • Fixed   Done
  • Were indigenous people targeted en mass or just the Pipil?
    • The indigenous were targeted (they looked for indigenous clothing appearance and language), but since most to all of indigenous people in the area of La Matanza were Pipil, effectively just the Pipil were targeted. I think that's clarified in the body. PizzaKing13 ¡Hablame! 19:38, 3 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • The article is also lacking information on the effect the rebellion had on the political landscape in Salvador and what I assume was Hernández Martínez's consolidation of power.--Catlemur (talk) 17:41, 3 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
@Catlemur: I hope I have addressed all of your comments. PizzaKing13 ¡Hablame! 20:19, 3 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • @PizzaKing13: I apologize for the delay. Here some extra comments:
  • Modesto Ramírez and Osmín Aguirre y Salinas are only mentioned in the infobox, so their participation should either be mentioned in the main body of the article and backed by reliable references or their names should be removed.
    • Removed  Y
  • "decreasing from 40 to 50 cents per day to only 20 cents per day" - Please specify the currency you are referring to, I assume its USD.
    • Specified, though, I'm not sure how exactly to specify US cents.  Y
  • "despite early polling returns indicated a communist victory" → "despite early polling returns indicating a communist victory"
    • Changed  Y
  • As I said before all new information needs to be introduced in the main body of the article rather than the lede. That includes the fact that martial law was introduced and the sentence about the origin of the term La Matanza. The aforementioned information needs to be kept in the lede but it should be mentioned in the main body and the references should be moved there as well.
    • Moved  Y
  • "La Defensa de la Hispanidad" [The Defense of Hispanidad]. - Is Hispanidad Spanishness in this context or some kind of location?--Catlemur (talk) 15:33, 14 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
    • Hispanidad is the concept of unity of countries which speak the Spanish language have Spanish culture
  • "decreasing from USD¢40 to USD¢50 per day to only USD¢20 per day" - Shouldn't it be "decreasing from USD¢50 to USD¢40 per day"? 40 to 50 is an increase.
    • It's meant to be 40–50 per day to 20, I've rewritten it to make it clearer  Y
  • "Despite the military's support for Gómez Zárate and belief that the military would reject the result of the election, the military remained loyal to the results of the election." - Reword to avoid repeating the word military three times.
    • Reworded  Y
  • "His efforts were strongly opposed by the military, which staged a military coup on 2 December 1931," → "His efforts were strongly opposed by the military, which staged a coup on 2 December 1931,".
    • Changed  Y
  • "The military government was dissolved two days later when Hernández Martínez was declared as the country's acting president by the military," → "The military government was dissolved two days later when Hernández Martínez was declared as the country's acting president,".
    • Changed  Y
  • "Before Araujo was deposed, municipal and legislative elections were scheduled for 15 December 1931, but after his government was deposed," → Either "but after his government was overthrown," or "but after the coup,".
    • Changed  Y
  • "the actual rebellion was not planned until after the municipal election results were canceled, with actual planning beginning on 9 or 10 January 1932" → "the rebellion was not planned until after the municipal election results were canceled, with actual planning beginning on 9 or 10 January 1932".
    • Changed  Y
  • Remove the second wikilink for Guatemala in Government knowledge of the rebellion.
    • Removed  Y
  • Is the Rochester ship referred to in the article USS New York (ACR-2)? If you can confirm it is, wikilink it.
    • It was in Central America at the time so it should be. Linked  Y
  • "The day the rebellion was crushed," - I would recommend mentioning the full date, since its a new section.
    • Added  Y
  • The infobox gives the following dates for the subsequent killings: "Army killings: 24 January – February 1932". Yet the Subsequent government killings section says they began a day after the end of the rebellion (26 January) and do not give an exact date for when they ended other than the fact that the rebellion was declared over by 11 July 1932. Which date range is accurate?
    • It should be 25 January in the infobox. The last sentence of the first paragraph in subsequent government killings says "The killings persisted for two weeks until the government decided that the region had been sufficiently "pacified".[55]" Source 55 only says it went on for 2 weeks but not which date in ended, so that would be February 1932. I specified February 1932 in the sentence. From then to 11 July, there weren't any killings, only the government declaring the uprising was over, like a war extended through an irregularity.  Y
  • "as Hernández Martínez's government effectively canceled election." → "as Hernández Martínez's government effectively canceled the elections."
    • Changed  Y
  • de Bry, Keogh and Urbina Gaitán's books are listed in the Bibliography but never cited in the article. Either remove them or place them in Further reading.
  • Zapata, Luna and Sánchez are listed as being executed in the infobox, yet the article makes no mention of how they died.
    • I added Zapata and Luna's executions with a source of UCSD. Lindo Fuentes; Ching; Lara Martínez should mention Sánchez's execution, but I won't have access to that source until mid-January since I'm currently away from home and I don't have that book with me. PizzaKing13 ¡Hablame! 01:53, 19 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • "The government's atrocities also forced several intellectuals to flee the country and go into exile." - This is a sentence from the lede, the rest of the article mentions that people fled the country (including the communist party leadership) but makes no mention of them being intellectuals.--Catlemur (talk) 07:58, 18 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • Can you add a sentence or two elaborating about the motives behind the Pipil collaboration with the communists? Right now it seems sort of spontaneous. Also since the communists organized the revolt, shouldn't they be listed first in this sentence: "On 22 January 1932, Pipil peasants and members of the Communist Party of El Salvador (PCES) launched a rebellion"?--Catlemur (talk) 19:12, 20 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
    • It basically kind of was spontaneous, but I added two sentences explaining why they joined. PizzaKing13 ¡Hablame! 19:53, 20 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • "Cuenca theorized that Hernández Martínez intentionally allowed the revolt to happen by refusing to allow any opportunity for social and political reform. The theory asserts that the intention of allowing the revolution was to crush it forcefully, as he believed the movement was doomed to fail, and that the suppression of the communist uprising would help him gain support and recognition from the United States." - This needs to be tweaked a little to limit the repetition of "allow".
    • Fixed  Y
  • "Molina's soldiers first engaged rebels outside of Sonzacate, and after engaging in hand-to-hand combat, the rebels retreated to the city proper." → "Molina's soldiers first clashed with the rebels outside of Sonzacate, and after engaging in hand-to-hand combat, the rebels retreated to the city proper."--Catlemur (talk) 03:57, 21 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • "The first sentence should tell the nonspecialist reader what or who the subject is, and often when or where. It should be in plain English." per MOS:FIRST.--Catlemur (talk) 16:42, 21 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose, spelling, and grammar):   b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):  
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (reference section):   b (citations to reliable sources):   c (OR):   d (copyvio and plagiarism):  
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects):   b (focused):  
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:  
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars, etc.:  
  6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales):   b (appropriate use with suitable captions):  
  7. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:  
    Catlemur (talk) 18:15, 22 December 2022 (UTC)Reply