Talk:1999 Tempe military base shooting

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 Rjjiii talk 21:37, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that after the 1999 Tempe military base shooting, the Pan African Congress demanded a military funeral for the perpetrator? Source: https://allafrica.com/stories/199909220151.html
  • Reviewed:
  • Comment: Sorry if this is too morbid! I've never nominated anything before.

Moved to mainspace by PARAKANYAA (talk). Self-nominated at 09:23, 1 February 2024 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/1999 Tempe military base shooting; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

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: - In the article, the references for PAC demanding a military funeral demonstrate only "disappointment" that there is no military funeral, not a "demand" for one. However, the aggregate news source from "allAfrica" accompanying the DYK nomination does cover this and therefore needs to be in the article itself.
• Interesting:

QPQ: None required.

Overall: A well-referenced and comprehensive article. It's only a ref for the specific wording of the hook that needs attention. This is the reviewer's first DYK review—oversight welcome --AntientNestor (talk) 12:50, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

@AntientNestor oops. Fixed. PARAKANYAA (talk) 13:00, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

The reference, article and hook all agree now. Approved.--AntientNestor (talk) 13:55, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

@AntientNestor and PARAKANYAA: I can find no information on the publisher, WOZA. Allafrica.com lists a PO Box and says the news site became defunct circa 2001.[1] Could I get quick confirmation from someone that WOZA was a reliable source with editorial oversight of some kind? Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 04:06, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

@Rjjiii and PARAKANYAA:The editor of WOZA was Kevin Davie, a recipient of a journalism award from the Nieman Fellowship (Harvard University) currently business editor at the Mail & Guardian. This is not apparent from the ref as it stands. If this isn't accepted, substituting an existing RS ref from the article to cover it may be the easiest way forward.--AntientNestor (talk) 09:07, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Lone wolf : true stories of spree killers isbn 9780753506172, Google Books has that he "deserves a funeral with full honours" if an alternative is needed.--AntientNestor (talk) 10:36, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

@Rjjiii: My interpretation of WOZA vis a vis reliability was that they are a very obscure and now defunct news service, but were reliable when they were around. As said above, their main editor and founder was Davie (which I think is a good sign for reliability). There are some sources that describe them:

• listed here in South Africa News and Newspapers Online, "The Internet Archive archived some issues. Closed May 31, 2001 due to lack of funding. Had South African business and political news. Was an online-only news source run by Kevin Davie, former editor of Business Times."
• mentioned in his editorial profile, "He established www.woza.co.za, an online stand-alone news portal which flourished during the dotcom era but did not do so well when dotcom went dotbomb."
• here, "Kevin Davie is M&G's business editor. A journalist for more than 30 years, he has worked in senior positions at most major titles in the country. Davie is a Nieman Fellow (1995-1996) and cyberspace innovator, having co-founded SA's first online-only news portal, WOZA"
• here, "Among the potential partners was Kevin Davie, creator of SA’s pioneering news portal Woza"

If that's still an issue I can change the hook. PARAKANYAA (talk) 12:39, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks much for the detailed responses. This looks good. I was just struggling to find the info above on my own, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 21:36, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Assessment

@Cameron Dewe as you're the person who assessed this article, any particular issues you see that need to be improved? I would like to get this one as high quality as possible, since I think it's quite interesting. PARAKANYAA (talk) 09:35, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

@PARAKANYAA: My initial reaction upon reading the lead section was that I didn't know where this shooting had occurred. I am aware of Tempe being in the United States, although not exactly where, (see Tempe, Arizona). But to discover it is also a location in South Africa surprised me. This is not stated up front in the first sentence of the lead, where it is needed to orient the reader. Had that not been the case, I would have assessed it at a higher class. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 09:59, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

@Cameron Dewe ...fair point. That is now fixed. Any other criticisms, even if they aren't related to the assessment? I want to make this the best it can be. PARAKANYAA (talk) 10:03, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Funeral

The way the information is presented in the funeral section is a bit confusing. It mentions that the PAC applied for an interdict, but stops there and doesn't say what happened next regarding the petition. It then discusses plans for the funeral, and that it "was expected to take place 2 October", which suggests (incorrectly?) to the reader that it did not. But the article then goes on to discuss things that happened during the funeral, without actually saying that it took place, whether it was on that date, or whether it was a military funeral as demanded. I understand that sources may be hard to come by, but the reader shouldn't be left to assume such things.

Also, Swayi Mqojana's later comments are mixed in with speeches made during the funeral, which is confusing as they are about the police action, which isn't brought up in the article until the end. The text also presents several statements in quotation marks, but "slay whites" and "teach whites a lesson" are indirect reports from the AP wire article, not actual direct quotations. These should be attributed to the news source, or just have the quotation marks removed. --Paul_012 (talk) 13:30, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

@Paul 012 You can remove the DYK if you want if that causes issues with it. I don't really care. The reason it's phrased like this is because there's a weird discrepancy in the coverage where I can't actually figure out if the funeral was an SANDF funeral that they were forced to do by PAC, or if it was just something PAC did on its own. As far as I can tell, the sources don't say, just that they applied to force them to do it. But honestly I probably just didn't look hard enough so I'll check again, something probably says. The first sources about the funeral are from October 3, but they don't say if the funeral happened then or the day before, while there is a source saying it was planned for the second, which is why the date is phrased like that.

I'll check the quotes bit out and see if I can find more on what they actually said. PARAKANYAA (talk) 15:37, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

It's not an issue that should affect eligibility for DYK, so no problem there. My comments are just suggestions for improving the prose. I quite understand the limitations. For me, when there are discrepancies among sources, I've found that explaining the details in a footnote is quite helpful for understandability. --Paul_012 (talk) 17:02, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Fixed some of the issues you mentioned (Mqojana's quote, plus the stuff in quotation marks that shouldn't have been), will try to work on the others. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:42, 26 February 2024 (UTC)