Talk:Operation Gideon (2020)/Archive 6

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September 2023 UN Fact Finding Report

Just a quick note that the UN's Fact Finding Mission on Venezuela released a report today, where it mentions the claims of extrajudicial killings. (A_HRC_54_CRP8_CleanVersion.pdf, page 95) The section can otherwise be archived. --NoonIcarus (talk) 23:18, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

@NoonIcarus: Why would they put the report out only in Spanish-- that's goofy? It isn't going to be very helpful even as an External link. Quick skim, it seems to mostly deal in the torture of relatives and of those detained after 4 May, or did I miss something? I didn't see where it dealt in the actual victims of Gideon (but I skimmed very quickly). What's most helpful about the report is the context it provides for the general environment ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:07, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

My main point is mostly that the issue has due weight, being covered by an international organization like the United Nations. I can imagine there is only a Spanish version so far for being published so recently, but a translation could come later along with coverage by third sources. Regardless, I stress once again that this should be included in the lead. --NoonIcarus (talk) 19:19, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

I added it to EL, but I'm at a loss for how to use it in the article; we need secondary commentary or review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:29, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Why would you add such a large external link when you are raising concerns about size? WMrapids (talk) 01:51, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

You may be confused about the difference between article size and the size of an external link, which has no impact on article size. WP:SIZE give helpful information about how article size is measured, and Wikipedia has no restriction on the size of articles linked to as far as I know.

Also, in this edit, can you explain "completely unrelated", given that a large portion of the report pertains directly to Operation Gideon detainees ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:25, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

My mistake as I missed it, though if we are going to argue about slippery slopes on other topics, we shouldn't include external links quite yet. WMrapids (talk) 03:16, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

What slippery slope on what other topic? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:23, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

WMrapids you haven't answered this, and I'm still unclear on whether there is a valid reason for removing the link. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:07, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Reinstated EL here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:39, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

"Official positions"

WMrapids could you please provide the source upon which you base this edit? Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:10, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Because it it did not explain how they would remove Maduro and others, which was by force. It was not through means of applying pressure or democratic process, but through violence. WMrapids (talk) 15:17, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

WMrapids, I asked which source you are using to support "official positions"; could you please supply one? Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:57, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

It's pretty clear that Maduro and his allies held "official positions" as in they were officials who oversaw a government, military and institutions. Being an "official" is separate from the presidential crisis. WMrapids (talk) 18:18, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

WMrapids I'm asking for a source; do you have one? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:13, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I removed it. WMrapids (talk) 19:16, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Resolved, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:42, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

General Services Agreement

General Services Agreement

Almost 500 words of lopsided, overquoted, unbalanced text was added to an article that is already burdened with UNDUE content and approaching WP:SIZE limits. This is bound to slow down progress, and increase the talk page size, because now others have to sidetrack from other work to either fix the lopsidedness, or maintenance tag it. I filled in one missing piece, and then added in most of the needed balancing bits, but the article is 8,500 words long now, and more than 20% of that is in the Agreement section. The amount of content there is UNDUE (this is one small part of a very big story), and it could use a serious trim starting with reducing the overquoting. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:27, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

There is still work to be done here, so moving this to its own section; will detail as I find time. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:27, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Additional bits so far (please please provide archive-urls on paywalled sources (I'm having to do all that work alone and it's slowing me down from more productive work):

1. The secondary source analyzing the primary Meganalisis poll makes no mention of the Silvercorp issue; this is original research and undue without secondary analysis. Maybe that content would fit in the reaction section, but I'm not a fan at all of those original research reaction sections using primary source polls.
2. Why is Aleman there ? WP:VICE and whatever contrapunto.com is are not adequate sources for inclusion of this content.
3. Why are we sourcing content to a video (which is primary use) when we have scores of high-quality sources available. And why do we need to repeatedly state what Guaido (and everyone else) says, rather than summarizing that to just the highest quality sources, since we have so many? All of the sourcing to the Al Jazeera youtube can be replaced with better sources, and the article is bloated by excessive quoting and repetition rather than just "Redon said X, Guaido said y, Goudreau said Z", let the facts speak for themsleves. The excessive quoting and repetition is leading the reader-- not neutral.
4. Why are we highlighting one non-neutral NGO's opinion when we have scores of high-quality neutral sources ? That's cherry-picking one non-neutral primary source opinion, and more, positioning it at the start of a paragraph for prominence, creating POV.

Working on neutrality and reducing to eliminating the overquoting and repetition here should be able to result in reduction by at least a third of its size, if not more; the size of the section, relative to overall preponderance of sources, gives undue weight to one matter in a large issue. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:20, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Re #1, I found a secondary source for poll data and added it here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:44, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

@WMrapids: I came back and remembered that at WP:VENRS you described Meganálisis as a "pro-opposition" pollster that "frequently collaborates with WP:BREITBART". I wanted to ask if this affects your use of the poll. Kind regards, --NoonIcarus (talk) 10:17, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

It doesn't. If an opposition pollster is willing to show polls criticizing a lead figure, that is noteworthy. WMrapids (talk) 01:59, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm confused as to whether this is resolved. You claim elsewhere that sources that link to deprecated sources should be deprecated. At any rate, to resolve this, are you satisfied that I replaced that improper use of a primary source with a secondary source that was not SYNTH? That is, is the poll matter resolved now ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:39, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Size issues; suggest split

I've trimmed, moved and consolidated everywhere I can, but the article is still above 8,000 words of readable prose, there is much left out, and the main section-- Attack-- has not even been written. What is there now was written initially from a television transmission right after the event, and it's in bad shape. The Attack section is now 700 words; the General Services Agreement section is almost twice that-- taking almost 15% of the article. I trimmed what excessive quoting I could, but it still goes in to laborious detail that could be better explored in its own article.

I suggest splitting the contract to its own article, and using summary style to shorten it to about 500 words, so that Attack and other parts of the article can be written without passing size guidelines and making the article unreadable. The General Services Agreement section is the single largest piece of the article, and double the size in KB of the next largest (Attack). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:05, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Have you have an idea of possible split articles? I think that trimming content and removing unnecessary details would be better of the page (as I did with the banal American biographies info), but I'm not totally opposed to the idea. --NoonIcarus (talk) 10:20, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Per Washington Post scan

1. General Services Agreement between La Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela and Silvercorp USA. Or shorten to
2. General Services Agreement between Venezuela and Silvercorp.

Whether reduction is accomplished by trimming content here now, or splitting it to a sub-article, the prose size is now at 8,400 words, while the heart of the article ("Attack"-- describing the actual event) is essentially unwritten (what's there now is scarcely useful and wholly incomplete). Once "Attack" is written, the article will exceed 10,000 words of prose. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:20, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

I understand. I would usually recommend the usual "Reactions to X" article, but that section does not seem to be as long. The General Services Agreement might be a good alternative due to its size, although I worry about notability. --NoonIcarus (talk) 20:16, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

I would avoid any official title linking it to Venezuela as it was between Guiadó and Silvercorp. WMrapids (talk) 11:43, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

The exact name of the agreement is given ... in the agreement. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:36, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Again, that title is vague and POV. Recommending Guaidó–Silvercorp General Services Agreement and then stating later in the intro "Formally known as the 'General Services Agreement between La Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela and Silvercorp USA'". That would be more suitable. WMrapids (talk) 01:51, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

So you don't consider that POV when Guaido denies signing it ? How can Wikipedia state in WikiVoice something that a living person has denied ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:20, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Well, what would a solution be? Guaidó delegated tasks to his officials, so they were acting on his behalf. It is POV to say that "Venezuela" was involved since that would be saying that Guaidó (or his representatives) represented the state of Venezuela. WMrapids (talk) 20:40, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

As sources and most of the free world said he did. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:37, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

As of 1 October, the article is at 9,200 words of readable prose-- see TOOBIG at the size guideline page. A huge portion of that is in the Agreement section, which is UNDUE compared to any scholarly analysis of the event. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:37, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

If we were to move what you say is undue and possibly POV to its own article, would that open up the justification of deleting or heavily redacting that article? WMrapids (talk) 20:38, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't believe it would, as the topic of the Agreement itself seems to me to meet notability, and is even covered by high-quality sources, but since I'm a disaster at WP:AFD, I wouldn't take my word on that. (I don't recall saying that section was POV; it's just out of proportion here to the way sources handle that aspect of the subject.) What would be problematic would be moving the content to a POV article title; the name of the agreement is the name of the agreement, and if Guaido (as opposed to just his representatives) entered into it, it was in his capacity as the leader of La Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela as recognized by most of the free world. Considering that this article has not moved away from a state of POV, perhaps worrying about SIZE is something that can be deferred for now; I brought this up in the expectation this article would be moving towards a better-quality assessment by this point. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:36, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Fate of Cuba; original research

Re this edit, WMrapids, you originally added the words

• The election made López believe that negotiations were not an option and that the Venezuelans did not have much time to achieve their freedom,

which is not a reflection of the source, and I thought oddly unneutral, and then replaced. Your current version:

• he believed Cuba was an authoritarian nation and that Venezuela was quickly following suit

in even more problematic. The source says:

• Mr. López expressed the view that negotiations and the electoral route would take too much time, said a person who spoke with him about strategy. “He was very concerned that unless something was done soon, then the Venezuelan people would end up like the Cuban people, absolutely passive and broken and unable to mount a defense of themselves,” said the person, who is familiar with the dynamics in the opposition and U.S. policy.

Nowhere in that source does it say that Lopez "believed Cuba was an authoritarian nation" or that "Venezuela was quickly following suit". If you could please engage on talk to discuss your edits, we could make faster progress. The current text is original research and does not reflect the source. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:45, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Better,[1] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:05, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Archive ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:27, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes. WMrapids (talk) 18:57, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

POV edits

It appears that in my absence, a lot of POV edits were performed. Some edits attempted to describe the Maduro government as a "socialist regime" or "regime" in Wikivoice while other edits attempted to place the highly POV narrative that the attempted attack was a false flag or resulted in executions in the main section about the landings. The users who have been participating seem either supportive or indifferent to these POV edits. This needs to stop immediately. WMrapids (talk) 18:37, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

WMrapids there's a handy tool called "who wrote that" which demonstrates that you added one of those instances of regime that you just deleted; I think we can hardly single other editors out for following what you established. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:46, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Could you please show the edit? WMrapids (talk) 18:51, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Give me five more minutes; as we saw at Nelson Bocaranda, where Who Wrote That? isn't working, I suspect WWT might be returning an error in this case. Have you installed WP:Who Wrote That? (it's quite handy, and quicker than WikiBlame). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:53, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't really like installing browser extensions. Not trying to badger you with questions, but if I made such an edit, I'd like to know and would be the first to apologize for such behavior. WMrapids (talk) 18:57, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, struck: WWT is glitching at this article as well. It is attributing almost the entire Landing attempt section to you, which is incorrect. As I've only seen this happen now twice, both instances with your edits, I suspect it's something caused by something about how you edit-- perhaps the stinky visual editor is glitching, but I raised this last month at WP:VPT, and a ticket has been submitted-- now we have to wait for the developers to fix it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:59, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

It seems that I'm always causing trouble ;) Thanks for striking! WMrapids (talk) 19:03, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

It's quite irritating that WWT has these developer issues, as it's a much quicker tool to use than WikiBlame <sigh> ... my sincere apologies for the mistake ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:10, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

This is the edit that broke the Who Wrote That tool, and it's not hard to see why. A major rewrite of an entire article in one edit, sans discussion, makes it hard to imagine what tool could get the authorship attribution right. (Since WWT and page stats are returning the same authorship number, this means it is not only the WWT tool that can't properly attribute content with an edit of this nature.) After this edit, the tool attributes entire bit about "According to the Maduro regime" to WMrapids, and examining that edit, it's not hard to see why. WMrapids, if you could make your edits in smaller increments, it might be easier on everyone, including Wikipedia's authorship tools. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:19, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Government, administration, officials

In the same vein, I applaud you for removing those instances of regime and agree it's problematic (while noting that numerous sources use the same word), but I'm curious that you replace it with "Maduro government"[2] while denying that Gauido's was a recognized government;[3] this seems contradictory and POV. Could you explain the absence of parity ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:51, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Could it be that hindsight is 2020? What is the most neutral wording for you? Was also thinking that "Maduro administration" or "Maduro officials" might be better. WMrapids (talk) 18:59, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Whichever is the choice, it needs to be applied consistently to both. There was a Maduro government and a Guiado government; a Maduro administration and a Guiado administration; Maduro officials and Guiado officials. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:02, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

The "officials" wording seems most appropriate. WMrapids (talk) 19:04, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

"Officials" wouldn't work in this instance, where your edit summary said "what government?" SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:12, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

My edit does work because Guaidó was the name, brand and product for his "government". WMrapids (talk) 20:52, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

That leaves out the legitimately elected National Assembly, which is a POV issue. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:24, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Adminstration is perhaps the most neutral term for both given that it was in some doubt who the legal government was at the time. "Officials" carries a sense of officialdom, and the same issue. Iskandar323 (talk) 02:34, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

That works for me ... in the edit where the parity was removed, administration would work, as it was Guiado and his close appointees who were weakened. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:12, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Beginnings of establishing parity; there is more to do. Throughout, the article had referred to Maduro's administration in unqualified terms, while always qualifying Guiado's administration. I have not yet examined the entire article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:34, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Archive ?? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:17, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Source analysis

See User:SandyGeorgia/GideonSources; see also user:ReyHahn/macutoraid and user:WMrapids/sandbox/OPGIDEON and User:Orgullomoore/Orgullomoore's Long Nonselective List of Headlines Regarding Operation Gideon Between 7-23 May 2020

I still have more work to do, but am far enough along that a trend is apparent. Could others please examine my work so far, and could we move towards phase 3.1 of the timeline laid out above? Please use User:SandyGeorgia/GideonSources to raise any errors there, so as not to burden this talk page.

The previous claims on this page based on cherry-picked source counting about the preponderance of the word coup are inaccurate and misleading. There are some sources that consistently label the event a coup, while there are numerous and high-quality sources that never describe it as a coup. There is an almost equal spread between raid, incursion and invasion, while there is widespread use of Operation Gideon.

The strongest cases made for coup are from Bloomberg, Miami Herald, and The Telegraph. While most high quality sources choose to never describe it as a coup, there is enough significant coverage describing it as a coup that omitting that from the lead creates POV. Mention in the lead that some consider it a coup should be carefully constructed to avoid undue weight, while also avoiding a laundry list; perhaps we can discuss that after we have discussed the three different source lists and identified any omissions or errors. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:43, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Isn’t this all a big operation of source counting in general? WMrapids (talk) 11:47, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

A list of sources cherrypicked to support one term, without analysis of what all sources do, is undeniably sourcecounting.

What I would like to focus on is, what are the strongest sources in support of the notion of the event as a coup, so that we can work that significant point of view in to the lead in a balanced way, without creating a laundry list. Do you agree that the strongest cases are made by Bloomberg, The Miami Herald and The Telegraph, or do you have an alternate?

Numerous high-quality sources do not treat it as a coup, so that part is much less difficult to sort out; we should be able to work on adding the "coup" aspect to the lead if we can agree on which are the highest quality and best sources in support of that point of view. What won't advance the NPOVing needed in this article is the continued promotion of the demonstrably false idea of the prominence of the "coup" aspect relative to the preponderance of sources, including the best and most recent. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:03, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Could you highlight Operation Gideon for comparison?-ReyHahn (talk) 13:10, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

ReyHahn I could do that, but I feel like then I should pick a color to highlight every alternate term, which could become garbled. My main point so far is to hone in on which sources to use for the "coup" allegation, as we do need to work that in to the article per the significant but minority NPOV aspect. Perhaps after we have done that part, I could go back and make adjustments to the list (which I'm also not finished working on, but am traveling). For now, I'm seeking high-quality reliable sources that treat it as a coup, when most don't. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:39, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

I was not suggesting to highlight every term but Operation Gideon is the current name. Anyway maybe it is better without any highlight? We are looking for a way to measure all the possible terms with a similar scale, as we area looking for a notable alternative.--ReyHahn (talk) 16:03, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

I made this list (User:Orgullomoore/Orgullomoore's Long Nonselective List of Headlines Regarding Operation Gideon Between 7-23 May 2020) back in the day, in case it's of any use to you guys.--Orgullomoore (talk) 23:36, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for that, Orgullomoore! For the reasons laid out by ReyHahn at #Source discussion, I started my work by date from the most recent (searching ProQuest), working back towards the oldest, so I mostly haven't yet gotten to what sources were doing as the event was unfolding. When I found a high-quality source like The New York Times or Reuters, for example, that never used the term coup, I then switched from working backwards by date to instead doing a specific search on that outlet to be sure that was correct. Time separated from the event and dispassionate analysis from peer-reviewed sources trump WP:NOTNEWS reporting, and I've yet to find a scholarly source that describes the event as a coup, so I'm not overly concerned about continuing to work back to older dates, although I'm still picking away at finishing. It's helpful to see that your early headline analysis agrees with my analysis later: coup is an infrequent descriptor for this event.

I'm not sure where this leaves us with a possible Requested move, as we aren't getting regular participation on talk from WMrapids despite pings, and they are the editor insisting on coup in the title. I have found no evidence that would support coup in the article name. Perhaps we can move on to brainstorming other ideas. Based on my reading of hundreds of sources so far, plus the weight of the scholarly sources, I'm at a loss for how we can call this article anything but some version of Gideon. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:33, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Honestly I think the most accurate label I've seen is Goudreau's Folly! If only it were to catch on. But yes, I agree that "Operation Gideon" is the least bad option at this point in time. And I also agree that it's important to look at what sources are calling it after the dust settled.--Orgullomoore (talk) 02:38, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes to the Folly (I thought I was so clever, who knows why AP and WaPo didn't consult me first :) The best I can come up with for an article name is that getting the when where what right would yield 2020 Venezuelan Operation Gideon. If we could find a way use the non-specific plot, I'd prefer that to all the other options (raid, incursion, invasion, etc) as it's just more general. But I'm not sure a change other than to get the when were what is warranted, now that I've spent weeks in the sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:51, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

We should focus on the raid/incursion/landing part because that is what is actually notable. What about something along the lines 2020 Venezuela incursion attempt/ intercepted incursion?.--ReyHahn (talk) 09:39, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

If others could please focus for now on whether my source analysis is good enough and complete enough (or do I need to dig back further date-wise), we could then have a source-based discussion. None of the scholarly or book sources or peer-reviewed sources written at some distance from the actual event are describing it as anything other than "Operation Gideon", best I can tell. (With the exception of one book that is unrelated to anything Venezuela and just a passing commentary from a controversial author.). Have others looked for recent scholarly sources and analysis I may have missed? If y'all can opine on the sources, and how to use them, we can then move in to having a source-based discussion of names. (The way we cut through the extremely controversial topics at the J. K. Rowling FAR was by first determining how to use the best sources, and prioritizing peer-reviewed and scholarly sources written at some distance from the events; if you do that, the text has an easier time writing itself.) Can we brainstorm naming ideas after others have stated whether the source lists are good and valid and free of errors or omissions? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:30, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Ok about the sources, I am concerned by the scholarly sources. As participant of science article editing, I have experienced several problems with academic journals. There are a large number of predatory or pay-to-publish journals. If you want to find flat Earth peer-reviewed papers you will get them. However, in physics, the theories are very precise and the good journals are pretty much well established, so we know when something is undue. When two papers are in conflict there are ways to resolve this based on math and accuracy of the models. If not we can look at what appears in textbooks. What is the filter for politics articles here? is it based in the authority of the author? Does any of us known how to evaluate these academic pieces or the reliability of these journals? I have the impression that academic journals for politics and sociology sometimes (not always) share many similarities with personal blog posts. --ReyHahn (talk) 13:40, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, ReyHahn; I agree that is a problem with journal publications (and more so with books).

On the scholarly/journal articles that I've incorporated into the article, Corrales is an author who knows Venezuela well; Bull, Harwood and Villa give indepth reviews that I don't think we can justify excluding; and Koh is probably a bit iffy. But what's of more interest is that I came up with no journal article that discusses the event as a coup, and that conclusion doesn't seem to change if we account for politics, and excluding Koh won't change it. At least they are mostly peer-reviewed, and the same can't be said for the book.

On the books, the quality is highly varied. Of those I've added, Neuman is so frankly biased and lightweight in its treatment that we should take care. He published a book about his views as a journalist, his bias is clear (anti-Guiado), so we have to take care to avoid his hyperbole, and one of the book review criticisms of his work is that he was too light or naive on the Cuban issue. I omitted Maher as a passing comment on an unrelated topic from a controversial author; some may disagree with that choice; we should discuss. Mijares gives a thorough treatment that we can't ignore, and same for DeFronzo, although his bias is obvious. But again, the conclusion doesn't change regardless of politics; books sources (like journal sources) written at a greater remove from the actual event simply aren't calling it a coup.

On the reliability of the journals, Taylor & Francis is generally very high quality and can't be ignored. Using Fordham Law Review could be questioned. I'm not familiar with Current History or Defence Studies. But for all of these instances, I don't think we're using any of these sources to cite anything controversial in the article; if so, let's dig in ? Do you see instances where using any of these sources is problematic? For instance, with Neuman, I've already replaced some of his personal hyperbole (makes for an easy bedside read for those not thoroughly familiar with Venezuela, but too personalized and not peer-reviewed) with sources that make the point dispassionately.

Where I've most used these sources, and found them helpful, was in the Background section, which had earlier been cobbled together via SYNTH. I found that most of them gave a concise analysis of the background, and thought them helpful for that purpose.

This is the kind of discussion we need to have about sources to lead in to naming, so thanks for raising this. If you have a specific concern about a specific source, we can outline that and ping Ealdgyth (a historian and one of the best source reviewers in the Featured article process), but she is SO busy that I hesitate to ping her unless we have a specific question. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:30, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Coup and terminology

I think there is a distinction between sources that do not use that terminology of "failed/attempted coup" specifically and those that do not treat or describe the events in any way as a coup attempt. Sources that say the raid, invasion or incursion had the express intent of deposing Maduro or unseating his government are still describing a coup attempt regardless of whether they use that particular piece of abridged French-origin terminology. And all of these sources would be distinct again from any sources that might, for example, dismiss the raid as being intent on removing Maduro – that, for me, would be a source not describing a coup (attempt). There appears to be a view in some quarters that "coup" is slanted terminology ... and that is an opinion that people are welcome to hold, but for me it is simply a four-letter descriptive word for the removal of a head of state. As for why certain media sources eschew the word, that I can't determine. It would be curious to see if it formed part of the style guide or consistent practice of any outlets or if it is simply an elective language choice on a story-by-story basis. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:47, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

This is a point I have contemplated and investigated (original research alert :) . I suspect (but this is speculation) that the reason the sources are hesitant to call it a coup rests in the fact that Guaido was the leader of the country as recognized by virtually the entire free world, so that whether or not he signed that agreement, they view it as expatriate military trying to remove the usurper (to use Guaido's term, for lack of a better one). Of interest to me is that virtually all the sources who do not call it a coup did call other events a coup, so I don't suspect it's a style guide thing.

I think the nuance in this is probably found in the US Neutrality Act:

But, on the other hand, when a nation with which we are at peace, or the recognized government thereof, undertakes to procure armed vessels for the purpose of enforcing its own recognized authority within its own dominions, although there may be evidence satisfactory to show that they will aid the government in the suppression of insurrection or rebellion, in a legal view this does not involve a design to commit hostilities against anybody. [4]

Perhaps it hinges on whether one views Maduro as a head of state, which most of the world did not. In other cases, US citizens were charged with violating the Neutrality Act: in this case, it appears the authorities thought the situation murky enough that they couldn't make that stick with Goudreau.

At any rate, that is my speculation only, having investigated that angle out of curiosity. I don't think it's about avoiding the terminology, rather, recognition that Maduro wasn't the leader of the country according to most of the free world, hence the "murkiness". Although we don't know why they avoided the word, they did, so we still have a situation that Wikipedia follows secondary sources, doesn't lead, and if sources aren't calling it a coup, neither can we. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:11, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

The thing is, sources do clearly call it a coup... WMrapids (talk) 02:20, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Some do, some don't - see the separate source analysis. Iskandar323 (talk) 02:34, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Which analysis? There is so much "analysis" all over this messy talk page. In any case, it should be the decision of a larger group of users to decide the description of this article. However, this discussion is drifting further and further into original research (Goudreau's Folly?) and fringe theories (Cuban intelligence?) which is not helpful. The previous move discussions always returned to supporting the coup wording, so it is a valid proposal. Not saying that it should be the only proposal either (not sure if we figured out the multiple proposal system). WMrapids (talk) 02:49, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

The analysis at the top of the section you are posting in. If you could take the time to review and comment on that analysis, that will help move us all closer to formulating proposals for the eventual Move request. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:58, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Again, the "coup attempt" wording should be a main proposal beside any "novel" title proposal that is suggested here, though through a quick glance, it still seems that there are no ideas after nearly a month. WMrapids (talk) 03:10, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

What do you mean by "main proposal"? All proposals are contemplated equally by anyone coming to a Move request discussion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:09, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Re "fringe theories" about Cuban intelligence, if you aren't familiar with the literature,[5] Venezuela's full history, or the history of chavismo in Venezuela, Google is your friend. NoonIcarus does Wikipedia not have an article we can link to for illumation? WMrapids, even the AlJazeera Bay of Piglets video mentions this-- not to mention the scores of better sources. See timestamp 6:35. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:52, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Cuba–Venezuela relations is in really bad shape, in case anyone has the appetite for it. Here are a couple good sources on the topic externally: Reuters 2019-08-22, Special Report: How Cuba taught Venezuela to quash military dissent; Apr 2019, Cubazuela: Chronicle of a Cuban Intervention--Orgullomoore (talk) 03:18, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

• Geopolitical monitor
• New York Times
• Georgetown Security Studies Review
• Voice of America News
• Bloomberg
• Foreign Policy
• The Washington Post
• CNN
• US Army journal

That's just a very small sampling; anyway, this is getting off-topic, since even the sources specific to Operation Gideon mention the matter. (Associated Press, Aljazeera 6:35) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:50, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: Quite gladly: Examples of mentions already in references from the article include: AP2, AP3, AP4 and Reuters. To not get too sidetracked, I will only mention that by 2018 the OAS Secretary General already estimated that at least 22,000 Cubans had infiltrated the Venezuelan government. --NoonIcarus (talk) 11:27, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

NoonIcarus, thanks for that; I was wondering, though, why we don't have an article on Cuban intelligence in Venezuela for easy linking. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:20, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

What I am saying is that you are using a scare tactic to discount generally reliable sources. Saying to "be aware of the Cuban intelligence effect" when reviewing Al Jazeera reporting is fringey and original research on your part in an apparent effort to attack the source instead of just attributing. That is not helpful. WMrapids (talk) 19:09, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Developing consensus on talk about sources is a normal part of Wikipedia collaborative editing, and advice to attribute and vary sources is good advice for most articles, and even more so, a controversial and nuanced one. And my advice is not only about VICE; it's about the use of primary sources in general. There are some appropriate uses of videos, and others less so. When citing a primary source, make sure it's DUE, doesn't contradict secondary sources, yada yada. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:25, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Iskandar323 here's an analysis that helps explain the "murky" territory, and could explain the hesitancy of some sources to call it a coup. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:56, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Ok. Some sources were muzzled from describing it a coup attempt, though plenty of other reliable sources have. So it's time to leave it to the decision of users. WMrapids (talk) 03:12, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

WMrapids you reviewed that summary of scores of sources in ten minutes? Are there any important sources that are missing? Are there errors in my analysis? It would help us all prepare a good Move request that won't waste the broader community's time if we take the source issues seriously and don't present errors or omissions or misunderstandings. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:48, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

As I have said before, I took a break and am still not done with my sources. However, there are still ample sources that describe this as a coup attempt and plenty of users support the move. WMrapids (talk) 18:20, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Figures I guess. Iskandar323 (talk) 02:35, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Perception section

Orgullomoore, what I had tried to do when writing the "perception" section was to limit the sources to only high-quality or scholarly to avoid having it turn in to a laundry list. I was forced to lesser sources on the coup indication, as there aren't a lot of high-quality sources for that, so I used the strongest we had, but generally I tried to stick to only the kinds of sources that would pass muster in, for example, a featured article. My thought was that, if we don't draw a line on that section, it will quickly spiral into a laundry list full of trivia, and we need some sort of limitation or definition of what we would add there. Re this edit, my suggestion is to avoid using a lesser quality source like WP:VICE (not a high quality source, and not a high quality article even), as that opens the door to a laundry list. Probably one of the better sources also used that term ??? Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:36, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Your preoccupation on WP:VICE is strange. They have provided thorough reports on the event, were cited by reliable sources and context matters. Perhaps this is more suitable in a NPOV discussion? WMrapids (talk) 02:01, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia I disagree that VICE is inherently low quality and agree with WMrapids's point that context matters when it comes to judging the reliability of sources. I think the same point applies to the Al Jazeera documentary. However, I don't have a strong position regarding whether "ramshackle" is removed from what I believe is already a laundry list, so please feel free to remove it if you believe it detracts from the quality of the Perception section.--Orgullomoore (talk) 02:30, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Orgullomoore I'm not concerned enough to remove it; just raising the point that unless we establish some sourcing parameters, the section can spiral out of control to include every possible adjective out there-- that's why I tried to stick to scholarly sources wherever possible. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:01, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Oh no! Now we have a situation where both of us are unconcerned. LOL. Well if anyone else has an issue with it, let it be known that it's not a hill I'm prepared to die on and they can go right ahead. As long as we are moving generally and collaboratively in the right direction, I'm chill.--Orgullomoore (talk) 03:12, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Cited content removed

In this edit, the "bizarre", "murky" that is used in the lead was removed, leaving content in the lead which is not in the body, breaching WP:LEAD. Almost every single source uses one or the other of those terms. I don't care whether the adjectives stay or go, but I do care about uncited content in the lead.

More importantly, though, this bit was also deleted:

• raised questions about different versions of the narrative.

References

See, for example, Neuman's list of questions about the narrative at User:SandyGeorgia/GideonSources#Books. Why was that content removed (cited to two good sources, one being the high-quality Washington Post)? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:42, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

My opinion is that the edit should be undone. The edit summary: "A list of adjectives seems unnatural while actual terminology seems valid. Removing the list of adjectives." does not make sense to me. What is meant by "actual terminology" as compared to "a list of adjectives"? I agree that it is worthy of mention that most sources that talk about the event call it something like bizarre, doomed from the start, ridiculous, ramshackle, etc. It shows that there is widespread astonishment about the amateurishness of the whole thing. The statement that it seems unnatural does not justify the removal. I could understand suggesting an improvement to the format.--Orgullomoore (talk) 05:00, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

For now, I've addressed the problem of the lead not summarizing content in the body by adding some of that content back to the Attempted landing section (where it may be a better fit anyway, but not wedded to that). Orgullomoore, you may have better formatting ideas; I just don't want to mention the bizarre aspect in the lead if it isn't cited in the body, and that has always been in the lead (oddly). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:52, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

That's a really creative resolution. It also gave a voice to my uncited and then removed statement that it was difficult to ascertain or verify the facts because almost everyone who would know the details is either dead or gagged. Good job!--Orgullomoore (talk) 05:58, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

One stone, two birds ! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:00, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I apologize that the source was removed (we already discussed what happened on my talk page), but listing a bunch of adjectives for the event is plainly strange. Should we provide adjectives provided by the Venezuelan government as well? Which adjectives do we include? Now actual descriptions of the event are more suitable (coup attempt, attack, invasion, etc.) WMrapids (talk) 15:22, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

WMrapids if you read the talk page, you'll find I explained that. I represented every view that was prominent in the sources, and then also added on maduro's and guaido's views. I used those adjectives supported by highest quality or scholarly sources, except for the case of coup (because there are no scholarly sources supporting that view), in which case I instead used the strongest sources we have for the word coup. I've asked you since 12:03, 25 September 2023 (UTC) if you have sources that are omitted from the source analysis, or stronger sources for the coup viewpoint, which I will gladly add if you provide. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:16, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Sandy, I am kindly reminding you that my edits are not to satisfy you, especially since you are the one who is making hundreds of edits to edit an article about something that happened over three years ago and overtaking this process. I will work on my own time, so please stop. WMrapids (talk) 18:24, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

WMrapids although several editors have disagreed here on talk with your edits to the characterization of the event, you have now for the second time, removed very well cited content. That's not collaborative editing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:56, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

There has been little to no true discussion about including useless adjectives and taking up more space in an article you have size concerns about. So please don't criticize me about collaboration. WMrapids (talk) 20:50, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

We still have "observers described the operation as amateurish, underfunded, poorly-planned, having little or no chance of success, and a suicide mission" uncited in the body of the article, yet included in the lead. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:10, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

 Fixed--Orgullomoore (talk) 19:06, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

 Not done Can we keep the editorializing nonsense out of the article? It does not provide any support to encyclopedic content. WMrapids (talk) 19:10, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Honestly, WMrapids, I consider what you are doing to be disruptive. I addressed the concern of the sentence that has been in the lead for years not being adequately cited. I then restored the stable version. You arbitrarily decided that you don't like it and removed it twice. How are we supposed to collaborate if you just impose your will inflexibly?--Orgullomoore (talk) 19:14, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Please be careful with aspersions and review WP:BRD. WMrapids (talk) 19:19, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Please address the issue at hand.--Orgullomoore (talk) 19:24, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Catching up now on the diffs of rapid-fire massive changes, WMrapids, you (at least) twice removed this content from the lead, which best I can tell, has been there for years, and you removed it after Orgullomoore took the effort to make sure that content in the lead was cited in the body. I fail to see how you can say that calling that kind of editing "disruptive" is casting aspersions, because one naturally wonders why that text in the lead didn't trouble you before, when it wasn't even cited in the body of the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:36, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

WMrapids in this edit, you add Goudreau's (editorialzing) opinions (a statement whose benefit to the article escapes me), yet in this edit and this one, you delete what you call editorializing that is cited to very high quality sources (something that is cited to a very high quality source is not a BLP issue). I'm very confused about your edits today. I understand you've been away for a few days, and that's fine, but discussing your edits on talk might help lower the issues occurring. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:34, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia, the first diff you linked to is my edit, not WMrapids'. I removed the sentence.--Orgullomoore (talk) 20:15, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I'll have to come back later then to find the edits I'm referring to; editing is happening very fast, without discussion, and my diffs are getting distorted. Editing without the WWT tool is not fun. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:19, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Now maybe you know how I've felt through this whole process. Too much happening all at once. WMrapids (talk) 20:32, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, Orgullomoore, and sorry for heading out for a social event and leaving cleanup on that to you. (I had multiple diffs up at once, and trying to track back on that now, after so much edit warring, probably isn't worth the time now.) WMrapids, you may have misunderstood what I intended as an apology to Orgullomoore for getting the wrong diff because the WTT tool doesn't work here. Working on large talk pages with a lot going on is not uncommon on Wikipedia. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:27, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Now catching up; WMrapids this is the edit that confused me. Which part of MOS:EDITORIAL, which you cited in edit summary, is invoked in that content? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:39, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Another removal of cited content

Another problem with the removal of cited content is that we are now in a position of prepping to ask the community which term to use to describe the event, but having deleted the terms used by a majority of sources (raid, infiltration, incursion and anti-Maduro plot) from the discussion. All of these descriptions were cited to high-quality sources, while coup (which lacks preponderance among high-quality sources) was retained. WMrapids favors describing the event as an attack, but sources favor other terms, and for the best possible Move request, I wonder why we are excluding terms favored by sources, and suggest re-instating them pending a Move request resolution. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:35, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

The high quality sources and terms should be reinstated, then.--Aréat (talk) 14:43, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

For now, I've tagged what remains after WMrapids' edits as lopsided, since only those WM prefers are left, while others more prominent have been removed. We risk wasting the community's time in asking them to opine on what to call the article if we are leaving out the most prominent views, and highlighting the least prominent. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:02, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Many of those terms were synonymous and a waste of space (Invasion = infiltration, etc). WMrapids (talk) 18:34, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

You don't think we should let that decision be made by independent readers who come to the Move request to evaluate all options? For whatever reason, different sources have pronounced preferences. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:14, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Please see WP:VNOT. Sure, sources may have a lot of descriptions through the process of editorializing their stories, but it does not warrant inclusion, especially if such descriptions are synonymous. You were concerned about article size regarding the General Services Agreement and called for the removal of the information, yet you seem to support placing synonymous adjectives and a lengthy list of supporting sources. This is strange. WMrapids (talk) 19:23, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I refer you again to WP:SIZE; sources do not affect readable prose size. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:57, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

That's why I brought up the numerous sources used to support the inclusion of various, unhelpful adjectives. WMrapids (talk) 20:30, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

The number of sources does not affect the readable prose size; I don't understand why you keep raising this. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:19, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Current version

As of this 05:12, October 2, 2023 version, we have:

Journalists varied between describing the plot as an attempted coup, attack, invasion, raid, landing and operation. Some scholarly sources referred to the operation by its code name, "Operation Gideon."

Sources
References

This has several problems.

1. We're not referencing only journalists. Wikipedia is not a newspaper, and three years after the event, there are scholarly and book sources written at some remove and allowing for more dispassionate or peer-reviewed analysis.
2. We say some scholarly sources refer to it as "Operation Gideon", which is wrong, but see point 3.
3. We're starting down the some-several-few-many-all path, which never ends well, and is often original research when inserted into articles. We still have no scholarly source that describes it as a coup, and virtually every scholarly source or book describes it as Operation Gideon, as do the large majority of journalistic sources, but that isn't something we should be burdening our readers with anyway because a) it's original research, and b) our readers don't know the distinctions we make in our editorial choices between high-quality and other reliable sources. As editors, we can make editorial decisions about sources and how to use them, but that's behind the scenes, on talk, transparent to our readers.
4. We're listing first the only option that has very few high-quality sources backing it.
5. Because I originally chose only one or two of the highest quality sources to represent each option, the appearance from the way the list is now is that very few sources support, for example, the word raid or incursion, when those are among the most frequent characterizations of the event.
6. That even sources are confused and have questioned the narrative has been (wrongly, IMO and that of others) deleted from the article by the consensus of one editor. This leaves it unclear that the narrative isn't trustworthy, and that there is murky and bizarre nuance in the event and the narrative. We haven't yet seen an understandable reason for that deletion.

Proposal next. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:55, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Proposal for how to characterize the event

We want readers (and those coming to opine on a Move request) to be aware of the absence of black-and-white answers on this topic. We shouldn't be implying there's one or a "right answer" here. I propose:

1. Reinstate the removed content about the murky narrative (or some version thereof).
2. Don't grow the adjective list beyond murky and bizarre; that's enough to convey the issue, and we don't want a laundry list.
3. Don't burden the reader with what type of source (scholarly, journalistic, whatever) we are using; they won't know the difference, and Wikipedia editors-- who do-- know what they're looking for, and don't need to be told.
4. Reduce to only using the scholarly sources for the event characterizations, except make an exception for the coup option, as we don't have a scholarly source, and use the four top sources (which is what we've done).
5. Order the characterizations by preponderance in sources (DUE WEIGHT)
6. Can we all agree it's in general terms an "anti-Maduro plot" (a term used in many sources), so that we don't need a scholarly source for that ?

Making these changes would leave us with something like:

Media sources, analysts and individuals used terms like murky and bizarre to describe the plot and events, and raised questions about different versions of the narrative. Sources varied between describing the anti-Maduro plot as: an operation referred to by its code name Gideon; a failed incursion, infiltration, insurrection, invasion or raid; and an attempted landing, or coup.

Sources
References

Discussion of Proposal for how to characterize the event

• Support proposal to present a mostly scholarly-sourced overview of different characterizations of the event; let the reader decide. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:55, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
• I support the proposal. It's a reasonable compromise that is well thought out.--Orgullomoore (talk) 06:05, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support, we should let the reader decide on how to characterize these issues.--ReyHahn (talk) 09:20, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support based on it's fair representation of all points of view. --NoonIcarus (talk) 17:43, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Installed. (I suggest we re-convene after the WP:RM to reduce the sentence depending on how the article name is resolved.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:59, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

ARCHIVE ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:06, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Al Jazeera Bay of Piglets documentary on YouTube

I endeavored to phase out the Bay of Piglets documentary uploaded to YouTube by Al Jazeera English on 4/29/2021, to get rid of those ugly "better source needed" tags. But actually, the documentary is a very good source that contains an interview of Ingrid Castañeda (19:30 mark), one of the policewomen who detained the occupants of the second boat with the assistance of local fishermen. This is the only place I have seen her name disclosed, much less an interview describing how the encounter went down. It's also the only place I have found support for the statement that the roof of boat # 2 had to be removed and uniforms thrown overboard to lighten the boat (17:25 mark). There are other sources that explain the motor failure and fuel issues (e.g., the 11/18/2020 Miami Herald "How Betrayal . . ." article). I don't think the citations to the video should be removed. It would be great if there were an article reporting everything contained in the documentary, but there's not, as far as I have been able to find.--Orgullomoore (talk) 00:15, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Always be aware of the Cuban intelligence effect, and vary the sources as much as possible. Source 1 says X, source 2 says Y. What do we really know about Ingrid Castaneda, and why are we willing to completely trust the unreviewed commentary of people in a television show that happened early after the event? Vary the sources, don't take one early television interview as the end of a complex story with effects of Cuban intelligence. Differing accounts came out after the early reporting. Maduro knew about the plan. Who was Ingrid Castaneda? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:23, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Um... are you really going into a fringe rant about "Cuban intelligence"? Just simply attribute things and keep it going. WMrapids (talk) 02:03, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Covered at #Coup and terminology. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:16, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Resolved, section rewritten by Orgullomoore to encompass all views. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:43, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Unresolved, rewrite was reverted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:58, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Does Al Jazeera has an article along with the documentary? I cannot help but feel that the source is a primary reference. I can help looking after information about Ingrid Castañeda if needed. --NoonIcarus (talk) 18:20, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

NoonIcarus: Unfortunately, no; not that I have been able to find anyway. If you search "Operation Gideon OR Operación Gedeón" AND "Ingrid Castañeda" you will find nothing.----Orgullomoore (talk) 20:43, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

It's surprising that we have now a Wikipedia article extensively citing not one, but two primary source Youtubes when a considerable number of reliable secondary sources are available. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:56, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Al Jazeera is generally reliable and Vice News has fairly thorough coverage on this event. WMrapids (talk) 03:14, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Documentaries are primary sources, and as such secondary references are preferred. --NoonIcarus (talk) 14:55, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Not seeing any issue with this per WP:RS and WP:CITE. WMrapids (talk) 18:49, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Polls

NoonIcarus could you please review this edit? The source in question specifically mentions both Maduro and Guaido in an article about the Gideon operation; I don't believe there is synth. (But then, I wrote it :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:24, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: You're absolutely right, I'm so sorry. The first time that I went through the article I couldn't find it. I wanted to ask if it was possible to add more context, though, since Guaidó's popularity had already started dropping since the April 2019 uprising. Pinging @ReyHahn: to see what they think. --NoonIcarus (talk) 19:40, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't think we can add more context without SYNTH unless the sources are specifically Gideon sources, and I'm not aware of any other sources that cover polls wrt Gideon. We've already stated the earlier drop in the Background section with "Following the failed 2019 Venezuelan uprising attempt led by Guaidó against Maduro on 30 April, Guaidó's movement lost momentum ... " SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:09, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Put it back,[6] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:05, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Archive ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:03, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Sorry I was out. I was pinged here. Is this solved?--ReyHahn (talk) 22:07, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

ReyHahn I believe so, and I'm unsure what NoonIcarus was asking for your feedback on. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:18, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

@ReyHahn: I simply wanted to know your thoughts regarding the following text in the Polls section: Guaidó's support fell in polls from 61% in January 2019 to a new low of 25% in a May 2020 poll, compared to Maduro's 13% support in the same poll; the pollster stated that, while Maduro was "reviled", people no longer believed Guaidó. --NoonIcarus (talk) 11:24, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Well I cannot say much against the WSJ, but I believe there was still some movement left, as there was still a protest attempt in 2020 that was stalled due to COVID19, so some maybe the phrase needs some nuance. As for the polls I do not remember exaxctly what the polls said or how many there were.--ReyHahn (talk) 11:51, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

ReyHahn I was checked out of Venezuelan issues during COVID, so don't know what nuance may be needed, or how to achieve that nuance while staying true to the source. Any ideas? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:20, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I am sorry that I am not being able to dig into sources. Again I cannot say much against WSJ right now. I guess I will open a new thread if I go through the sources and find something. I will start a to do list of my own. So DONE. --ReyHahn (talk) 12:43, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Undue weight: "Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, criticized the AP's reporting"

I added the undue weight template to this change because the section is about the fact that the AP knew about the operation before it happened. That a media critique organization critiqued the article should not, in my opinion, be in this section. Please discuss.--Orgullomoore (talk) 21:24, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

FAIR is what it is (see WP:RSP-- no consensus on reliability), and most readers will take the source bias into account. But the edit is problematic in several ways:

1. POV: FAIR criticizes a lot more media than the AP. For example, it criticizes WP:VICE; some editors here support VICE although there is no consensus about its reliability, and yet it isn't singled out for criticism in our article. So why should AP alone be singled out ?
2. It is UNDUE to single out AP because it happens to have a section here per being the first to report.
3. The entire content is a better fit in either Reactions or Characterization, as a single statement, not singling out any one outlet.

Considering the bias of the source, a one-sentence summary in Characterization would be DUE. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:03, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Reduced overquoting, and summarized more in line with the weight we give other (less biased) sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:29, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Agreed that the use of FAIR is undue, its not a bias problem its a due weight one. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:46, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Archive ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:04, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Name for legal agreement sub-page

As the article is now approaching 10,000 words of readable prose, I have entered a request for help from the Law WikiProject as to how to name a sub-article about the agreement, asking specifically per this archived discussion, would the sub-article

a) meet notability,

b) be subject to AFD, as a

c) POV fork or otherwise, and

d) how should it be named ?

Hopefully answers will stay in this section and not be split back to the WP:LAW talk page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:40, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Coming here from WP:LAW. RE the title, what's the common name? The proposed title seems to be General Services Agreement between Venezuela and Silvercorp, but did the media and/or other analysts use a different name for it? Regarding questions of notability and forking, I think that's a question for folks who have expertise in Venezuelan politics rather than folks with legal expertise. That said, from the section as written, it appears that the agreement has received significant coverage in reliable sources, and given the section's length, including a summary style section here with a spinoff seems appropriate.

An alternative to an article on the agreement might be a broader article on the relationship between Guiadó and Silvercorp. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:20, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Interesting: a broader article on the overall relationship would avoid the problem of how to name the more specific article on the agreement. Re common name, I don't think there is one, which is why I resorted to the actual name of the agreement. Sources have:

• Washington Post: Read the attachments to the General Services Agreement between the Venezuelan opposition and Silvercorp
  • "a signed agreement"
• Tal Cual: Esto es lo que dice el contrato firmado por estrategas de Guaidó y Silvercorp [This is what the contract signed by Guaidó strategists and Silvercorp says
• Neuman (book) doesn't name it, only refers to a "highly unusual document" and a "contract"
• CNN (Spanish) "acuerdo con Silvercorp" (agreement with Silvercorp}
• BBC: "contract"
• The Guardian agreement
• Bloomberg: "Eventually, Rendón signed a bizarre contract" EBSCOhost 144342321
  • "contract" and "preliminary contract"
• Vox: " the full general services agreement and attachments," (but just "General services agreement does not provide specificity)
• Reuters "document" and "agreement"
• Wall Street Journal "contract" and "deal" (Poorly Organized and Barely Hidden, Venezuela Invasion Was Doomed to Fail, ProQuest 2400243484 )
• AP He provided to Poleo what he said was an 8-page contract signed by Guaidó and two political advisers in Miami in October for $213 million. The alleged “general services” contract doesn’t specify what work his company, Silvercorp USA, was to undertake.
  • AP2 "alleged contract" and Goudreau has said he was hired by Juan Guaidó, who the U.S. considers Venezuela’s rightful leader. To back his claim, he’s produced an 8-page agreement he signed with what appears to be the signature of Guaidó. The opposition leader has refused to say whether the signature on the “general services agreement” is authentic.
• WP:VICE: "agreement" and "contract"
• The Miami Herald: "contract" and "Photos of the ‘General Services Agreement’ allegedly signed by Juan Guaidó"

I believe a broader sub-article a better way to go overall; will wait to propose names until we have more feedback. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:03, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

@Voorts: The main concern that I've had is that "General Services Agreement between Venezuela and Silvercorp" suggests that Silvercorp made an agreement with "Venezuela", though this is something that is very debatable (given the whole presidential crisis and the need for Guaidó to overthrow Maduro in the first place). This title would be POV and possibly confusing for readers as they may ask why the Venezuelan government would sign a contract to overthrow itself. WMrapids (talk) 04:35, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

To be clear, I wasn't suggesting that that was the correct title. I think that the sub-article should be titled something like "Guiadó–Silvercorp relationship". voorts (talk/contributions) 04:53, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Voorts, that was understood; what would you think of "Silvercorp and the Guaidó administration", because the Silvercorp relationship involved more Guaidó committee members in the US, and less Guaidó himself. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:19, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Or ... Silvercorp and the Venezuelan Guaidó administration SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:54, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Of course! I didn’t think you were making that suggestion; just wanted to make the clarification. My suggestion would be a mix of suggestions, Guiadó administration–Silvercorp agreement. What is notable in reporting is the agreement itself, especially reports that Guaidó signed it himself. This has been denied, of course, which is why we would add “administration” to the title. WMrapids (talk) 21:30, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Done, per WMrapids preference, but without the typo: Guaidó administration–Silvercorp agreement. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:57, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm glad this worked out. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:58, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Archive ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:02, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Fine with me. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:05, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Never mind; WMrapids you are re-bloating the section with UNDUE content, and adding a BLP vio to boot, having repeatedly edit warred to install this content without consensus. See #Statements about legality, BLP issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:27, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

We need to focus...

@SandyGeorgia, NoonIcarus, ReyHahn, Iskandar323, and Burrobert: With all of the recent editing (we're pushing up to 300k bytes now?), we are stretched thin on focus. This began as a title proposal and has morphed into rewriting the whole article while disputing ever minuscule description ("mercenary" vs "dissident", "attack" vs "disembark"). While these may be valid, this talk page is very unwelcoming to unfamiliar users who want and need to be involved.

I suggest that we focus on one topic, then move on to the next.

My list by priority would be:

1. "Coup attempt" NPOV and inclusion
2. Article title
3. Dispute and other tags
4. Intro
5. Operation Resolution v Operation Gideon (organization of article?)
6. "mercenary" vs "dissident"
7. "Attack"

Since we are not making a large, lasting change here, ranked voting would be OK in this instance, but it is important that each of us are involved in every one of these topics in order to have a more thorough consensus. If we split up amongst the topics, some users are going to miss out and a false consensus will emerge with the limited users involved. Please take the time to decide what we should prioritize moving forward. WMrapids (talk) 16:48, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

I would merge 1 and 2.--ReyHahn (talk) 16:49, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm not at all stretched thin on focus: I have a clear idea of what still needs to get done to be prepared for a non-GI-GO move requests, and we're getting there (slower than I anticipated because of disruptive editing). How do others see the objective, here ? I hope our objective is to get the article in clean "enough" (not "great" or even "good", as this article is so sub-par and laden with POV and original research and UNDUE content that we can't pretend to aim for that) that independent editors can make informed decisions when we launch the Move request. One of the largest content RFCs I've ever seen was at J. K. Rowling, and only after everyone on the planet had weighed in was it discovered that the premise of the RFC misrepresented the sources (grossly), so that by the time editors did (and they finally did) start collaborating, we found ourselves saddled with a conclusion based on very broad feedback that was bogus, because it was GIGO. If we want an enduring outcome, we should present an honest appraisal of the sources; that takes work, but will be worth it in the long run. A big problem here is that paywalled sources don't have accessible archive-urls added to the citations so that everyone can read them , so I'm slowly working through those as I review sources; we want new editors to be able to read the sources! There is no hurry; please understand that slow and steady will yield a better outcome in the long run.

We are not rewriting the article; I am putting things on talk as I encounter them while I'm trying to clean up sourcing issues, and they don't all need to be addressed before RM launch; some do, though, so I appreciate your priority list. But I, for one, do not want to waste the broader Wikipedia community time to opine on a move about an article that is laden with POV, UNDUE, and OR that is not flagged for attention. Mercenary v. dissident is an unimportant matter on that scale; most of the others are not.

The other thing is you may feel pressured because you may be in a hurry, but note that different editors have different interests, and Iskandar323 appeared interested in the Resolution v Gideon organization issue. Working on Wikipedia can be messy, but there is no deadline. The sooner editors understand that slow and steady collaboration wins the race, the easier the task and the sooner we get to where we want to be.

By next week, we should have sourcing and citations cleaned up, POV and OR and disputed content either cleaned up or tagged, and be ready to do begin working on sandboxing the actual move request.

I have a different suggestion for helping improve focus and manage the workload: the talk page is large and will grow larger; get the old Move requests into Archive 4 (they are 66KB), and then agree to archive off to Archive 5 anything that is finished/resolved as soon as that happens. That will make it easier to see what work remains. The intent is that the page not be unwelcoming to newcomers by the time we get to this; I made short discussion sections with the idea that we should be able to easily resolve the small things and kick them to Archive5, with all the old move requests at Archive4, which we can easily link at the top of RM. Does anyone object to sending both of the old move requests to Archive 4, and using a system where when we agree something is resolved, we can send it to Archive 5? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:22, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Support for archiving the RM and the "Better title" section. We have opened 17 sections in less than 1 week.--ReyHahn (talk) 18:42, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Having reviewed the sources, I misspoke when I said Mercenary v. dissident is an unimportant matter on that scale; most of the others are not. See Talk:Operation Gideon (2020)/Archive 5#Mercenary, insurgent, dissident; there was substantial POV, now removed with the exception of one instance, where I requested a quote. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:01, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

The way I understood it, the renewed discussion would help to make improvements in the article that would make the move discussion easier. From what I'm reading, this seems to be the case in the last discussions. --NoonIcarus (talk) 10:32, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Timeline

My priority list and timeline:

1. Review all sources so that paywalled or dead links have an archive-url if one is available.
2. POV, OR, UNDUE cleanup or identification to prep for Requested move; the article has pronounced POV issues everywhere. Identify all of these issues and if they can't be cleaned up before we launch the Move request (RM), at least they are identified.

   There is more, but these include at least #Tags??, #Odd lead insertion (not yet resolved IMO), #Analysis, #Recent edits to the lead, #DeVos, #"Attack", #"Macuto massacre", #General Services Agreement, #Silent Professionals UNDUE, #More VICE problems: Aleman UNDUE, #Mercenary, insurgent, dissident and #Background section: SYNTH and UNDUE. Extreme excessive quoting leading the reader and bloating the article. Missing content.

   Struck some done, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:39, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

   Struck more done. The remaining problematic section is #Attack, but I feel it insufficient to justify the POV tag, which I suggest can now be removed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:58, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

   Struck. Attempted landing satisfactorily rewritten, but other POV issues subsequently introduced. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:27, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

   This is not all fixable before an RM, but we can at least have a list and see if there is anything we can come to consensus on pre-RM to have the cleanest possible version before launching the RM. The POV is quite beyond whether or not the word "coup" is in the title (but coup does need to be worked in to the lead in a balanced way, because it is a significant viewpoint-- problem is previous insertion was unbalanced ... and we can better write a balanced insertion of "coup" in to the lead once a couple of other outstanding POV issues are cleaned up in the body. It is almost always best to leave the lead work 'til last).

   Re #Operation Resolution v Operation Gideon, if we are able to do this pre-RM, I think it will be helpful not only in cleaning up the POV, UNDUE, OR issues, but also make the content more likely to be read and digested by independent editors coming to the RM. If we can get to this, it will help; if we can't, so be it.

   Struck, no longer necessary. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:47, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

   As of this version, my view is that only the "Attempted landing" section is in dire need of improvement before a viable move request. It's still a wreck with mostly poor sourcing from the early days. At that version, I'm willing to remove the POV tag I placed, if others are satisfied. I've now worked in at least a dozen after-the-fact scholarly sources, and they don't view the event as a coup. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:41, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

   Struck and updated: Landing section satisfactorily resolved, then un-resolved, and POV issues re-introduced elsewhere (infobox and see other new discussions), so POV tag remains. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:26, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

3. Launch Requested move per Wait six weeks for the next RFC
   1. Spend a few days to a week reviewing the various source lists and offering comments to each other to help avoid confusing new readers and lengthening the RM when we launch (that is, identify any errors before we get in to the middle of an RM).
   2. Spend a few days to a week discussing the Article naming possibilities; come to consensus on which three or four options to include.

      See Talk:Operation Gideon (2020)#Initial brainstorming to prep for writing Requested move proposal. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:05, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

   3. Sandbox the Requested move and write pro- and con- statements collaboratively as a group
   4. Get external feedback on our final format and launch Request move
4. Return to address any remaining "coup attempt" issues based on Requested move feedback and conclusion.

Thanks for getting this ball rolling, WMrapids; if we can archive off sections as we resolve them, that should help with management. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:32, 13 September 2023 (UTC

Infobox action

@SandyGeorgia: Since I know you hate infoboxes, I wanted to let you know that I reworded the "action" field in the infobox, which was just added, in order to prevent continued reverting. If you feel that there are important original research issues, though, I would proceed to remove this. NoonIcarus (talk) 09:43, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

NoonIcarus I posted a proposal yesterday just before boarding a plane, but apparently it never posted (perhaps I didn't have an airport connection after all). I'll redo it below. We are finally making good progress on NPOVing the article, and I see Orgullomoore has begun cleaning up the "Attack" section (inappropriately named by the way, what attack? POV) to also begin NPOVing it, but we will never achieve neutrality in an infobox on an article of this complexity. Proposal below. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:05, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Infobox proposal

See also Proposals and MOS:INFOBOXUSE, WP:ARBINFOBOX and WP:ARBINFOBOX2

Infoboxes cannot convey nuance, and MILHIST infoboxes may work for wars, or battles, but they don't work for this article (which was neither). As long as we try to fill every parameter in an "Infobox military conflict", we will run in to problems with nuance that cannot be conveyed in short parameters.

I propose that all nuanced and controversial bits be simply eliminated from the infobox; just because an infobox has a parameter, doesn't mean we have to use them (in fact, we don't have to use infoboxes at all). This was not a classic "military conflict", and some of the parameters will always prevent us from achieving NPOV in this article. I propose to eliminate these nuanced and controversial from the infobox:

1. Action
2. Result
3. Belligerents

Let the readers read the article to decide whether Guaido or Russia were belligerants; we can't state these things as facts, and by forcing nuance into an infobox, we are assuring long-standing POV issues in this article, or multiple RFCs, generally opined on by folks who won't know the nuance anyway. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:12, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

I wouldn't have any objection to removing "Belligerents," but I think the Action and Result fields are fulfilling an important purpose currently. Specifically, the Action field gives the reader a one-liner about what the purpose of the incursion/invasion/attempted coup/infiltrated plot was supposed to be, and the Result provides information about the significant events that followed as a consequence. I would be fine if the "Action" label itself were removed, without removing the information.--Orgullomoore (talk) 03:34, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Belligerent information is important as it provides readers information on the parties involved at a glance without reading through a headache of an article. WMrapids (talk) 04:15, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

WMrapids please catch up on the talk page and take greater care with edit summaries; consensus can change, the information was not "arbitrarily removed". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:03, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

It was removed against the consensus of a discussion that the user already participated in... WMrapids (talk) 04:13, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

WMrapids could you explain why you re-instated only part of the infobox that was there before consensus was reached to remove "belligerants"? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:44, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I returned what was reasonable as the prior consensus from 2020 was the inclusion of Guaidó and many others. The presence of Cuba and the United States were also present in "Support" portion, though correctly removed. WMrapids (talk) 15:26, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I removed Russia. Their only alleged role was to offer assistance with the search operations which, according to the article, ultimately did not pan out. I also restore the "Commander of Combatant 1" field.--Orgullomoore (talk) 05:29, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

@Orgullomoore: I'll point out that this is not alleged: the Venezuelan Army announced it, before removing the information. However, if it is determined that search operations are not enough for its inclusion, then that's alright. --NoonIcarus (talk) 11:29, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

@NoonIcarus:: Understood, thank you. My point is that Russia not involved in the fighting (if there even was fighting). Just another reason why the infobox for this article should not have a "belligerents" field; because it's not clear who the belligerents, if any, were.--Orgullomoore (talk) 17:39, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Just dropping a quick note that the discussion in question (Talk:Operation Gideon (2020)/Archive 1#Guaidó in the infobox) already mentions that said change was disputed. Three years ago and it was already troublesome. If it stayed that long, it was probably the same reason why it has stayed this year: to prevent further edit warring. --NoonIcarus (talk) 18:39, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

"Not sure" isn't appropriate; this has been repeatedly discussed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:03, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

RfC: Guaidó in the infobox 2.0

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Status of mention of specific belligerants removed from the article on October 6 retained; involved close per #Close ?. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:01, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

---

Should Juan Guaidó and other opposition members be present in the infobox (with the context that they supported the plot up to a certain date) being listed in "Support" of the Belligerents per the previous discussion? (Previously involved users notified; @ReyHahn, ZiaLater, Jamez42, Kingsif, Orgullomoore, LaserLegs, Acalycine, Thanoscar21, Jameslightell, Cyfraw, Jim Michael, NickCT, Ortizesp, Goodposts, Patjorgensen92, and Burrobert:--WMrapids (talk) 05:00, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

• Remove specific, named belligerents entirely. As discussed above, infoboxes cannot convey nuance in simple parameters, and this is a nuanced topic; removing belligerants and controversial information from the infobox entirely is the best option to avoid POV.
  This is what the infobox looked like with all the controversy. The controversial issues are summarized in the lead and the Background section of the article explains the complexity that can't be conveyed with traditional infobox parameters.
  This version avoids the POV and nuance that can't be conveyed by adding differing claims to an infobox. Just because an infobox provides certain parameters doesn't mean we have to use them. Not to mention that the Guaido administration walked away from any "trial balloon" agreement with Silvercorp quickly, and was not involved in Goudreau's decision to go it alone with Venezuelan exiled military. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:51, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

  Guaidó officials actively sought out, provided funding and signed documents in support of the plot. The dates of (until XXXX) provide the nuance that the extent of this support, this concern was raised in the previous discussion. WMrapids (talk) 05:55, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

• Yes (Summoned by bot) Wikipedia's audience often doesn't read full articles and it is helpful if infobox can summarise important points. TarnishedPath^talk 07:56, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

• Remove Guaidó from belligerents (or remove belligerents) that field should include the participants that were clearly involved that day. Adding partial information or debated information can be misleading. The infobox should not be an excuse to not read the article, specially when the whole event remains very controversial and difficult to describe.--ReyHahn (talk) 08:01, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
• Comment WMrapids this is going to be the 6 or 7 seventh time that I ask you for patience and to announce this kind of request. I know that this is not about the RfC that is in the works, but it is tiring to have to deal with an RfC/board/RM every time that you disagree with some users. This kind of requests have the benefit of attracting more users that can help but when they are recursively employed it becomes disruptive. Not all Wikipedia edit conflicts can be resolved with an admin closure.--ReyHahn (talk) 08:01, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

  An attempt at dispute resolution that does not require an admin closure should not be described as disruptive. This particular discussion has persisted for months and was becoming disruptive in itself, so as you say, bringing in more users was the most helpful course. WMrapids (talk) 18:38, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

  Sure this kind of RfC are helpful but only when discussions have truly stalled. There is already quite some number of editors involved in different sections. Sandy is doing an excellent work at opening and archiving discussions for better read, but as I have complained before, there are just so many things going on at the same time so it is still hard to follow. We need to discuss these kind of board discussions before carrying them out. Myself personally, I was not even aware that this conversation on names in the infobox was going on! Please do not hesitate to ping us when you think it is very important and try to no resort to Rfc/boards so quickly.--ReyHahn (talk) 20:53, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

• Remove Guaidó from belligerents (or remove belligerents) Guaidó's inclusion in the infobox is based on his relation with Silvercorp USA (half a year before the operation took place), and not his involvement with Operation Gideon, since he didn't have any. Adding him in the infobox will only lead to misrepresentation and confusion. --NoonIcarus (talk) 10:24, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

• Comment Quick note that LaserLegs is currently indef blocked. --NoonIcarus (talk) 10:29, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
• (Summoned by bot) Remove - I agree that if someone was not involved with the actual event, they should not be listed in the infobox for the event itself. Nuanced details that require appropriate contextualization don't belong in the infobox, which should be a straightforward summary of key points per MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE: The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose. - Aoidh (talk) 15:14, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

  Very good point. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. WMrapids (talk) 18:39, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

• Remove Guaidó from belligerents (or remove belligerents) - Concur w/ User:ReyHahn; after glancing at the sources, it looks like Guaidó was involved in some capacity w/ Silvercorp, but I can't see good sourcing saying he way directly involved in any way with Operation Gideon. My personal guess would be there probably was some direct involvement at some point, but unless we have good sourcing, we shouldn't put that kind of thing in the infobox. NickCT (talk) 15:21, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
• Remove "belligerents" field from the infobox. The event is not so black and white as to say this was an X vs. Y conflict.--Orgullomoore (talk) 17:33, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Close ?

I propose to close this RFC, as it has had no feedback for 10 days. Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Reasons and ways to end RFCs says: "if consensus is undoubtedly clear, even an editor involved may close the discussion. The editor removes the rfc tag while closing the discussion." As consensus is clear, it doesn't seem that a closing statement by someone independent is needed (or at all). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:13, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"Attack"

Bellingcat's source states the following, regarding the disembark: In the early morning hours of Sunday, May 3, reports began to surface on Twitter of military activity out at sea off the coast of Macuto, a small city on Venezuela’s coast just north of Caracas. In one video shot before the sun had come up, a man films what looks like police vessels out at sea. There is a helicopter flying the area, and gunshots can be heard. It doesn't states that there was a "fight" or a "firefight", and this detail is more important knowing there weren't wounded or dead reported among Venezuelan security forces. It's more accurate to describe the section only as a "Disembark", and I have added the Disputed tag in the section in the meantime for the same reason. NoonIcarus (talk) 09:36, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Disagree. They were implementing the attack as soon as they were heading for Venezuela. Time to stop splitting hairs. WMrapids (talk) 15:14, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

The Bellingcat sources--relative to the amount of detail provided in other sources-- is pretty disappointing (they may be reliable, but their work in this event is subpar to other sources). WMrapids you could have made your point without adding the last sentence, which is personalizing rather than focusing on content, and not all sources support your personal point of view. The questions raised about the absence of a firefight, and the evidence presented to the European Parliament and International Criminal Court are worthy of discussion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:26, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Catching up on why ICC progress was stalled. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:39, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

This seems to be an attempt at original research as it seems you are trying to find a reason why not to describe the attack as, well, an attack ("It doesn't states that there was a 'fight' or a 'firefight'"). We aren't here to make conclusions from interpreting sources, we are here to place the information sources provide. Sandy, while you are suggesting that "The questions raised about the absence of a firefight, and the evidence presented to the European Parliament and International Criminal Court are worthy of discussion", we also need to be careful about avoiding WP:SYNTH moving forward with this topic. WMrapids (talk) 16:14, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Here I placed a hopefully informative update on talk (not all readers of this page might know that the ICC is unlikely to respond to anything on a timely basis, and might wonder where things stand), in a context where I have repeatedly asked if there are more sources than the three in the article. The accusation of OR and policy lecture are unnecessary; I well know why we are here and how to use sources, and I won't be advocating to add this content to the lead if we don't have more sources, and as I've explained in the next section, even if we do end up adding something, I'd trim it considerably. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:38, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

I would like to provide some examples later, but I want to point out that an investigation on the situation of Venezuela is ongoing and most of the events investigated are not public. The only thing that is known is that crimes after 2017 (and 2014) will be investigated, but saying that "there hasn't been a response", as claimed by WMrapids, seems to be a misunderstanding of the process. --NoonIcarus (talk) 23:44, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Perfect, coming back to this: Diego Arria, Venezuela's former UN ambassador, filed a complaint against Chávez in the ICC in 2011 ([7]). When Diosdado Cabello said that "For those who do not vote, there is no food" in 2020, deputy Delsa Solórzano said she would file the declaration in the ICC ([8]). The evidence of extrajudicial killings and conditions surrounding El Junquito raid have likewise been filed several times in the ICC ([9]). None of these times there has been a rejection by the Court and, if anything, the prelimintary examination and later investigation for the country was opened years later. There isn't a reason why such declarations should be any less relevant. --NoonIcarus (talk) 09:29, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

See also Talk:Operation Gideon (2020)/Archive 5##Operation Resolution v Operation Gideon. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:18, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

This entire section is a mess and needs a complete rewrite. It was largely sourced to an AlJazeera television broadcast soon after the event and is too divergent from other accounts from high-quality sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:39, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Resolved, satisfactorily rewritten to encompass all views. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:29, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Unfortunately, WMrapids reverted the rewrite, which is of course very frustrating.--Orgullomoore (talk) 20:25, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Maybe it should have been discussed? WMrapids (talk) 20:35, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Re-titling the "Attack" section

@NoonIcarus and Orgullomoore:, "Disembark" is not a choice that convinces me for this section. Perhaps we could spend some time discussing how to handle this, considering the variety of ways sources discuss the event and the numerous word choices (even the sources can't decide what to call this thing, so why should we-- Wikipedia follows, it doesn't lead, and we have no clear lead here).

One thought I have is to go to a timeline format, which would leave that section neutrally labeled ... something like:

• 2.0 Planning
  • 2.1 Initial promotion: March–May 2019
  • 2.2 Colombia Silvercorp established: June 2019
  • 2.3 Negotiations with Guaidó representatives: August–November 2019
    • 2.3.1 Signature dispute
  • 2.4 Alcalá and Goudreau resume preparations: December 2019
  • 2.5 Alcalá extradition to the United States: March 2020
    • 2.5.1 Prior knowledge of Maduro government
  • 2.6 Final preparations, Associated Press article: April–May 2020
• 3 Events of 3–4 May

Avoid labeling it at all, since even sources are undecided on what to call the thing (I just listened to a CJR podcast where the interviewer resorted to "whatever"). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:56, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

PS, I'm liking the Bellingcat description of the event as an "infiltration" by "expatriate soldiers", but I doubt that is used in enough sources for it to be a real option. If I thought it would work, I'd lean towards "Infiltration attempt: 3–4 May", but that is probably a word unique to Bellingcat. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:02, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

I agree with the timeline format and "Events of 3-4 May."--Orgullomoore (talk) 15:12, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

@WMrapids and ReyHahn: I am unsure whether to ping you to discussions. I hate pinging, but it's unclear if you are following the discussions here or prefer to be pinged. Please advise. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:29, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

I am trying to follow the conversations when I can but I am often overwhelmed by the many threads. Do not hesitate to ping me, please do it more often. Is this about the name of the section?--ReyHahn (talk) 16:24, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:53, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

The term used for the 1967 raid in Machurucuto in spanish was "Desembarco" maybe "landing could be a better term? If not maybe just "events".--ReyHahn (talk) 17:15, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

My comment on "landing" would be that the boats actually never made it to land before being intercepted. The allegations from the Maduro side are that boat # 1 shot at helicopters and they fought back and got sunk before the government sent out a rescue team to look for survivors. The allegations from the human rights complainants is that boat # 1 was intercepted and its occupants executed before a firefight was staged. All sides appear to agree that Boat # 2 was escorted / signaled to shore in a specific spot, where the occupants were arrested. That's why I like "events," because it's generic enough to include all sides of the story with respect to the invaders' "arrival" to Venezuela.--Orgullomoore (talk) 19:51, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

I must admit that I didn't know the details of the capture that well, thank you very much for sharing them. I understand now why "Disembark" might not be the best title. It stemmed mostly from the fact the Bellingcat only mentions that shots were heard at the time, but it isn't known if there was a shootout. Would it be too weird to propose a title such as "Unfolding"? If that's the case, "Events" could be a safe bet. --NoonIcarus (talk) 23:16, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

I, too, feel safest with the word events. Anyone who can say what happened or didn't happen on either boat is either dead or buried deep enough in the Helicoide that we're unlike to ever really know. Because of the WP:NOTNEWS breathless way that Wikipedia articles are built as news reports come in on unfolding events, we end up going too far beyond what more scholarly sources support, and putting statements about events into WikiVoice when we don't really know what happened, and we're unlikely to get any local witnesses to disagree with chavismo's version. We should go back and do a serious re-check on attribution on all of the Events, and make sure all version (not just Al Jazeera's) are represented. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:15, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Similarly, I am not troubled by "landing attempt", as that is how Corrales describes it, and it's at least neutral. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:56, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Landing attempt seems fine. WMrapids (talk) 18:48, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

There is too much going on, which is why I took a break as well. In the next few days I will review all of the edits since there are some that I already know will be disputed. WMrapids (talk) 01:47, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be good for you to catch up on the talk page before editing? In this edit, you altered a section heading that had been discussed previously by three other editors, without having joined the discussion yourself. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:02, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Oops, I miscounted; four editors disagree with attack. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:06, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Raid, incursion, attack

WMrapids in this edit, you removed the well-cited word raid (which as you will see at User:SandyGeorgia/GideonSources is used by a very large number of high-quality sources, and far more often than the word attack), while you left your preferred word attack (reinstating it as a section heading, see above). Ditto for incursion, which occurs far more often in sources than attack. Could you explain? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:17, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I can no longer tell who wrote what, but the content in this section (contrary to how the content was originally built) is now leaving the decided impression that there are scholarly sources supporting the "coup" POV, when in fact, we have uncovered none. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:40, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I made this edit in an attempt to resolve the concern about conflating journalists' and scholars' characterizations.--Orgullomoore (talk) 20:13, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! I am partial to the way I originally did it, which was to a) only use best sources, and then b) make no characterization about the quality of the sources at all, as that lets the reader decide. I hope we are intending to do just that in the Move request. I'm afraid that when you divide them this way, it gets us into borderline original research; we know no scholarly source describes it as a coup, and we know they all describe it as "Operation Gideon", but we don't have a source that states same. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:22, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm all ears on a proposal that works for everyone. Can we look at a few options and see what we can agree on?--Orgullomoore (talk) 20:53, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, Orgullomoore. My main concern was to resolve Iskandar323's edit from weeks ago to add mention of coup to the article. But now all viewpoints and characterizations have been obliterated from the article, so we no longer have a balanced representation of sources and discussions of all different characterizations of the event in the article, or to present for a measured consideration of what to name the article. I'm not sure why one editor can undo edits based on consensus of multiple other editors, but that seems to be where we are now. Fresh out of ideas. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:44, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

"I'm not sure why one editor can undo edits based on consensus . . ." I know! It's not fair.--Orgullomoore (talk) 23:47, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm working on an idea that I'll spell out tomorrow when I have more free time. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:39, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

See Current version. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:31, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Neutrality

This is the edit that gutted the neutrality of the Landing attempt section (18:13, October 1, 2023) and that needs careful attention. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:36, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

This 13:59, October 1, 2023 version is the rewritten "Attempted landing" section that had incorporated all viewpoints. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:07, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Continued at #Cacique. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:36, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Continued at #Removal of well-cited content about ambush. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:15, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Cacique

We should refrain from using Cacique in the article as they have provided contradictory reports. With the Miami Herald, they say that a group of moles leaked the information, though with Vice News, they say that a dissident meeting with their family was captured and tortured for the information. WMrapids (talk) 18:29, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Could you point out where Vice News claims their informant is the same person as Cacique ? A timestamp would help; another source said that four escaped. Also, if we exclude Cacique, how do we justify using Vice News' video at all ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:45, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

See at 13:15. And again, context matters. We don't use all the statements presented by sources. Sometimes sources provide statements from random individuals on the street providing their opinion. This does not mean the source itself is unreliable. WMrapids (talk) 18:54, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

WMrapids 13:15 is Nieto, not Cacique ??? At 13:40, an unnamed person is speaking. Where do we find that person is the same as Cacique? Four people escaped. Also, could you explain where you locate the date for the YouTube? I can't find it ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:09, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, at 13:40, though I gave you the extra 25 seconds for context. At 8:32, it shows the label "Cacique: Mission Supervisor", which is the same designation that Miami Herald gives them and narrows down that this is the same Cacique. So this same Cacique is giving two separate stories on how Maduro officials got their info. WMrapids (talk) 19:15, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

It's not inconsistent. He says in the VICE documentary that the Maduro regime first extracted certain details from the arrested dissident. He told the Miami Herald that 2-3 days before the operation, the coordinates were sold. Meaning that the arrest of the dissident during a family visit was much earlier. This is also consistent with the Maduro regime disclosing the locations of training camps and the identities of Goudreau, Denman, and Berry in March.--Orgullomoore (talk) 19:21, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes (and that's why I've also asked WMrapids to explain where the date for the YouTube is found ... I'm not familiar with editing in a way that sources articles to YouTube, so don't know where to find that data. I don't believe we have an inconsistency, but the dates would certainly be a helpful matter here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:47, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

There's a couple ways to find the date. An easy tool for this is here, where you can just paste the video URL to extract all metadata. To find it in the YouTube video page, you need to expand the description sentence. By either method you should be able to tell that the video was "publishedAt": "2021-10-27T20:00:03Z" Orgullomoore (talk) 20:19, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Thx! (Never cited an article to a YouTube before, and hope to never have to do it again :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:19, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Cacique says that the information Maduro officials had was "mainly" from the arrested source. So the majority of the information according to Cacique in the Vice News video is from the arrested individual yet in the Miami Herald article, it appears that there were moles. WMrapids (talk) 20:29, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

He actually says "primero que todo."--Orgullomoore (talk) 20:33, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Proposal to restore content at Attempted landing

No valid reason has been provided for the massive removal of content on 18:13, October 1, 2023 that returned the Landing Attempt section to one largely cited to an AlJazeera Youtube and leaving out other accounts; I support restoring content from this 13:59, October 1, 2023 version that had incorporated all viewpoints. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:25, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree that it should be restored. The revert appears arbitrary. At a minimum, the specific objections motivating the revert should be stated and discussed, as opposed to a wholesale rejection and rewind. WMrapids: Can you please state your grounds for removing the content?--Orgullomoore (talk) 19:38, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Orgullomoore I am semi-satisfied with the neutrality of this version, and would not object to removing the POV tags I added per this version. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:56, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia: It's definitely an improvement in my opinion. Hopefully it isn't wiped out in the next hit-and-run scrambling.--Orgullomoore (talk) 23:26, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

@ReyHahn and NoonIcarus: could you read through now to identify any remaining POV issues ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:47, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

After a first read it seems better, thanks Sandy.--ReyHahn (talk) 23:55, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

I should probably be able to this weekend, along with my response about Cuban intelligence. Many thanks for the ping. --NoonIcarus (talk) 00:32, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Sorry for the false alarm, back to POV version again. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:31, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

I finished reading through the article, making some tweaks along the way, although I wasn't aware it was the POV version. I could come back at it later. I would say that the most important change remaining is to include the torture/extrajudicial killings claims in the lead, which I would argue that have morre weight than the false flag attack ones. --NoonIcarus (talk) 10:18, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Removal of well-cited content about ambush

WMrapids, please explain this removal of content cited to The Miami Herald and Infobae. (This deletion of content also leaves Azuaje and Barráez undefined in later sections). We would be able to move forward more quickly and amicably if you would begin to discuss your edits on talk; you seem to be the only editor in disagreement with adding this content. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:33, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Stop singling me out as a user. Recent edits have been very POV and this is not helping. Keep the execution allegations to their respective sections. WMrapids (talk) 04:36, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

You've deleted the content without replacing it in another section, leaving other items undefined. Edit warring is not collaborative editing; please address the issue, as that is what talk pages are for. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:47, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

You are attempting to introduce POV content into a section that should simply explain the events of the landing attempt. There is an abundant amount of that information in the "Investigation of deaths" section, which is where such content is more appropriate. Has there been any response by the Maduro government regarding the allegations by the opposition that they executed combatants? That should probably be present as well. WMrapids (talk) 05:08, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Stating that there is only one correct version and that alternate views go elsewhere is POV; we balance articles by putting the differing views together, not cordoning one we don't like off to another section. Doing that would be the very essence of POV.

Re whether the allegations have been answered, as you can see from the sources, the Maduro administration didn't even provide the names of the dead. And as has already been explained elsewhere in these discussions, the Maduro administration stalled on the UN Human Rights investigation; if you can find an answer other than claiming they wanted time to get their house in order, which they then did not do, please do add it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:25, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Again, all of that information is regarding the investigation, not the basic timeline of what happened during the landing attempt. Placing POV allegations from the opposition in the section is undue. WMrapids (talk) 05:59, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

No, all of that information is not regarding the investigation; please look again:

• alleged that the firefight was staged. Azuaje and Infobae journalist Sebastiana Barráez, who specializes in Venezuelan military reporting, alleged that Venezuelan authorities captured and disarmed the eleven rebels in the first boat before torturing and executing six of them, including Colina. Azuaje says evidence in the complaint filed is at odds with the government's account that the confrontation began after Colina started shooting.

is specifically about the landing attempt. The alternate POV is that there was no firefight; it was staged. Five words are about the death investigation: before torturing and executing them. And those five words are relevant to the landing attempt. The details of the investigation are in the Investigation of deaths section (where Azuaje and Barraez are now undefined surnames). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:07, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Then place them in the "Investigation" section. Any wording regarding an "ambush", "execution", etc. is POV as it is presented by the opposition and is very POV against the Maduro administration. While it may be appropriate in the article, it's not appropriate for this particular section. WMrapids (talk) 06:48, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Dividing POV between Maduro administration and opposition is an odd way to view neutrality; we balance all views. Anyway. As a compromise, I've split the content between the two sections. There are still two versions of the landing attempt re the firefight and who fired first. Then I worked the who's who back in to the Investigation section. I don't think this an optimal solution, but a practical one. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:04, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

We have discussed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:13, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Not really. Anyways, I kept the "firefight" portion out. While the Maduro administration and eyewitnesses report a firefight, the opposition says executions happened. Technically both could happen as well, but to keep things simple, I placed that a "confrontation" happened and moved more detailed information on the confrontation to its appropriate section. WMrapids (talk) 07:18, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't agree with these artificial divisions. And we now have information about the second boat moved to the Investigation section; no one died on the second boat, and I don't know why the basic content is being split up-- not an optimal way to write articles. It's like the old thing about creating a controversy section instead of working controversies in to the content seamlessly. It creates POV by implying one view is correct and the other is not. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:31, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Also, see here regarding the problem with these "eyewitnesses". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:37, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Post-discussion, now worse POV, more sourced facts removed

And, again deleting reliably sourced content rather than moving it, so mixed messages. The Maduro administration claim of a firefight is now completely excised from the article, when it was quite reliably sourced; this amounts to worse POV, as it covers up sourced facts. Instead of reflecting both viewpoints, the cited statements by the Maduro administration that there was a firefight after Colina fired first are gone; not an improvement. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:43, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

After the discussion above, where I agreed to split the content as a compromise, the content next disappeared with this edit. One problem with this series of edits is that it pretends to relegate a non-Maduro view to what is essentially the same as a criticism section, rather than seamlessly working in all points of view (Maduro and non-Maduro) together. This is classic POV.

With the complete excision of reliably sourced text about the Maduro allegations of a firefight from the article, this is now another in a series of deletions of sourced text.[10][11][12]

The deleted content is:

1. According to [the Maduro] version, a firefight ensued in the before-dawn hours of 3 May, when the occupants of the first boat, led by Colina, shot at the Venezuelan authorities who were waiting for them to reach the shore at Macuto, La Guaira.
2. Opposition lawmaker Wilmer Azuaje and Infobae journalist Sebastiana Barráez alleged that Venezuelan authorities had advance knowledge of the landing and staged the firefight, at odds with the government's account that the confrontation began after Colina started shooting.

Here is what sources say about the deleted content:

"Ambush":

• The Washington Post: ProQuest 2397437245; The government of President Nicolás Maduro said it had thwarted an early morning 'invasion' off its Caribbean coast on Sunday, alleging its intelligence forces had uncovered a plot, ambushed the attackers and captured or killed 10.
• Infobae1 Step by step, how Operation Gideon was created and ended with the ambush of the Venezuelan military
• Infobae 2 Barráez wrote that when Sequea took "control of the camps" after Alcalá's arrest, he "led fifty soldiers into an ambush" and that he facilitated identification to FAES by forcing all of the other men to shave their heads except his brother-in-law, the Americans, and "his most trusted men".

"Firefight":

• The Miami Herald: [13] The official regime version of events, from Venezuelan Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez, is that there was a firefight after Pantera and colleagues began firing on agents who were waiting for them when they touched land.

"Government account":

• Infobae3 ... the prosecutors' version is that FAES officials “moved to Macuto, where they held a confrontation with eleven mercenaries who were moving on a boat, who, upon noticing the police presence, opened fire for which they were repelled.”
• Tal Cual [This Tuesday, May 5, the Minister of Communication and Information, Jorge Rodríguez ... explained that when "Pantera" got off the boat he started shooting at the officials and that was when six of those involved were assassinated.] Este martes 5 de mayo el ministro de Comunicación e Información, Jorge Rodríguez, ... explicó que cuando «Pantera» se bajó de la lancha empezó a disparar contra los funcionarios y ahí fue cuando fueron asesinados seis de los implicados.
• Goyret, Lucas Infobae4 ... the Venezuelan deputy stressed that the images are compelling and contradict the versions spread by the Maduro dictatorship. 'Jorge Rodríguez said that 'Pantera' started shooting and that's when a confrontation began. ... "

There is no part of this content that is not cited to reliable sources, of which I've included only a part. WMrapids please discuss so we don't have to subject the page to another round of dispute resolution. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:10, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

With these changes I tried to ensure that the two differing accounts are represented, but minimized the details about the evidence supporting the ambush theory, which are addressed in a separate section about the investigations into the deaths. That way, the section is NPOV in the sense that it makes clear there are two inconsistent stories about how the encounter with the first boat unfolded, but hopefully also addresses WMrapids' concern that "[p]lacing POV allegations from the opposition in the section is undue."--Orgullomoore (talk) 02:26, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Placing two opposing sides POV in the "Landing attempt" section does not improve the undue content which is that Venezuelan authorities executed an attacking force. This information was also provided by the opposition in the aftermath of the landing attempt during investigations, which is where it belongs. It does not belong in the "Landing attempt" section whatsoever.--WMrapids (talk) 03:39, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

WMrapids: The dispute surrounds what happened when the first boat arrived at Macuto. There are two versions of what happened: either Colina's group got out of the boat and fired at Venezuelan security forces, or they were ambushed, disarmed, and tortured/killed. These two versions are not consistent: if one is true, the invaders were needlessly killed and a firefight was staged to justify the action; if the other is true, the killing is a defensive action and justified. We cannot pick one side over the other. Why do you believe it matters that Maduro got to say his side first and the other side was not articulated until after autopsy reports were obtained, photographs were reviewed, and Maduro's narrative was scrutinized? Saying that "Venezuelan authorities executed an attacking force" is actually inconsistent with Maduro's side of the story, which is that the invaders were killed in self-defense after initiating a firefight.--Orgullomoore (talk) 03:47, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

As seen in my edit, it is much more appropriate to place "In the aftermath of the operation, varying reports following the first boat's arrival to Venezuela led to questions about how events unfolded" in the "Landing attempt" section while explaining the reports made in the aftermath in the "Aftermath" section. WMrapids (talk) 04:19, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Orgullomoore re this edit, the Tal Cual source above is the best account I could find of the government's account. It might be added. WMrapids, the distinction you want to make between information that was known at the time or surfaced afterwards seems artificial to me and separating them thusly creates POV. Years later, more facts are known; we work them into the narrative seamlessly to avoid POV. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:16, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Another significant bit of information is to specify which Maduro source said what. Barraez points out that Diosdado's account differed in key ways from the accounts of others, which has to do with why FAES did the interception rather than the navy, and which information Disodado had that other government sources did not reveal or no one else ever discussed. A careful read of Infobae sources will help, but we should specify exactly who said what when as we talk about Maduro & Co statements. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:35, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

As you are saying, this is "years after the fact", as in analysis following the incident (aftermath). Wasn't there a concern about "analysis" being presented in the article? There can be an analysis of the killings by opposition members, but not an analysis on the opposition's behavior? WMrapids (talk) 03:30, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

I wasn't part of whatever discussions there were about the previous "analysis" section; by the time I came around, all I could see was that it was cherry-picked random stuff. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:27, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Independent feedback request

Snow Rise you mentioned quite a while back that you have knowledge of the Spanish language and would be willing to offer 3O feedback. We seem to be stalled on a point where your input might help.

The sources are listed at #Post-discussion, now worse POV, more sourced facts removed; the discussion begins at #Removal of well-cited content about ambush. The question relates to whether this content should be excised from the description of the landing. Thanks in advance, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:25, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi Sandy: sorry, I have been occupied off-project. Are you satisfied with the resolution reached with WMRapids below, or do you still need a 3O? I will say that in general my interpretation of what is and is not WP:DUE roughly aligns with what seems to have been agreed upon in the last few posts there, but I can be more specific if you need. In broad strokes, I don't see the harm of including elements of the claims coming from both directions, but I agree that some of these sources are quite limited as to which details they support with sufficient enough weight to justify inclusion. Again, it seems as if this dispute has been resolved to satisfaction of the involved editors for the moment, but if there's some dispute as regards some specific source or detail which you still need an outside perspective on, which I somehow missed, please let me know. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 10:37, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi, Snow Rise; happy to see you re-surfacing, and I hope you have time now to engage.

The short answer, is no -- the two sections are two different matters, and neither has been completely resolved. I could see from your contribs you were in an editing lull, and should you have time to engage now, will explain. Through different Venezuela-related issues on three noticeboards (NPOVN, BLPN and ANI), prior to S Marshall engaging at the separate #Statements about legality, BLP issues below, you had been the only independent voice to weigh in, and all topics are suffering from a paucity of feedback, so thanks for showing up! The RFC below is about a different matter, content supported only by an edited excerpt of a WP:VICE video that "Guaidó administration concluded that Maduro could not be removed from his position through legal challenges". You can see there that S Marshall has valiantly worked to come up to speed on the Venezuelan idiosyncrasies, in spite of not speaking Spanish.

This section is about entirely different text. See the second paragraph of the Landing attempt section. The dispute is over where/how to include the "ambush" material and the two different accounts of the landing of the first boat, related to whether Colina fired first. As I understand it, WMrapids' position is that information that surfaced after the fact belongs in Aftermath; my position is that we strive to avoid separating controversies or alternate accounts to their own section, rather seamlessly work different points of view in to the same section. I don't understand why we would separate "after the fact" information that surfaced to its own section, besides that we have Maduro officials acknowledging the ambush the day of the events (see #Post-discussion, now worse POV, more sourced facts removed, Washington Post). So, while I regret putting you through so much reading, might you now re-read this section with that information to lend a hand? I'll separately summarize where the RFC below stands. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:14, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Actually, what I meant by 'the discussion below' was the final section of this thread, still concerning the landing and the disputed facts as to who started the firefight. I hadn't seen the "legality of options" section below and will need some time again to try to process the issues and sources involved there. However, as to this section, I actually read through it and look through some of the sources over the last few days, even though I have not had the time and freedom to engage directly until now. So I can provide a 3O as to that: I agree that insofar as we are describing the events as they happened, it makes sense to present the disputed reports from the supporters of the belligerents in roughly contemporaneous fashion. We should probably foreground the more broadly reported version (I think you'd probably agree that's the Maduro camp's), but I think the two different representations of how events unfolded should occur roughly contiguously in the same section--and indeed the specific chronology should unfold (to some extent) with alternating descriptions of each stage of the encounter, to the extent that this can be accomplished without overemphasizing weakly supported claims or torturing the prose too much.

There are caveats there: there doesn't need to be absolute parity on how detailed each version of the account is, if the weight of sources doesn't support it, and much of this (from both sides) needs to be properly attributed. And some of it probably can be in the aftermath section, but I feel it's a little artificial and awkward to divide the chronology in terms of how quickly the differing accounts were distributed, insofar as all accounts of the landing as it unfolded (as well as our own coverage) are still retrospective. So, as to the core point that remains in dispute (and apologies, I thought this part had already been resolved or I would have said this in my first response), I find myself a bit more in agreement with your read: the section describing the landing itself should include most statements regarding those (to the extent that they are DUE to be included at all) together, and the 'Aftermath' section concerned with the fallout and consequences of those events. Obviously some details pertaining to how some later investigations played out are grey area where they touch back upon the confusion surrounding the events of the landing themselves, but even then, the majority of that (the investigations, not the events they seek to shed light on) should be in the Aftermath section. I hope that helps! SnowRise ^{let's rap} 19:25, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Snow Rise, yes, thanks, and my apologies for the goof on thinking you were referring to something else! Overall, it's a relief to have more than one independent voice on board. Thx again, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:57, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Just now catching up on this. As the current version incorporates Snow Rise's third opinion, I plan to archive the related sections unless someone disagrees. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:54, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Narrative questioned

The statement in this version about different versions of the narrative is much broader than the "in the aftermath of the operation" statement in this version, which waters down the breadth and scope of questions raised as given in the footnote. The question are not only about the first boat's arrival, so I disagree with the series of edits that are artificially separating content. Back to the general questions about the overall narrative; we cannot separate what is known now from what was known then without creating POV, and if that was how we wrote articles, how would we then separate unfolding after-the-fact information about the General Services Agreement ? This distinction is artificial, and trying to write that way impedes neutrality. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:59, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Boat firing video

What is the explanation for the removal of witnesses saying that the boat was firing at Venezuelan authorities?--WMrapids (talk) 19:00, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

WMrapids: What is the basis for saying that witnesses saw "the boat" firing at Venezuelan authorities? The only thing that could be interpreted as touching on that is the cell phone video included without comment in the Al Jazeera documentary where the person holding the phone or next to the person holding the phone says "Están encendiendo el helicóptero." There is no indication that this is reliable, who said it, when they said it, who was firing, who was in the helicopter or who the helicopter belonged to, how the video was obtained, or whether the video is even from the same incident. Assuming arguendo that the documentary is a reliable secondary source, there is nothing in the source that says something like "In the cell phone video we are about to show you, Fulano de Tal and his friend Jon Doe can be heard talking to each other as they witness the dissidents fire upon a helicopter owned by the Venezuelan authorities as the dissidents were arriving at Macuto in the first boat."--Orgullomoore (talk) 20:43, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Orgullomoore that this is an example of exactly how not to use a primary source. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:28, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Why would Al Jazeera make the effort to translate the statement then? Would this not be a secondary source providing a quote from eyewitnesses? Also, it is the same video that was used in an analysis by Bellingcat. WMrapids (talk) 04:15, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Did Bellingcat comment on that aspect? If so, use their analysis of or statements about it, since they are a good source. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:07, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Would Al Jazeera, a generally reliable source, quoting what the eyewitnesses said (through their translation) equate to Al Jazeera writing a quote from individuals in a published article? WMrapids (talk) 03:14, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

WMrapids: Here is what the Bellingcat article says: In the early morning hours of Sunday, May 3, reports began to surface on Twitter of military activity out at sea off the coast of Macuto, a small city on Venezuela’s coast just north of Caracas. In one video shot before the sun had come up, a man films what looks like police vessels out at sea. There is a helicopter flying the area, and gunshots can be heard. The "video" hyperlink in the Bellingcat piece is now broken, and is to a Tweet published by user galvis60, whose account was suspended. The YouTube Shorts video you linked to is apparently a re-upload, published on 2020-05-05. The Al Jazeera documentary includes this video [14] at 16:45, but says literally not one thing about it. The subtitles included say: [person 1:] F***, they are firing at the helicopter. This is crazy. [person 2:] There...the boat is tiny. [Person 2:] Look, look, look!" Assuming the transcription and translation were perfectly accurate (they're not), we have problems: # 1 Who is recording? # 2 Who is speaking? # 3 What time is it? # 4 Where are they located? # 5 Where are they pointing the camera? # 6 What did they see? # 7 Can a person standing in the boat be clearly seen firing at the helicopter? It is not the same as Al Jazeera writing a quote in a published article. In a published article, you would see a format like: "On May 3, 2020, the Twitter account galvis60 uploaded a video wherein two men can be heard commenting on a helicopter flying in the area, and gunshots can be heard. Al Jazeera reached out to the owner of the Twitter account and found out that he obtained the video from his cousins. Al Jazeera spoke to the cousins, who are brothers named Juan and Jose, who provided additional details on what they saw. Juan, aged 21, said that he woke up at around 4:30 a.m. to the sound of gunfire and grabbed his phone to record what he could. His brother, Jose, aged 18, followed behind. Juan saw: _________________. Jose added: ____________________." Although galvis60's Twitter account is suspended, through original research you can see that the account belonged to a certain Nelson Galvis, who posted numerous videos from around Venezuela on a variety of topics, including New Years fireworks, pot holes and road maintenance, a snow-woman in the shape of the Virgin Mary, and sharks. I consider it highly probable (but I am not a reliable source) that Nelson Galvis was passed the video from someone else. It looks to me like Nelson Galvis reported or posted about topics he found to be interesting. In any case, it would be irresponsible and misleading to tell our readers based on the, literally, 10 seconds, of cell phone video included without comment in the Al Jazeera documentary, that witnesses saw occupants of the first boat open fire at Venezuelan security forces.--Orgullomoore (talk) 05:38, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the Tweet (including video) was archived. The caption provided by galvis60 is: Mucha acción de los cuerpos de seguridad en el mar y sobrevolando la parroquia Macuto en la madrugada del 3 de mayo. The time stamp is 3:39 a.m., though the time zone is not clear (to me anyway). At 5:10 galvis60 re-uploaded the same video and said that "Reverol acaba informar que fue una intentona." We know from the article that this announcement came at around 7:30 a.m., so perhaps galvis60's initial tweet was posted 3 hours after the one indicated in the time stamp, i.e., at 6:39 a.m. Do you see why this is not reliable? We have no idea where it came from, and it doesn't show anything except: (a) there was a helicopter in the area; (b) there were gunshots in the area; and (c) there was a tiny boat.--Orgullomoore (talk) 06:10, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Excellent analysis on its own, without even getting in to well-known state manipulation of Twitter, which was used, in the words of the sources, to advance state narratives:

1. From Twitter: "We removed a network of 277 Venezuelan accounts that amplified accounts, hashtags, and topics in support of the government and its official narratives."
2. From Stanford Internet Observatory "277 accounts that tweeted 860,060 times. Twitter describes this network as a political spam operation in support of the Venezuelan government and its official narratives"
3. From a "recent report by the Venezuelan Observatory of Digital Media ProBox exposed the manipulation and domination of social media by the regimes of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua in an attempt to influence public opinion"

The information from Twitter itself about suspending Venezuelan accounts is interesting, considering the account in question was suspended. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:43, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

All of this is original research. WMrapids (talk) 21:57, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

EXACTLY! A tweet that is included in a documentary without any commentary or other indicia of reliability is a primary source and any attempt to draw conclusions from it is WP:OR, which "includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that reaches or implies a conclusion not stated by the sources." I'm glad we have an agreement, finally.-- Orgullomoore (talk) 22:09, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm saying that both of your explanations are original research. You attempt to strip apart the video while Sandy attempts to say that the video is possibly from Venezuelan spam bots. Al Jazeera takes the time to include the video while discussing the first boat and translates the dialogue from the apparent witness video. So Al Jazeera is clearly saying that the video is related to the first boat. Bellingcat also shows the video and relates it to the first boat (since it was "the early morning hours of Sunday, May 3". If you have issues with who is recording, then a statement could look like this "Unidentified individuals recording the first boat reported that it was firing at a responding helicopter". It is much more simple to attribute from a reliable source than trying to do the mental gymnastics of looking at archives, interpreting timestamps, assuming its a spam bot or that maybe the bogeyman of "Cuban intelligence" is at play. WMrapids (talk) 03:31, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

If Al Jazeera wants to clearly say something, they know how to do that. They did not do that. In addition, I already quoted what Bellingcat said about the video ("In one video shot before the sun had come up, a man films what looks like police vessels out at sea. There is a helicopter flying the area, and gunshots can be heard.") You, WMrapids, are trying to imply a conclusion not stated by the sources: that the person who created the cell phone video saw somebody in the first boat fire at a helicopter.--Orgullomoore (talk) 04:04, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

WMrapids we've been over this several times, so this is becoming repetitious bludgeoning. Original research is when you insert content into an article that isn't supported by secondary sources or synthesizes them to novel conclusions. Discussing on talk problems with and how to use sources is part of the normal collaborative process of analyzing sources and coming to consensus about whether to use them. You should refrain from accusing others of original research repeatedly when discussing sources on talk and trying to explain the problems to you, as it's beginning to take on a flavor of casting aspersions. If you want to use this content, I suggest you work here on talk with Orgullomoore to craft something based on Bellingcat, which uses and describes the video appropriately-- it's not their first rodeo. But please, work that out on talk by proposing content rather than via editwarring. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:38, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Alright, thanks for the explanation on original research. I'm not dedicated towards having the gunfire information in the article, but an explanation was needed and was helpful. WMrapids (talk) 14:54, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Awesome; that's why we use talk pages :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:56, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

All of this is an explanation for why we take care when using primary sources, and why editor consensus comes in to play in all discussions of sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:10, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

McClatchey

What is the point of these additions of content sourced to McClatchey, which is an article written by the same authors of articles we already have and merely referring back to their own articles? First, if people would write complete citaitons, and not leave all the secretary work to me, it would be apparent that we are citing authors who are citing themselves, when the original articles, which we already have cited, are more thorough. Search the article for Delgado; we have three articles, and the new Mcclatchy addition is merely them citing themselves. Second, with the CIA at his disposal, one certainly hopes that Trump knew the information that another source described as "the least kept secret in Venezuela", so what is this information adding? (Other than trying to lead the reader to a conclusion?). As a taxpayer, I sure hope Trump knew what was going on when everyone under the sun did. Third, the original insertion was cherry-picking one part; if we're going to use that source, why not use all of it (I had to fix that). [15]. Finally, this new circular source (authors reporting in lesser detail what they previously wrote in more detail elsewhere) adds nothing; we already had their original sources, we already had the "massacre", and introducing this new twist looks to be only to say that Trump knew what everyone else already knew. I suggest removing this unhelpful new content, because if we're going to keep it, then we need to add all the disclaimers about the alleged Trump knowledge of something that was common knowledge. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:47, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

WMrapids you have not responded to this thread or the one above it from four days ago. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:49, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Merged,[16] they are the same source, and balance the claim about Trump advance knowledge to what the source actually said along with others. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:11, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

User notification

@WMrapids: I couldn't help but notice that you have notified David Tornheim, an editor that has not edited about Venezuela for years, about the current discussions here. Since you said that this was because they were not notified about previous discussions, could you mention why you notified a single user among all of the editors who also participated in the talk page years ago but not recently? NoonIcarus (talk) 10:18, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Could this thread please be moved to User talk:WMrapids? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:36, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

 Done --NoonIcarus (talk) 16:09, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

To which I just received the response: The same reason that other users were notified to participate. Thanks for the notification!, so I'll warn against possible canvassing, only in case it continues. --NoonIcarus (talk) 22:30, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

UNDUE: White House meeting

Removed UNDUE material from exactly one source[17] out of hundreds, a claim repeated by no other source I am aware of. Please discuss and gain consensus before re-adding. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:13, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Provided more sources. Not undue; you yourself said that we should spread information throughout the article. WMrapids (talk) 16:23, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

The "more sources" you provided are literally the same source; reprints of the AFP article and a repeat of that by Maduro. That is, we still have one source for this preposterous claim, mentioned by absolutely no one else, and surprisingly not mentioned in either Neuman's book (with all his inside contacts) or any of the tell-alls that came out from the Trump administration, or even, for that matter, mentioned by Goudreau. The content is UNDUE.

1. AFP clearly noted in byline: "Maduro denuncia que Guaidó se reunió con ex boina verde en la Casa Blanca para planear "invasión"". El Mercurio (in Spanish). 2020-05-14. Retrieved 2023-10-20.
2. AFP, exact same article as 1, reprinted by France 24: "Maduro denuncia que Guaidó se reunió con exboina verde en la Casa Blanca para planear "invasión"". France 24. 14 May 2020. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
3. AFP, same thing: "Maduro acusa a Guaidó de planear en la Casa Blanca invasión en lanchas". El Estimulo (in Spanish). 13 May 2020. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
4. Maduro repeating the AFP claim, with the source making no comment on veracity (literally a one-paragraph report): "Siete hechos que marcaron el mundo esta semana". Semana (in Spanish). 16 May 2020. Retrieved 20 October 2023.

Removing, pls gain consensus before re-adding a third time. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:36, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Background section: DUE weight, broad to detail

WMrapids, in this edit you rewrote the Background section to first backtrack to 2014 and Lopez. That rewrite contained several bits that did not reflect what the source says, but more importantly, we have one (or perhaps a few) sources making the connection to Lopez (and in this case, based on unnamed sources), where almost all sources discuss the presidential crisis as being instigated by the "fraudulent" 2018 elections, and the 2017 nullification of the voters' will in the 2015 National Assembly elections. During most of all of that, Lopez was in prison. So I've reordered the flow to begin with the DUE WEIGHT issue mentioned in most sources (the "fraudulent" election and National Assembly), while retaining almost all of the Lopez assertions you added (even though they cite unnamed sources), and correcting a few bits that did not represent what the source said in the process (the source does not say, for example, that Guiado spent months trying to hire mercenaries), as well as keeping the military bits grouped together.[18] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:37, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Continuing, since the referenced edit added content dating to events of 2013 and 2014, I have completed that narrative for neutrality, as the additions provided no context for Lopez's actions, and left the impression he was the only one with an issue with how Maduro came to power and his repressive autocratic policies. It's unfortunate that section has grown so large, but the aforementioned edit left it lopsided and unbalanced. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:31, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

This edit looks appropriate to me. WMrapids (talk) 02:44, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Appreciate the response; will archive this section if no one disagrees. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:15, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

WMrapids I have had to unarchive this to review our previous discussion. I explained the due weight re chronological order, yet you today reorganized to chronological order. Could you please follow talk more closely and initiate a talk discussion when/if you change your mind and explain why? The presidential crisis began in 2019; we can't write the entire history of Venezuela in this article, and I'd like to make sure we are clear on scope. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:11, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

You have so many edits and discussions open that it is difficult to follow.The chronological order is fine since this is when the Maduro presidency and clashes began. Literature seems to support that much of the confrontation has occurred since 2014. WMrapids (talk) 22:00, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

WMrapids Working on tough topics requires collaboration, and for that we must use talk pages to come to consensus; that's how it works. As I explained originally, most sources don't have the confrontation beginning since 2014; they define it around the presidential crisis. I see that your edits seek to strongly connect Lopez by drawing back farther in time, even though we have only unnamed sources making that connection in one or two sources. Over time, we may come to discover everything was driven by Lopez, but for now we don't have that, and Wikipedia follows sources, doesn't lead. We don't know who these unnamed sources are: for all we know, they sought to shift blame to Lopez to preserve the Guaido administration ... we have to give due weight to sources, and follow not lead what is supported by sources. Shifting the narrative subtly by rearranging the timeline to one focused on Lopez is leading, not following sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:17, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Well, we have to balance between a lot of things, including readability. The section previously was not in chronological order, had multiple dates beginning at 2019, then jumping to a post-2020 book, then jumping to 2014... it was a mess. My edits are not attempting to "seek" anything; they merely are what the sources say and are organized in chronological order. WMrapids (talk) 03:16, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Moving forward, if you are having a hard time keeping up, it would help if you would use the talk page; if you consider a topic unfinished, just say so, let us know you're coming back to it, and that topic won't be archived. The idea is to keep the talk page readable by archiving what is done and resolved; it something isn't done, just say so. I'm not going to take the time to correct the subtle POV that has been introduced to background, but my concern stands-- the rewrite is slanting the article beyond the way sources treat the topic. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:32, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

WMrapids slow edit warring is still edit warring, and saying in edit summary one is "not sure" why something is included or excluded when it has a) been discussed on talk, or b) well covered in the edit summary when it occurred isn't a cover. An independent editor in the RFC has already identified what has become a frequent problem in this article; the repetitive redundancy, along with the overquoting to lead the reader.

Background is background; not an entire article; it is intended to give the reader enough context to understand the conflict.

Regarding these edits which I removed this information is not providing background and context for the conflict; it is content trying to lead the reader to a conclusion by introducing individual opinions rather than using broad or scholarly sources. The Armando Briquet opinion was already replaced by a scholarly source from which it came: Villa. One official's opinion, Keith Mines, isn't worthy of context for the reader to understand the conflict. Cherry-picking select material leads the reader. As I explained above, most high-quality and reliable sources simply put the background in the context of the 2019 presidential crisis; your editing is extending that to first lead the reader towards Lopez (which some unnamed sources do, but we should respect due weight), and now to place undue emphasis on the bias of one author- Neuman. We have multiple scholarly and book sources; none of them display the same bias Neuman does, and we should not give UNDUE weight to Neuman in the background or attempt to lead the reader towards his conclusions. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:21, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Neuman was given his due weight in the October 1, 493-word version of Background (even to the extent of including the unencyclopedic hyperbolic quote from him that Guaido had hired a foreigner to install him -- biased wording of the kind not seen in any scholarly source). Your 863-word, 12 October version has expanded Background in an already WP:TOOBIG, overquoted, repetitive and redundant article, with an over-emphasis on the opinions of one author, and is trying to lead the reader to conclusions rather than supply context in the way the preponderance of sources do. Just looking at the way Villa, a scholarly source, handles the material compared to how Neuman does with Armando Briquet should give rise to embarrassment that we are quoting Neuman at all. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:36, 12 October 2023 (UTC)