Talk:United States aid to Sudan

Andrej's Comments

A very nice, complete background on the policy of what's happened in Sudan. Reads very neutral.

One recommendation:

• for those not familiar, it might be good to describe what the "Three Areas" is (I tried to find a Wiki link to it to no avail)

Nice job, guys! --bruindre (talk) 21:52, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Very interesting article. My one comment would be to add a sub-header for the "Economic Support Fund" in the "U.S. Policy on Conflict Mitigation and Reconciliation" section. It is an information-rich section that I think would benefit from just a little more structure. Also - can you make a slight change to the graph that accompanies the same section by adding the scale of the funding amount (millions or billions). Dross33 (talk) 21:25, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Lauren's Comments

In general, this is appears to be a very thorough and neutral overview of the topic. The only place I got stuck was with the ordering of the sections, though I understand why you chose to have it the way it is. Section 2.1 talks about the creation of USAID and then the article goes on to talk about the funding that's come from the US. It then seems to circle back in Section 4.1 History of Funding for the Program (under the heading of US Policy on Conflict Mitigation and Reconciliation). I wonder if there is a way to talk about the policies before talking about what has actually been done? I just got a bit confused with the financial numbers in each of the sections and how they related to each other (or not). Labrahams (talk) 21:44, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Deepa's Comments

I had the same comments as Lauren about ordering of the sections, but also was wondering if there was a more distinct connection between the UN/foreign aid from other nations and US aid to Sudan. The section seemed a little out of place considering the title of the wiki article, but I assume that UN and other aid are all tied up together with US policy? It may help to just make a quick reference to how all of these policies/aid packages relate to each other.

I really like the layout and section that is specific to "Conflict Mitigation and Reconciliation" near the end of the article. I imagine that you've already looked to see if the lead-in info has other pages on wikipedia to which you can link? My thinking is that maybe you can summarize the historical, other foreign aid, and other background info and really focus in on the last section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Krishnadp (talk • contribs) 23:49, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Mentor comments

• All the references are in the Cite Journal template. The Cite Journal template is only used for journals (academic and non-academic). Check out the list of citation templates and use the most relevant. The most common ones are the cite web and cite book templates. I created a couple of examples of the templates; check them out: cite web & cite book.
• The WP:Lede of the article should be a summary of everything mentioned in the article. It should contain the most important aspects found in the article. Something that is not mentioned in the article should not be in the lede.
• I will be giving the article a quick copyedit tomorrow(it's pretty late where I am now), and if there are any other problems, I will note them here.
• Overall, the article is pretty well-written. The sources are in and that is really good. As this is a first article from you guys, it impresses me! :)
• Bejinhan talks 14:06, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I requested a copyedit on this article at Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests#United States policy on conflict mitigation and reconciliation in Sudan. After it is copyedited, I will be requesting a peer review for it. These are just a couple of processes whereby we can receive community feedback on the article. Bejinhan talks 05:11, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I suggest changing the article title to United States aid to Sudan. Right now, much of the article is devoted to US aid to Sudan in general and it is not correct to have a shorter section on U.S. policy on conflict mitigation and reconciliation. The policy by itself is not the main gist of the article. As a reader, I view the article more as telling me about US foreign aid to Sudan instead of the policy. So, it's either change the section title from U.S. policy on conflict mitigation and reconciliation to something else and expand the section, or change the article title to United States aid to Sudan. Bejinhan talks 10:00, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

• I re-formatted all the references in the article. View them: United_States_policy_on_conflict_mitigation_and_reconciliation_in_Sudan#References. I used the cite web template for all of them.
• I moved the Other foreign aid to Sudan section so that it is now below the U.S. policy on conflict mitigation and reconciliation section. View my edit I did that since the article is about US aid and foreign aid is just a side mention.
• View all my edits on the article.
• The lede section still needs to be worked on. If possible, rewrite the whole lede.

Bejinhan talks 13:35, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Per my comments above, I moved the article title to United States aid to Sudan. Bejinhan talks 13:17, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

April 2011 copy edits

Hi, I am Dianna, and I have picked up the article for copy edit fron the WP:GOCE Requests page. Here is information on what edits I did, and why:

First diff:

• Sentences should only have one topic. Don't string together thoughts into long sentences that have multiple topics.
• Punctuation was fixed according to rules laid out in the Chicago Manual of Style.
• Stylistic edits were made to comply with the Wikipedia Manual of Style.
• Linking was improved; we link to a term at its first occurrence. Some links were changed. For example, "British Empire" gives more relevant related information than "United Kingdom".
• Terms like "ODA" need to be spelled out; you do not define it anywhere in the article, and the reader will not know what it means.

Here I moved the pics to positions more usual for Wikipedia and moved the table to the right.

Here I converted hyphens to en-dashes using a script. En-dashes are what is required according to our Manual of Style. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 00:08, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to revert. That was a complete accident on my part. The comments by Diannaa are quiet right, Sadads (talk) 09:37, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Dianna: Thanks for the copyedit!

Sadads: No problem. Bejinhan talks 09:42, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Comments from Chzz

• Concerns over copyvight violation / close-paraphrasing. Example (only):

• Article: "Conflict in Sudan is rooted in cultural and religious differences"
• Source: "Since independence, protracted conflict rooted in deep cultural and religious differences"
• Article: "the country and have sought to unify it along the lines of Arabization and Islamization, despite the opposition of non-Muslims, southerners, and marginalized peoples in the west"
• Source: "sought to unify it along the lines of Arabism and Islam despite the opposition of non-Muslims, southerners, and marginalized peoples in the west"
• Article:"As a result of the second civil war and famine-related effects, more than four million people were displaced and there were more than two million deaths"
• Source: "The second war and famine-related effects resulted in more than four million people displaced and, according to rebel estimates, more than two million deaths over a period of two decades"
• Article:"Some of these groups were given 24 hours to leave the country, and were told that the safety of their workers could not be guaranteed."
• Source: "Some groups were given 24 hours to leave; others were told that the safety of their staffs could no longer be guaranteed. "

There are probably lots more, and this is a major problem - it is not acceptable to copy from sources and just change a few words.

• General comment: it is very US-centric, and very much from the US-gov viewpoint; it needs balance / world view. Claims such as Conflict in Sudan is rooted in cultural and religious differences are very very strong opinions - and all referenced to US Gov. For example - I personally think the problem roots are not religious - they're cultural - and, despite US Gov views, I think there are other sources that would contend that. The article needs a more balanced world-view of these opinions. "Exceptional claims require exceptional sources" - even if the claims are made by US Gov.
• Needs a lede to tell us what it is all about. "United States policy on conflict mitigation and reconciliation in Sudan" should not be in bold - that isn't the name of the article.
• Due to cultural and religious differences between north and south Sudan, the country has been in conflict for much of the last 50 years - according to who? Is this a 'fact' - or opinion? (ie the reason for the conflict)
• United States is the largest donor and the later table - I am not entirely convinced; the figures used are separating out 'I don't understand why you have "EU Institutions" from UK, Holland, Sweden, Germany, etc - all of which donate via EU. The source is apparently an image - it needs to be a published document; you can't 'cite' a picture. Some non-US sources may help add balance
• File:Sudan Timeline.png - why is this an image, not a table?
• The bulk of U.S. foreign aid to Sudan should, as a result, pertain to one or more of these objectives - according to who? We can't state things like that because that makes it sound like it is the opinion of Wikipedia itself
• U.S. government has contributed upwards of $8 billion - all these type of claims need balanced non-US views; this figure is referenced to US Gov - what do other sources claim?
• Sections under "Programs" are too short to have a separate section, and also, frankly, sound like an advert for USAID - because it boldly declares their views and wishes as fact; e.g. wants to strengthen consensus-building through political processes, It strengthens the systems to meet the needs of citizens and government, as well as developing governmental priorities at multiple levels. - this is non-neutral, and advert-like
• Sudan the U.S. government's highest priority in Africa - is the word "is" missing there?
• This explains the high level of U.S. funding, particularly within the peace and security sector - non-Encyclopaedic language - do not 'explain' things, instead stick to facts and let the reader decide opinions.
• As Sudan falls under this description for "at-risk states", the Economic Support Fund will specifically help Sudan implement the CPA and support peace processes in Darfur.
• Because of the integrated approach to Sudanese funding from the U.S. and the global community as a whole, it is not possible to attribute specific results to U.S. funding for conflict mitigation and reconciliation in Sudan.
• Although not particularly linked to U.S. funding for conflict mitigation and reconciliation...[..] provide assistance towards the [..] (SPLA) - why isn't it linked? it sounds like it is, to me

 Chzz  ►  06:45, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback. We are new to the Wikipedia world and so we are just learning the ropes. Regarding your comment on paraphrasing, we did not realize that we were too close with our wording. We are going back and making edits to the information on our page. Also, regarding your comment on being too U.S. centric we were trying to report on the U.S. policy in Sudan so our article is somewhat U.S. centric. Of course we would welcome edits from other wiki contributors to help make the article more balanced. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mango42 (talk • contribs) 12:47, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. Fixing the close-paraphrasing is by far the most critical. Re. "US Centric", whilst of course it is a US topic, I was more concerned about the vast majority of sources being US Gov - and whilst that's OK, it'd make for better balance if some of the info could be sourced from elsewhere; I imagine (not being an expert on the topic area but...) that sources from other countries might show different perspectives - even different 'hard statistics' - on the extent and remit of the US aid.

Best of luck with it all.  Chzz  ►  18:20, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

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The map of Sudan inaccuracy.

The current map of Sudan in the article is outdated due to the creation of the South Sudanese State. I am unaware of how to locate a proper public domain photo to replace it, otherwise I would fix this myself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dsd7131 (talk • contribs) 19:39, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment

This article is the subject of an educational assignment supported by the Wikipedia Ambassador Program during the 2011 Spring term. Further details are available on the course page.

The above message was substituted from {{WAP assignment}} by PrimeBOT (talk) on 16:36, 2 January 2023 (UTC)