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Wikipedia:Featured article review/Mozambican War of Independence/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was delisted by Nikkimaria via FACBot (talk) 0:47, 30 October 2021 (UTC) [1].

Mozambican War of Independence

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Notified: Marine 69-71, SGGH, WikiProject Africa, WikiProject Mozambique, WikiProject Tanzania, WikiProject Colonialism, WikiProject Cold War, WikiProject Portugal, WikiProject Military history, 2021-10-09

Review section

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I am nominating this featured article for review because of multiple citation needed templates throughout the article and numerous references are missing page numbers. Three editors commented on the talk page that they would support delisting. Z1720 (talk) 14:18, 9 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Indy beetle: - Would this happen to fall into your area of expertise with African conflicts? Hog Farm Talk 20:18, 9 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, though admittedly the Portuguese colonial wars are not something I'm very familiar with. I have a book which deals some with the economic and political aftermath of this war, but other than that I'm not privy to the necessary sources. This was promoted 14 and a half years ago and probably warrants a total re-write which I'm not really in a position to do. -Indy beetle (talk) 02:23, 11 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist I have done some basic cleanup, but its still a complete mess. Standards have obviously been lifted since 2007. I don't have access to relevant sources to improve it. Mztourist (talk) 04:39, 10 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist Not only are sources missing and the citation style a mess, but my little bit of digging has me concerned about the reliability of some sources. I just read an academic article on East German military relations with FRELIMO ("Fighting the Cold War in southern Africa? East German military support to FRELIMO", 2010) and added its relevant info to the Wikipedia article. It speaks of East German materiel aid to FRELIMO during the war, but nothing more. The article uses former East German archives as sources. In contrast, this Wikipedia article claims that in 1972 East Germany supplied military advisors to FRELIMO. This is sourced to U.S. Department of Defense, Annual Report to the Congress, 1972. The academic article is quite clear that no East German training/personnel support occurred until after the ceasefire in 1974. We should probably not be relying on the US Defense Department's Cold War era "please give us more money" scare report to US Congress to supply info on foreign subversion when better sources are at hand. Thankfully the annual report is only used in 2 instances, but we should also probably try and replace the other contemporaneous reports as sources to the best of our ability. -Indy beetle (talk) 03:17, 11 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to FARC or Delist if we're skipping that step. In addition to standards rising over time, this article has simply not been maintained since its original nomination, where most sources appear to have had page numbers. CMD (talk) 04:27, 11 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to FARC, looks like those familiar with the topic matter here are in agreement that this needs a heavy overhaul not suited for the FAR process. Hog Farm Talk 05:35, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Some of these other sources I'm not impressed with either.
      • "Mozambique in the twentieth century: from colonialism to independence," - I found this review which starts out with a very negative assessment of the work and criticizes aspects of some of its scholarship.
      • "Intercontinental Press, 1974. p. 857." is an incredibly vague citation.
      • "Terror on the Tracks: A Rhodesian Story, 2011. p. 5." is probably self-published.
      • "Tito in the world press on the occasion of the 80th birthday" looks like a poor source, IMO.
      • Lots of these sources look like heavily dated Cold War-era productions.

So yeah, the sourcing here looks like it needs an overhaul. Hog Farm Talk 05:54, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

FARC section

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Issues raised in the review section largely concern sourcing. 18:02, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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