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Wikipedia:Featured article review/Shangani Patrol/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) 2:54, 30 April 2022 (UTC) [1].

Shangani Patrol

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Notified: Ctatkinson, Indy beetle, WikiProject Africa, WikiProject British Empire, WikiProject Military history, WikiProject Zimbabwe, diff for talk page notification

Review section

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I am nominating this featured article for review because of issues with the sourcing and POV, see the talk page for details. (t · c) buidhe 17:54, 2 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Nick-D

  • I also have concerns with sourcing:
    • I agree that the 1890s-era newspaper stories are clearly not suitable sources for a FA
    • There are also lots of jingoistic-looking sources from the early 1900s cited, which seem questionable at best
    • "Berlyn, Phillippa (April 1978). The Quiet Man: A Biography of the Hon. Ian Douglas Smith." - a biography of the Rhodesian PM published in Rhodesia during the later years of UDI cannot be assumed to be a reliable source given the extensive censorship of opposition to Smith's regime that was in place by then. The title alone raises concerns given Smith was anything but 'quiet'. This has been found to be unreliable in previous FARs.
    • There is no way that a book published in Apartheid South Africa called "Gale, W D (1958). Zambezi Sunrise: How Civilisation Came to Rhodesia and Nyasaland." can be a reliable source - the title alone is massively racist
    • "Gibbs, Peter; Phillips, Hugh; Russell, Nick (May 2009). Blue and Old Gold: The History of the British South Africa Police, 1889–1980. Johannesburg: 30° South Publishers." - I'm sceptical of anything published by this company, as they do not seem to exercise much if any quality control. Some works seem OK, but lots do not.
      • They're a specialty publisher for regional military history, but they've published some uncritical books on the Rhodesian Bush War written by the (white) participants, so definitely not the most ideal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Indy beetle (talk • contribs)
        • Yes, agreed. I've seen some good books published by this company, but also some terrible ones. I suspect that they don't edit or fact check the manuscripts they publish, so the quality of works is dependent on how good a job the author has done. Nick-D (talk) 08:14, 3 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
          • They also have a partnership with Helion & Co (per their website) so that throws all of Helion's Rhodesia and South African books into question as well. -Indy beetle (talk) 08:28, 3 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
            • Good find. Helion is a strange case: they seem to quality control works they publish themselves and have published lots of works by leading historians. At the same time, they've also published some total rubbish. I've looked at some of the volumes in the Africa @ War series via Scribd, and they were pretty bad. Nick-D (talk) 10:36, 3 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
              • I own a print copy of the Africa@War book War and Insurgencies in Uganda and have looked at one of theirs on Libya, the Congo, and some on Nigeria. All seem well-enough researched and have accompanying citations and bibliographies, but the Uganda book had some inexplicable typos and there seems to be a willingness to focus on more of the "military" side of things and less on the "history" part. They'll regularly cite the memoirs of mercenaries like Jan Zumbach without much question. I consider just about any part of their work involving mercenaries, Rhodesia, South Africa, to be pulp nonfiction that sells because "oooh sexy [inevitably white] fighterboy adventurer doing cool things in oogum boogum jungle, killing commies". Unfortunately, that's what sells. Remove the white minority governments and mercenaries from the subject in question and the quality of their literature seems to improve. Really not much good for anything involving Rhodesia other than in-text attribution of opinion or strictly noncontroverisal things. -Indy beetle (talk) 23:23, 3 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Lang, Andrew (1895). The Red True Story Book." - I really doubt that this is a high quality RS
    • "Lott, Jack (1981). Boddington, Craig (ed.). America – The Men and Their Guns That Made Her Great. Los Angeles: Petersen Publishing Company." - I doubt this is a RS, especially for this topic.
    • "Though much of the mythology surrounding the patrol and the site has dissipated in the national consciousness since the country's reconstitution as Zimbabwe in 1980, World's View endures as a tourist attraction to this day. A campaign in the 1990s to dismantle the monument and remove the graves met with strong opposition from both local residents and the Department of National Museums and Monuments, partly because of the income it brings from visitors, and partly out of respect for the site and the history surrounding it." - I can't see where this appears in the cited source. Nick-D (talk) 22:38, 2 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to FARC per above (t · c) buidhe 22:56, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to FARC, poor sourcing. Hog Farm Talk 13:41, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to FARC @Indy beetle: made some significant edits on April 3, but unless they or someone else is willing to work on this, the sourcing problems outlined by Nick-D cause me to think this should move forward. Z1720 (talk) 19:59, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

FARC section

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Issues raised in the review section include sourcing and neutrality. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:39, 16 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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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