Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Gendarmerie of Haiti

The following discussion 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.

No consensus to promote at this time - Peacemaker67 (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 03:06, 27 September 2015 (UTC) « Return to A-Class review list[reply]

Gendarmerie of Haiti

Nominator(s): LavaBaron (talk)

Featured article candidates/Gendarmerie of Haiti/archive1

I am nominating this article for A-Class review for obvious reasons. But, specifically, note that it is only very slightly shorter than the A-class Serbian State Guard which had a roughly equal military role and status as a collaborationist gendarmerie. Plus, it is more lavishly illustrated than that article and has more sources. LavaBaron (talk) 18:11, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments: G'day, I have the following comments/suggestions: AustralianRupert (talk) 10:17, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

for A-class, I think the lead should be expanded to at least two paragraphs;
"Officers, NCOs, and enlisted personnel...": the abbreviation "NCO" should be formally introduced on first mention; I suggest possibly providing a link also;
in the Formation section, the link for the United States Marine Corps should be moved to its first mention;
"Lt. Patrick Kelly earning" --> it is probably better here just to spell out the rank in full. Same with the other instances...
link Second Caco War;
I think the formation section could be expanded a little to provide some more context to the unit's formation, i.e why was it formed and what was its initial role?
" Haitians who were paid between $10 to $25 per month..." was this a good wage at the time? It might be helpful to add a footnote, or some sort of explanation here;
the information about the unit's march being Dessalines pas vlé oné blancs appears to be unreferenced;
inconsistent presentation: usually you use a lower case isolated "gendarmerie", but in a couple of places you use upper case (e.g. "isolated Gendarmerie outposts")
remove the link here: "indicted by U.S. Navy" (for U.S. Navy, as it has already been linked);
the last two sentences of the final paragraph of the Later history section seem a bit awkward to me;
is this link a reliable source: [1]?
"File:Port-au-Prince Ecole des Gendarmes.jpg": are we sure that this was taken by a member of the US Navy? Is there a source that states this?
same as above for "File:Gendarmerie of Haiti.png"
same as above for "File:Haitian gendarmerie officers.jpg"
same as above for "File:Haiti 1924 rifle team.jpg"

Thanks, anonymous editor . I will begin making these changes and clarifications today. LavaBaron (talk) 15:28, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Anonymous Editor - I've made all these changes with the exception of explaining whether $10/month was a good wage in 1915 as I don't know and the sources don't provide context, unfortunately. As for Global Security's reliability, the RS noticeboard has had several discussions as to its reliability. The consensus in some is that it is RS, the consensus in others is that it is RS except to explain current events. In the last month it's been sourced by the Diplomat [2], Dayton Daily News [3], and San Diego Union-Tribune [4]. LavaBaron (talk) 23:36, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

G'day, apologies, I somehow forgot to sign in. Thank you for your changes. I have a couple more points below:

in the References, is the page range for Ball missing a closing number: "pp. 240–" ?
in the References, is there an ISBN or OCLC number for the Heinl source? AustralianRupert (talk) 09:10, 10 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for catching, AustralianRupert. I've fixed both of these. LavaBaron (talk) 14:42, 10 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

G'day, I've reviewed your changes and I think, as Dudley points out below, that the lead could still be expanded a bit. I've added a red link for the term cacos, which might help with one of Dudley's questions also. It is ok for it to remain a red link (without impacting on the review), but if you have reference material available, I'd like to encourage you to maybe create a stub. I've added a web link to the Encyclopedia Britannica article on the Cacos to the edit summary in the article, which might be beneficial. Another suggestion I have, is if you are concerned about tangential information impacting upon the flow of the article, you could potentially employ a notes system to provide minor clarifications. For example, see the Shōkaku-class aircraft carrier article, which is also currently at A-class review. That might potentially offer a compromise solution, which might allow you to address some of Dudley's concerns. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 01:25, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. - Dank (push to talk)

The best I can tell from the sources you have that I could access, the title of the of the page should be "Gendarmerie of Haiti". I made the page move.
Support on prose per standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 01:06, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your excellent copyediting, and overall improvement, Dank. LavaBaron (talk) 19:22, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Dudley

The lead is still too short. It should be a fuller summary of the article.
"president Vilbrun Guillaume Sam" I think president should be capitalised.
A fuller explanation of the background would be helpful - perhaps a paragraph summarising the situation explained in the article of the US occupation.
What was the first Caco War and what was a banana war?
What was a caco?
How was the Haitian–American Convention arrived at and who approved it on behalf of Haiti?
"what was perceived as the demeaning methods of American military instruction" Such as?
What was the Garde d'Haïti and how was it different from the Genderamerie? It would also be helpful to cover the end of the American occupation.
This article gives a brief summary but in my view a fuller account of the Gendarmerie is needed for A-Class standard. Dudley Miles (talk) 21:23, 25 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dudley Miles - with due respect, in my opinion your observations are of very poor quality. Please accept this in the spirit in which it was intended, as constructive feedback for future improvement and not as deduction of your obviously capable skills as an editor. In view of that, I have taken considerable time to provide a detailed critique as follows:

"What was the first Caco War?" - Click the wikilink. Beyond that, it's WP:UNDUE. After mentioning the Second World War, we don't veer off to explain to the reader what the First World War was in the A-classed article Serbian State Guard. The Haitian Gendarmerie didn't exist during the First Caco War, just like the Serbian State Guard didn't exist during the First World War. A-classed articles are focused, relevant, and topical examinations of a subject, not pot-pourris of random trivia and interesting historical tidbits.
How was the Haitian–American Convention arrived at and who approved it on behalf of Haiti? - The legal framework of the HAC has absolutely nothing to do with the subject of the Gendarmerie of Haiti. The 30-page HAC contained 1-paragraph of relevance as an authorizing instrument to the Gendarmerie and that is covered in the article. An examination of the diplomatic history and the timeline of negotiations of the HAC is entirely beyond the scope of this article (what you're asking should, correctly, be covered in the article titled "Haitian-American Convention"). Adding it would make as much sense as describing the signing of the Magna Carta in the A-classed article King's Regiment (Liverpool). This is an article on a military unit; what you are asking is not a customary construction of such an article and we should not be in the business of attempting to adopt special framing for military unit articles from developing countries that contextualize them within the construction of the colonial epoch. They should be similar in form and layout to peer articles form developed nations.
What was a banana war? - There's a wikilink you could click. Beyond that, and once again, describing U.S. wars in Nicaraguara and the Dominican Republic in an article on a Haitian police force is entirely UNDUE. A-classed articles are focused, relevant, and topical examinations of a subject, not pot-pourris of random trivia and interesting historical tidbits.
It would also be helpful to cover the end of the American occupation. No, that wouldn't be very helpful at all. The American military occupation ended more than a decade after the Haitian Gendarmerie ceased to exist. Crowbarring that in would make a concise and topical article disjointed and rambling. Again, this is an article on the Haitian Gendarmerie, not the U.S. military occupation, the First Caco War, the history of the settlement of Hispaniola, popular Haitian cuisine, or the development of the rummaking indusry in Haiti. Any mention of the U.S. occupation should be in relation to how it impacts the subject of the article. "Covering" the end of the U.S. occupation in an article on a military unit that was disbanded ten years prior and had no contextual linkage to that end in any popular or scholarly RS would be totally un-encyclopedic. A-classed articles are focused, relevant, and topical examinations of a subject, not pot-pourris of random trivia and interesting historical tidbits.

Ultimately, it sounds like you're disappointed the wikilinked articles on a few topics mentioned are stubs or in very poor quality (so am I) and want to resolve it by inserting the entire history of the Haitian nation into this article. While I appreciate you taking the time to comment, unlike those of Dank and AustralianRupert, your feedback isn't very well conceived, I'm afraid. Your comments encumber a level of extraneous detail that, if they were to be acted upon, would seriously diminish my beautiful article by turning it into a clown car into which every inter-secting topic, no matter how tangentially related, is madly crammed. Your comments don't have any precedence in peer articles to this one (as noted above, in the case of the Serbian State Guard, and more) for good reason. I can't, I'm afraid, incorporate any of the changes you suggest, except to capitalize the word "president" - sorry. LavaBaron (talk) 00:21, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

G'day, Dudley and LavaBaron, I believe that there is a compromise solution. Please see my comment above. Would that work for you both? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 01:25, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No, that doesn't work for me at all. A-classed articles should be focused, relevant, and topical examinations of a subject, not pot-pourris of random trivia and interesting historical tidbits. The correct way to resolve the sad state of WP articles on Haiti topics is by improving one article at a time, not by blowing out a single neat, thorough and well-written entry on a small Haitian military unit - that is equal in depth and quality in every way to A-classed Serbian State Guard - to incorporate virtually the entire modern history of the Haitian nation. No similar requirement exists for military unit articles from developed nations and the demand here is that this meet a different compositional standard that contextualizes it within a colonial historical frame (e.g. "describe the First Caco War, describe the political history of Haiti"). Thank you to both Dank and AustralianRupert for spending time on this, however, I'd rather withdraw it from further consideration than turn it into a clown car by jamming in every random factoid about Haiti that's possible to fit in. LavaBaron (talk) 01:48, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think Rupert is asking for all that much. At a minimum, avoid using words that most readers won't know (such as "Banana Wars"), unless you at least give a clue to their meaning in the text (or a footnote would be fine), in addition to the link. This is the advice at WP:Checklist#clarity. - Dank (push to talk) 02:02, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dank - the A-classed article Serbian State Guard includes the following terms "most readers" are as unlikely to know as "banana wars:" non-ferrous metals, Government of National Salvation, Organisation Todt, etc. In each of these cases the terms are dealt with via Wikilink instead of voluminous footnotes. It is concerning that, on the exceptionally rare occasion an article about a non-European/North American military unit is penned, an extra barrel of unprecedented standards are encumbered upon it because the topic would otherwise, apparently, be exotic and beguiling to readers. The feedback offered by Dudley was not well-conceived in any sense of the word and it shocks it should be given countenance for sake of diplomacy. Thank you and Rupert again, in any case, for your time. LavaBaron (talk) 09:01, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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.