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I'm removing the Nov 2006 Orphan header - the page is now linked to 18 others on wikipedia.
29 Jan 2007 - The article is now significantly longer. Makes sense to remove the "Expand please" flag. RajPatelUK 19:29, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Has no one noticed how badly this is written? The introduction speaks as though the reader already knows something about the subject. ie:
Its commitment to economic struggle – to the extent that it has an economic vision or practice at all - has been channeled toward the mirage of a definitive solution that will supposedly be achieved by a single blow on the day of a popular insurrection. Unwittingly they have saddled themselves with fulfilling an ideal and remain, for the foreseeable future, a merely ideological negation of South Africa’s class society.
the "an" is probably supposed to be "no," but I can't say for sure because this topic is foreign to me. also, what economic vision? what definitive solution? what exactly IS their ideology? aside from being vague and presumptuous, the introduction is also ridiculously long. This needs a lot of work. 76.190.157.0 18:04, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
- NOTE: the introduction referred to here was vandalism by Bolnick of SDI (a rival political organisation)which was quickly removed -.
So far, this article seems to be growing quickly and very well. Unfortunately, I'm a bit concerned about a couple issues. Right now, there are many uncited claims in this article, and while there is an extensive list of external links, inline citations or even footnotes (see WP:FOOT) would help the article quite a bit. Hopefully those who added the material can add citations to their work. The images are, perhaps, more troublesome, as thier is a question as to whether Wikipedia can legally host them. Many of them have " fair use" written under them, but I'm not sure this applies. I worry that the images will need to be removed (they seem to have been removed before). Smmurphy( Talk) 07:03, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
I've commented out some of the images which did not add to the article. Then I removed all the images which were not correctly tagged as public domain or anything. This leaves 2 images in the article, but I think that the article is better for it. If anyone has more images that they want to release and which will add to the article, that is great. We can even add images to Wikimedia Commons, and link to there. Hopefully this is ok. Smmurphy( Talk) 18:15, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
A lot of this article seems like an ad for the movement
I've added some more NPOV information to balance it out. It was reading like an ad for the movement with a lot of adjectives and unsubstantiated claims. Hope this helps start to round it out a bit.
Hi, I've tried to remove adjectives and claims that have no evidence. Is it better now? Would be good if someone in Durban could add some footnotes from sources other than the movement's own website (which is what is available to me).
This article seems unduly adulatory in tone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dak06 ( talk • contribs) 11:20, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Definitely not neutral both in the point-of-view and certain adjectives and phrases. Psylocybha ( talk) 15:00, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I really don't understand how it got a B rating. This whole article is blatant soapboxing by an inconsequential organisation that hardly anybody outside of its own so called membership have ever heard of. It has practically zero profile in the general press in South Africa. It a silly little wannabe organisation with absolutely zero notability. Delete this article. Roger ( talk) 17:57, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
This article is a joke, at best. It is a soapbox for a little known organization, (in fact, never heard about it until I came to the Durban article. Almost all the so called references are either invalid or unrelated, (and don't even mention what they are supposed to reference).
I don't mind cleaning it up, (by that I mean removing all the political drivel), but I fear that it will end up been reverted. FFMG ( talk) 05:43, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
On the contrary, there are all kinds of credible references to this movement such as numerous academic articles (I quickly counted more than 20 using the search engine at my university), books (I found 3 on google books) and literally hundreds if not thousands of newspapers articles (just search any of the titles in the KZN press and lots of articles will come up), statements by the United Nations and various international Human Rights Organisations (such as the Centre on Housing Rights & Evictions, Amnesty International, War on Want etc). The fact that two middle class white men do not know about a movement of shack dwellers is hardly reason for deletion. On the contrary that facts speaks only to their prejudices and their ignorance about the country in which they live - perhaps also to racism. I can't imagine that they would want to delete an article on an organisation with 10 000 paid middle class white members....
If there are claims here that need to be referenced then they must either be deleted or properly referenced. That, clearly, is the correct response to this article. I will go through it now and, using google, try to plug any holes. Others are invited to work on the article further. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sekwanele ( talk • contribs) 10:04, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
FFMG declared citations invalid seconds or minutes after they area loaded - even when they are 50 page academic articles or 250 page human rights reports. It is therefore absolutely clear that FFMG is not actually reading the citations that s/he instantly declared invalid. As has been noted before FFMG is squatting on various pages and then simply removing content that s/he doesn't like. This is unacceptable.
I repeat that what needs to be done with this page is for people to work through it carefully noting where evidence is not provided for claims, then looking for that evidence and including it if it can not be found and then, and only then, removing text. FFMG's style of simply removing text without actually looking at the text in references provided may well amount to vandalism. In any event it is certainly unhelpful and counter productive.
It is clear that these tags are supposed to be added as a last and not a first resort and that, therefore, they should be removed. If there is disagreement with this there needs to be detailed and persuasive arguments as to where the article lacks accuracy, neutral tone etc. However it is clear that there are some parts that do require citations - but most of these have already been tagged. BTW, the first comment here about non NPOV (by User:76.190.157.0) refers to vandalism on the page (by User:Bolnick) which the poster failed to recognise as such even through it was a long, palpably ignorant, entirely unreferenced and clearly hostile rant about the topic in question. That vandalism was removed long ago.
( talk) 15:24, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
Here are all the NPOV issues that need to be discussed.
There are 47 references in this article:
There are also many peacock terms with no reference:
Note that this is only for the first 2 paragraphs, the rest of the article is riddled with no references, misquoted references, or self made claims that cannot be verified.
Some of the references are also badly formatted. FFMG ( talk) 14:47, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
Now that there are some concrete issues on the table we can have a fruitful discussion. Some brief responses:
1. References from the AbM site are clearly not ok for certain claims (e.g. for evaluations of the movement) but they are ok to reference statements that speak to the movement's statements about itself. e.g. if the claim is that the movement has said 'X' then it is perfectly ok to cite the movement saying 'x'. In fact it is necessary to cite Abahlali documents for claims about the content of Abahlali statements etc. It also seems to me that it is ok to cite (the very numerous) independent academic and NGO research, as well as the independent articles from newspapers etc that are archived on the Abahlali site. In fact a large number of the links to the AbM site are to academic of newspaper articles archived on the site but produced, edited etc independently. (Of course these links could be changed to the academic journals and newspapers in question but then access would require a subscription - linking directly to the open access version on the site is therefore preferably where this is possible for the simple reason that it is more democratic) The issue of links to the AbM site will have to be handled on a case by case basis.
2. References that require a subscription to be verified can certainly be kept. Wikipedia does not insist that all references be available free online. Citing a reference that requires a subscription is no different to citing a book, a journal etc which happens all the time. The fact that a newspaper article is not available for free online does not mean that it is unacceptable to use it on Wikipedia. By that logic most scientific work would be excluded from wikipedia.
3. If a link is broken clearly that must be fixed. But this is just a technical problem - it does not speak to a NPOV problem.
4. The link to Voices of Resistance in Occupied London points to the journal - from there one can find a link to a PDF of an article. Perhaps this needs to be changed to link directly to the PDF.
5. Clearly any unreferenced claim that is contentious must be referenced. Where there are such claims, and there clearly are, they must be noted and time given for people to find and add in good references. However it would be a little pedantic to reference every single claim made in the article where there are a number of major and scientific peer reviewed academic studies that cover large numbers of the claims made here. This should be born in mind.
6. It is clearly not the case that the academic article at http://jas.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/1/95 does not support the claims for which it is cited as a reference. On the contrary it, an article by a Harvard Professor, quite clearly supports the claim that Abahlali baseMjondolo is a popular, entirely non-professionalized. If FFMG has concluded that the reference is not acceptable on the basis of just reading that abstract that is not helpful. Very many wikipedians have access to university libraries and can therefore read the whole article. We should, surely, leave the assessment of whether or not a piece of academic work supports a claim to people who have been able to read that academic work.
7. Clearly badly formatted references need to be fixed. But, again, this is a technical problem.
8. We can agree that the article needs more work - let's try and do the work in as constructive a manner as possible.
Large chunks of text without specific references have been removed, broken links have been removed, citations have been found and inserted where possible etc. It is quite clear that the article can not, now, be called unreferenced or non NPOV. FFMG has been met more than half way on this - s/he needs to show the same generosity and good faith here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sekwanele ( talk • contribs) 17:06, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
It is true that there were statements in the article that still needed to be referenced. Noting this would have been useful. However the attitude of FFMG is clearly outrightly hostile and motivated by political opposition to a radical organization rather than any concern for the integrity of Wikipedia articles. As has been noted FFMG has a habit of squatting on pages and removing contributions on entirely spurious grounds. Content is often declared to be inadequately NPOV or inadequately referenced (sometimes in a few seconds when reading the reference might take hours) and simply removed. In some instances this is clearly political vandalism. Radical organizations deserve the same careful, collaborative, non-partisan and constructive attention as any other topic on wikipedia.
My suggestion is that the page is reverted to where it was before FFMG placed these tags, tags are added to request development of the page, areas where citations are needed are noted and it is left to develop organically as other pages do. If, after some time important claims do not have citations then, and only then, should they be removed.
FFMG has falsely accused me of being a 'socket puppet' of user:Sekwanele. I am not and he has no evidence to show that this is the case. I simply agree with Sekwanele that FFMG is acting in bad faith and is preventing progress on this page. I would appreciate it if FFMG retracts this accusation. Thank You. Jaredsacks ( talk) 11:04, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
I've done a considerable amount of work on this page in the last few days using google and my university search engine for academic journals. As far as I can tell all claims on this page are now:
1. Referenced (and) 2. Referenced to documents or texts that are credible sources (I've used academic texts and human rights reports as a first choice where possible and newspaper articles as a second choice where academic texts do not seem to be available. All remaining references to the Abahlali site are only to illustrate what the movement says about itself).
I do think that it is clear that FFMG's initial challenge to this page was largely in bad faith HOWEVER there were some good points (broken links, unreferenced claims etc) and it now also seems to me that the responses to that challenge have significantly improved the page so, in the end, it has not been a bad thing. But given that I have done most of the work on this page recently that is for others to judge. I am going to stop working on this page now and let others take it forward and debate it from here. But if FFMG does just revert the work done claiming that the edits are not adequately references and without providing persuasive evidence of this, or on the spurious grounds that they do not all refer to open access material (e.g. to academic journals which require a log in), I will revert. I have carefully read all of the texts to which I have added citations but will, of course, accept a challenge to their appropriateness as support for claims on this page if FFMG, or anyone else who wishes to challenge them, also reads them and provides a careful and reasoned explanation as to why they are not acceptable.
Finally, there can be many reasons why groups of people sometimes have broadly similar interests or take a similar view on issues. e.g. Large numbers of American students have visited with Abahlali over the years and retained an interest in the movement etc. I am certainly not Jaredsacks and this can be very easily proven via IP addresses, an off line discussion etc. Happy holidays!
Sekwanele. —Preceding undated comment was added at 11:53, 23 December 2008 (UTC).
It is great that there is now a co-operative attitude and that clear progress has been made. As someone who has worked hard on the article recently I'd like, in that co-operative spirit to add the following comments to the discussion about where the article is now.
However I do not agree that the article should give general prominence to government views in general because 70% of voters elected it. This article is about AbM, and even if the are a minority of shack dwellers, which they clearly are (there are 2 million shack dwellers in South Africa) their organization is of interest in its own right. if, for instance, there was a new article on housing policy after apartheid or something like that then, clearly, the views of AbM would have to be balanced with regard to the government, other organizations etc. But, this is an article about AbM. SEKWANELE —Preceding undated comment was added at 11:14, 14 January 2009 (UTC).
Just some notes to add
Jaredsacks ( talk) 12:58, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
I have just double checked the wikipedia guidelines on acceptable sources. It seems clear that:
1. It is clear that reliable sources are those that go through rigorous editorial processes and that academic sources (books or journals) are the best available sources for wiki articles. See the wikipedia entry on Reliable sources for more on this.
2. In terms of the question of verifiability I can see nothing that indicates that sources must be online or open access. See the wikipedia entry on Verifiability.
For these reasons it seems clear to me that FFMG's concerns about references to academic books that are not online, academic articles that require subscription and newspaper articles that require subscription should not carry any weight in this discussion.
3. In terms of the wikipedia guidelines on self published sources (in this case the AbM site) it is clearly stated that there are acceptable when used as "as sources of information about themselves, especially in articles about themselves" when:
::*1. the material used is relevant to the notability of the subject of the article; ::*2. it is not unduly self-serving; ::*3. it does not involve claims about third parties; ::*4. it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject; ::*5. there is no reason to doubt its authenticity; ::*6. the article is not based primarily on such sources;
See the section on self published sources in the entry on Verifiability.
It is therefore clear that there can be no blanket ban on references to the AbM site. Although of course any individual reference can be taken up if there is a particular issue with that particular reference.
After looking at these 3 issues carefully it seems to me that the tags should be removed (the article is basically sound) and individual issues should be addressed as they arise.
This article has been more or less totally re-rewritten since December. It has far more and better sources than most wikipedia articles. And the worries about subscription only sources and using the organisations statement's to comment on how the organisation presents itself have been dealt with too. Sure the article does not give the views of the South African government at every point but it is not an article about that government - it is an article about this shack dwellers organization. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.242.182.211 ( talk) 08:29, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
If the article does indeed need a criticism section then surely it needs to be tagged as 'requires help to be developed', rather than being tagged as 'totally disputed'. But I'm not sure how such a section would be developed. Google only throws up a statement by the Municipality on a dispute around a particular march being banned (or not). There does not seem to be much sense in making a big issue on the page of a minor issue some years back. I could find no overall comment from the Municipality on AbM as a whole. Of course there are lots of statements on their housing program that give details and which laud it. There are also criticism of their housing program from NGOs etc. Maybe this page needs to be complemented with a separate pages, referenced to from here, to the Slums Act and Public Housing in Durban. It would be quite easy to balance out contesting views on those pages (and there is loads of stuff online on both issues). But that wouldn't really fit the focus of this page.
Also, why on earth is this talk page tagged as an anarchism topic and a philosophy topic? Surely those tags should go too unless there is some good reason for them that I am missing.
Ok, so the 'Criticisms' section has been created, as requested by Roger. It's not great but that's what is easy to get on google. It is a start and will no doubt be developed over time. The tags on the article page are gone now - seems fair. The irrelevant tags on this page are gone too and on the others that are in fact relevant the importance of the article has been upgraded to encourage wider participation in its further development. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.242.182.211 ( talk) 17:36, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
I also question the neutrality of the article - I can see a lot of work has been done on it, but almost entirely by its supporters, a group consisting of 41.242.*.* anons (from South Africa), contributions, contributions, contributions, who all also edit in a similar style at Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, N2 Gateway occupations and corresponding negative edits at South African general election, 2004, Elections in South Africa, Democratic Alliance (South Africa). I have downgraded the importance of the article from high to low. Wizzy… ☎ 18:09, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
By far the majority of the media attention that Abahlali baseMjondolo gets is in the isiZulu media, and especially isiZulu radio. Nevertheless in this morning's Mercury - the elite mainstream English language newspaper in Durban - there are 4 articles that refer to Abahlali baseMjondolo - 2 discuss the movement directly and 2 discuss struggles organised by the movement. If this movement is 'unknown to FFMG' then that is just because s/he is not paying attention.
The articles are:
If there are 4 articles on a mainly Zulu speaking poor people's movement in an elite English language newspaper on one day that movement clearly has a strong media presence and is clearly being taken seriously by all kinds of people. The fact that FFMG claims to have never heard of this movement outside of this wiki page may tell us something about how much FFMG knows about what is happening around him/her but it, clearly, tells us nothing at about the importance of the movement, or for that matter of this article on wikipedia.
I was looking at the latest edits [14] and as usual it is very biased and badly written, it needs to be a lot more balanced.
First of all the location of the passage, what has it got to do with the movement itself? Political parties are often victims of some kind of attacks one way or another, why is this placed as a level 2 heading straight after the context? As far as I know the DA, IFP, COPE, ANC and so on only have level 4 headings for political violences.
The claim "...It was reported by Abahlali baseMjondolo that mob members were affiliated with the local branch of the African National Congress and that the attack was carefully planned and sanctioned by the local police..." offers no reference apart from it's own website.
The Cape Argus, (and other), even report as unlikely the allegations that the police or the ANC knew anything about the attack [15]. Other online papers also reports that the allegations are unfounded [16] [17] and that people were in fact arrested for the murders.
So I think we need to make this event a level 3 or 4 heading, (maybe under 'Political violence'?), in any case, move it lower down the article and find some reliable sources that the attack had anything to do with the ANC and/or police. You cannot really have allegations referenced by the political party itself. More importantly this needs to be reworded to be a lot more neutral. FFMG ( talk) 16:23, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
I added a tag as the section is not balanced as mentioned before the issues are:
FFMG ( talk) 11:49, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
It does seem right that a wike entry should not be a newspaper with current events at the top. I have moved it down and added in a denial from the ANC and the police which balances it out a little. But it did occur to me that there is now a huge amount of media on this - in South Africa and around the world. Does this not mean that the attacks require a separate entry with a link from this page?
I think that a top-level link to the Abahlali baseMjondolo website is fine in the external links section, as with antieviction - these are very partisan websites to use as references in general, and we don't need all the other links in external links. Also - allafrica.com are a news aggregator and expire their articles behind a paywall - a little extra effort will find the original article, better for their credit and a more permanent link. Wizzy… ☎ 16:46, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
I think we need to come up with an alternative term than 'violence' to be used in the disagreement on section title "2009 Violence at Kennedy Road" vs "2009 Mob Attacks at Kennedy Road". The term "Mob" may be somewhat subjective. However, it is more accurate than just using the word 'violence'. Violence implies that the attacks were disorganised and/or uncoordinated. That it just happened. But in this case, the attacks, as has been reported and confirmed by the police and government, were very well organised. We should be using a term that accurately describes the incident. I suggest one of the following: "2009 Militia attacks at Kennedy Road", "2009 attacks at Kennedy Road", "2009 pogroms at Kennedy Road". It should, in my view, be a word of a couple words that say that the attacks were well organised and directed. Frombelow ( talk) 07:44, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
The article claims: "The Academic work on the movement stresses that it is non-professionalized (i.e. independent of NGO control), autonomous from political organisations and party politics[37] and democratic.[38][39][40]". Two citations for this are of the work of Raj Patel. He is an academic, but he is also the administrator of the Abahlali baseMjondolo website. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/raj-patel/off-side-at-the-world-cup_b_607951.html Therefore the impression given that Patel's take on this organisation flows from a disinterested academic seems misleading. He is part of the workings of the organisation. Suggest removing those citations or else reformulate : "The academic work, including that of persons closely allied to the movement, stresses that it is ..." . Wanya1 ( talk) 20:45, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
The talk page reveals a history of contention about claims made in this article. I made a number of edits in line with Wikipedia guidelines. I clearly summarized why: footnotes did not substantiate specific claims, were original research, were dead links and so on. I even corrected a grammatical mistake. A IP address user, reverted these edits without in any way dealing with the substantive reasons for them. This user simply accused that they were made "in bad faith", including the grammar correction. I have no intention of starting an edit war, particularly with an IP address user, whose "good faith" is hard to evaluate. I call rather for discussion on the substance of my edits so that the article is improved, not necessarily as a source of propaganda for the organisation concerned but as a neutral wikipedia entry with verifiable knowledge, citations and good grammar. Wanya1 ( talk) 08:20, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
I might add that a section of the article expanding upon criticisms of the movement, together with authoritative citations, was summarily removed. This cannot be right! Wanya1 ( talk) 08:26, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
The thrust of the criticism of Abm's conduct has been distorted by Sekwanele. The citations I provided refer to ABM's antagonism to other social movements from all over SA when it, according to the citation, disrupted a meeting of a other social movements. This is not a truth issue but a verifiable fact. I think we should stick to the original formulation of the criticism. I understand Sekwanele's attempt to hollow out the criticism of Abm (to which he is clearly devoted i.t.o. of edit history) before such a criticism is even properly made, but this is not appropriate and does not improve the article as knowledge. Should he not simply point out that the critics of Abm that are cited are connected to the CCS, although I would appreciate a reference for this contentious point? Since the whole article is so full of Abm peacockery, could not the criticism section at least be allowed to set out the other side of the story unmolested by editors with vested interests in the movement itself? Wanya1 ( talk) 13:30, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
I have begun addressing some of the issues raised recently. I have added a number of citations in places where there has been 'missing citation' identified and other places where it was not identified. If there are any other places missing citations, please identify them, that will help improve the article.
Also, talk pages should focus on improving the article in question rather than on politicised and/or personal discussions. Labeling people or subjects lunatic fringe is not helpful. While some subjects may be fringe related from one person's perspective, it might be quite mainstream for others.
If there is a particular statement that is not neutral or written in from a neutral point of view, please identify that specific statement rather than claim an entire article is 'lost' or 'worthless'. This will also help improve the article. Thanks Frombelow ( talk) 13:11, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
This page is linked to from Redshirt, but there is no use of this phrase to refer to the group anywhere in this article. Unless someone puts this nickname in this article, i will delete the line in the disambig page. Mercurywoodrose ( talk) 17:43, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
How does one clean up the talk page? its really long. Dannyboypipes ( talk) 10:03, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
This article is one of the better quality ones on a South African topic on Wikipedia (in terms of style, academic usage, layout etc). I would invite the editors responsible for this article and related topics to help edit other South African articles as well, many of which are in dire need of copyediting, updating and maintenence. Park3r ( talk) 12:40, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes, this article is referenced throughout, detailed and carefully mesured. Other pages - like for example the Treatment Action Campaign, the Anti-Privatisation Forum, the Conference for a Democratic Left, the South African Communist Party etc, etc need a lot more work to catch up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.231.129.51 ( talk) 10:21, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I'm removing the Nov 2006 Orphan header - the page is now linked to 18 others on wikipedia.
29 Jan 2007 - The article is now significantly longer. Makes sense to remove the "Expand please" flag. RajPatelUK 19:29, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Has no one noticed how badly this is written? The introduction speaks as though the reader already knows something about the subject. ie:
Its commitment to economic struggle – to the extent that it has an economic vision or practice at all - has been channeled toward the mirage of a definitive solution that will supposedly be achieved by a single blow on the day of a popular insurrection. Unwittingly they have saddled themselves with fulfilling an ideal and remain, for the foreseeable future, a merely ideological negation of South Africa’s class society.
the "an" is probably supposed to be "no," but I can't say for sure because this topic is foreign to me. also, what economic vision? what definitive solution? what exactly IS their ideology? aside from being vague and presumptuous, the introduction is also ridiculously long. This needs a lot of work. 76.190.157.0 18:04, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
- NOTE: the introduction referred to here was vandalism by Bolnick of SDI (a rival political organisation)which was quickly removed -.
So far, this article seems to be growing quickly and very well. Unfortunately, I'm a bit concerned about a couple issues. Right now, there are many uncited claims in this article, and while there is an extensive list of external links, inline citations or even footnotes (see WP:FOOT) would help the article quite a bit. Hopefully those who added the material can add citations to their work. The images are, perhaps, more troublesome, as thier is a question as to whether Wikipedia can legally host them. Many of them have " fair use" written under them, but I'm not sure this applies. I worry that the images will need to be removed (they seem to have been removed before). Smmurphy( Talk) 07:03, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
I've commented out some of the images which did not add to the article. Then I removed all the images which were not correctly tagged as public domain or anything. This leaves 2 images in the article, but I think that the article is better for it. If anyone has more images that they want to release and which will add to the article, that is great. We can even add images to Wikimedia Commons, and link to there. Hopefully this is ok. Smmurphy( Talk) 18:15, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
A lot of this article seems like an ad for the movement
I've added some more NPOV information to balance it out. It was reading like an ad for the movement with a lot of adjectives and unsubstantiated claims. Hope this helps start to round it out a bit.
Hi, I've tried to remove adjectives and claims that have no evidence. Is it better now? Would be good if someone in Durban could add some footnotes from sources other than the movement's own website (which is what is available to me).
This article seems unduly adulatory in tone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dak06 ( talk • contribs) 11:20, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Definitely not neutral both in the point-of-view and certain adjectives and phrases. Psylocybha ( talk) 15:00, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I really don't understand how it got a B rating. This whole article is blatant soapboxing by an inconsequential organisation that hardly anybody outside of its own so called membership have ever heard of. It has practically zero profile in the general press in South Africa. It a silly little wannabe organisation with absolutely zero notability. Delete this article. Roger ( talk) 17:57, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
This article is a joke, at best. It is a soapbox for a little known organization, (in fact, never heard about it until I came to the Durban article. Almost all the so called references are either invalid or unrelated, (and don't even mention what they are supposed to reference).
I don't mind cleaning it up, (by that I mean removing all the political drivel), but I fear that it will end up been reverted. FFMG ( talk) 05:43, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
On the contrary, there are all kinds of credible references to this movement such as numerous academic articles (I quickly counted more than 20 using the search engine at my university), books (I found 3 on google books) and literally hundreds if not thousands of newspapers articles (just search any of the titles in the KZN press and lots of articles will come up), statements by the United Nations and various international Human Rights Organisations (such as the Centre on Housing Rights & Evictions, Amnesty International, War on Want etc). The fact that two middle class white men do not know about a movement of shack dwellers is hardly reason for deletion. On the contrary that facts speaks only to their prejudices and their ignorance about the country in which they live - perhaps also to racism. I can't imagine that they would want to delete an article on an organisation with 10 000 paid middle class white members....
If there are claims here that need to be referenced then they must either be deleted or properly referenced. That, clearly, is the correct response to this article. I will go through it now and, using google, try to plug any holes. Others are invited to work on the article further. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sekwanele ( talk • contribs) 10:04, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
FFMG declared citations invalid seconds or minutes after they area loaded - even when they are 50 page academic articles or 250 page human rights reports. It is therefore absolutely clear that FFMG is not actually reading the citations that s/he instantly declared invalid. As has been noted before FFMG is squatting on various pages and then simply removing content that s/he doesn't like. This is unacceptable.
I repeat that what needs to be done with this page is for people to work through it carefully noting where evidence is not provided for claims, then looking for that evidence and including it if it can not be found and then, and only then, removing text. FFMG's style of simply removing text without actually looking at the text in references provided may well amount to vandalism. In any event it is certainly unhelpful and counter productive.
It is clear that these tags are supposed to be added as a last and not a first resort and that, therefore, they should be removed. If there is disagreement with this there needs to be detailed and persuasive arguments as to where the article lacks accuracy, neutral tone etc. However it is clear that there are some parts that do require citations - but most of these have already been tagged. BTW, the first comment here about non NPOV (by User:76.190.157.0) refers to vandalism on the page (by User:Bolnick) which the poster failed to recognise as such even through it was a long, palpably ignorant, entirely unreferenced and clearly hostile rant about the topic in question. That vandalism was removed long ago.
( talk) 15:24, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
Here are all the NPOV issues that need to be discussed.
There are 47 references in this article:
There are also many peacock terms with no reference:
Note that this is only for the first 2 paragraphs, the rest of the article is riddled with no references, misquoted references, or self made claims that cannot be verified.
Some of the references are also badly formatted. FFMG ( talk) 14:47, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
Now that there are some concrete issues on the table we can have a fruitful discussion. Some brief responses:
1. References from the AbM site are clearly not ok for certain claims (e.g. for evaluations of the movement) but they are ok to reference statements that speak to the movement's statements about itself. e.g. if the claim is that the movement has said 'X' then it is perfectly ok to cite the movement saying 'x'. In fact it is necessary to cite Abahlali documents for claims about the content of Abahlali statements etc. It also seems to me that it is ok to cite (the very numerous) independent academic and NGO research, as well as the independent articles from newspapers etc that are archived on the Abahlali site. In fact a large number of the links to the AbM site are to academic of newspaper articles archived on the site but produced, edited etc independently. (Of course these links could be changed to the academic journals and newspapers in question but then access would require a subscription - linking directly to the open access version on the site is therefore preferably where this is possible for the simple reason that it is more democratic) The issue of links to the AbM site will have to be handled on a case by case basis.
2. References that require a subscription to be verified can certainly be kept. Wikipedia does not insist that all references be available free online. Citing a reference that requires a subscription is no different to citing a book, a journal etc which happens all the time. The fact that a newspaper article is not available for free online does not mean that it is unacceptable to use it on Wikipedia. By that logic most scientific work would be excluded from wikipedia.
3. If a link is broken clearly that must be fixed. But this is just a technical problem - it does not speak to a NPOV problem.
4. The link to Voices of Resistance in Occupied London points to the journal - from there one can find a link to a PDF of an article. Perhaps this needs to be changed to link directly to the PDF.
5. Clearly any unreferenced claim that is contentious must be referenced. Where there are such claims, and there clearly are, they must be noted and time given for people to find and add in good references. However it would be a little pedantic to reference every single claim made in the article where there are a number of major and scientific peer reviewed academic studies that cover large numbers of the claims made here. This should be born in mind.
6. It is clearly not the case that the academic article at http://jas.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/1/95 does not support the claims for which it is cited as a reference. On the contrary it, an article by a Harvard Professor, quite clearly supports the claim that Abahlali baseMjondolo is a popular, entirely non-professionalized. If FFMG has concluded that the reference is not acceptable on the basis of just reading that abstract that is not helpful. Very many wikipedians have access to university libraries and can therefore read the whole article. We should, surely, leave the assessment of whether or not a piece of academic work supports a claim to people who have been able to read that academic work.
7. Clearly badly formatted references need to be fixed. But, again, this is a technical problem.
8. We can agree that the article needs more work - let's try and do the work in as constructive a manner as possible.
Large chunks of text without specific references have been removed, broken links have been removed, citations have been found and inserted where possible etc. It is quite clear that the article can not, now, be called unreferenced or non NPOV. FFMG has been met more than half way on this - s/he needs to show the same generosity and good faith here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sekwanele ( talk • contribs) 17:06, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
It is true that there were statements in the article that still needed to be referenced. Noting this would have been useful. However the attitude of FFMG is clearly outrightly hostile and motivated by political opposition to a radical organization rather than any concern for the integrity of Wikipedia articles. As has been noted FFMG has a habit of squatting on pages and removing contributions on entirely spurious grounds. Content is often declared to be inadequately NPOV or inadequately referenced (sometimes in a few seconds when reading the reference might take hours) and simply removed. In some instances this is clearly political vandalism. Radical organizations deserve the same careful, collaborative, non-partisan and constructive attention as any other topic on wikipedia.
My suggestion is that the page is reverted to where it was before FFMG placed these tags, tags are added to request development of the page, areas where citations are needed are noted and it is left to develop organically as other pages do. If, after some time important claims do not have citations then, and only then, should they be removed.
FFMG has falsely accused me of being a 'socket puppet' of user:Sekwanele. I am not and he has no evidence to show that this is the case. I simply agree with Sekwanele that FFMG is acting in bad faith and is preventing progress on this page. I would appreciate it if FFMG retracts this accusation. Thank You. Jaredsacks ( talk) 11:04, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
I've done a considerable amount of work on this page in the last few days using google and my university search engine for academic journals. As far as I can tell all claims on this page are now:
1. Referenced (and) 2. Referenced to documents or texts that are credible sources (I've used academic texts and human rights reports as a first choice where possible and newspaper articles as a second choice where academic texts do not seem to be available. All remaining references to the Abahlali site are only to illustrate what the movement says about itself).
I do think that it is clear that FFMG's initial challenge to this page was largely in bad faith HOWEVER there were some good points (broken links, unreferenced claims etc) and it now also seems to me that the responses to that challenge have significantly improved the page so, in the end, it has not been a bad thing. But given that I have done most of the work on this page recently that is for others to judge. I am going to stop working on this page now and let others take it forward and debate it from here. But if FFMG does just revert the work done claiming that the edits are not adequately references and without providing persuasive evidence of this, or on the spurious grounds that they do not all refer to open access material (e.g. to academic journals which require a log in), I will revert. I have carefully read all of the texts to which I have added citations but will, of course, accept a challenge to their appropriateness as support for claims on this page if FFMG, or anyone else who wishes to challenge them, also reads them and provides a careful and reasoned explanation as to why they are not acceptable.
Finally, there can be many reasons why groups of people sometimes have broadly similar interests or take a similar view on issues. e.g. Large numbers of American students have visited with Abahlali over the years and retained an interest in the movement etc. I am certainly not Jaredsacks and this can be very easily proven via IP addresses, an off line discussion etc. Happy holidays!
Sekwanele. —Preceding undated comment was added at 11:53, 23 December 2008 (UTC).
It is great that there is now a co-operative attitude and that clear progress has been made. As someone who has worked hard on the article recently I'd like, in that co-operative spirit to add the following comments to the discussion about where the article is now.
However I do not agree that the article should give general prominence to government views in general because 70% of voters elected it. This article is about AbM, and even if the are a minority of shack dwellers, which they clearly are (there are 2 million shack dwellers in South Africa) their organization is of interest in its own right. if, for instance, there was a new article on housing policy after apartheid or something like that then, clearly, the views of AbM would have to be balanced with regard to the government, other organizations etc. But, this is an article about AbM. SEKWANELE —Preceding undated comment was added at 11:14, 14 January 2009 (UTC).
Just some notes to add
Jaredsacks ( talk) 12:58, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
I have just double checked the wikipedia guidelines on acceptable sources. It seems clear that:
1. It is clear that reliable sources are those that go through rigorous editorial processes and that academic sources (books or journals) are the best available sources for wiki articles. See the wikipedia entry on Reliable sources for more on this.
2. In terms of the question of verifiability I can see nothing that indicates that sources must be online or open access. See the wikipedia entry on Verifiability.
For these reasons it seems clear to me that FFMG's concerns about references to academic books that are not online, academic articles that require subscription and newspaper articles that require subscription should not carry any weight in this discussion.
3. In terms of the wikipedia guidelines on self published sources (in this case the AbM site) it is clearly stated that there are acceptable when used as "as sources of information about themselves, especially in articles about themselves" when:
::*1. the material used is relevant to the notability of the subject of the article; ::*2. it is not unduly self-serving; ::*3. it does not involve claims about third parties; ::*4. it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject; ::*5. there is no reason to doubt its authenticity; ::*6. the article is not based primarily on such sources;
See the section on self published sources in the entry on Verifiability.
It is therefore clear that there can be no blanket ban on references to the AbM site. Although of course any individual reference can be taken up if there is a particular issue with that particular reference.
After looking at these 3 issues carefully it seems to me that the tags should be removed (the article is basically sound) and individual issues should be addressed as they arise.
This article has been more or less totally re-rewritten since December. It has far more and better sources than most wikipedia articles. And the worries about subscription only sources and using the organisations statement's to comment on how the organisation presents itself have been dealt with too. Sure the article does not give the views of the South African government at every point but it is not an article about that government - it is an article about this shack dwellers organization. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.242.182.211 ( talk) 08:29, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
If the article does indeed need a criticism section then surely it needs to be tagged as 'requires help to be developed', rather than being tagged as 'totally disputed'. But I'm not sure how such a section would be developed. Google only throws up a statement by the Municipality on a dispute around a particular march being banned (or not). There does not seem to be much sense in making a big issue on the page of a minor issue some years back. I could find no overall comment from the Municipality on AbM as a whole. Of course there are lots of statements on their housing program that give details and which laud it. There are also criticism of their housing program from NGOs etc. Maybe this page needs to be complemented with a separate pages, referenced to from here, to the Slums Act and Public Housing in Durban. It would be quite easy to balance out contesting views on those pages (and there is loads of stuff online on both issues). But that wouldn't really fit the focus of this page.
Also, why on earth is this talk page tagged as an anarchism topic and a philosophy topic? Surely those tags should go too unless there is some good reason for them that I am missing.
Ok, so the 'Criticisms' section has been created, as requested by Roger. It's not great but that's what is easy to get on google. It is a start and will no doubt be developed over time. The tags on the article page are gone now - seems fair. The irrelevant tags on this page are gone too and on the others that are in fact relevant the importance of the article has been upgraded to encourage wider participation in its further development. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.242.182.211 ( talk) 17:36, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
I also question the neutrality of the article - I can see a lot of work has been done on it, but almost entirely by its supporters, a group consisting of 41.242.*.* anons (from South Africa), contributions, contributions, contributions, who all also edit in a similar style at Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, N2 Gateway occupations and corresponding negative edits at South African general election, 2004, Elections in South Africa, Democratic Alliance (South Africa). I have downgraded the importance of the article from high to low. Wizzy… ☎ 18:09, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
By far the majority of the media attention that Abahlali baseMjondolo gets is in the isiZulu media, and especially isiZulu radio. Nevertheless in this morning's Mercury - the elite mainstream English language newspaper in Durban - there are 4 articles that refer to Abahlali baseMjondolo - 2 discuss the movement directly and 2 discuss struggles organised by the movement. If this movement is 'unknown to FFMG' then that is just because s/he is not paying attention.
The articles are:
If there are 4 articles on a mainly Zulu speaking poor people's movement in an elite English language newspaper on one day that movement clearly has a strong media presence and is clearly being taken seriously by all kinds of people. The fact that FFMG claims to have never heard of this movement outside of this wiki page may tell us something about how much FFMG knows about what is happening around him/her but it, clearly, tells us nothing at about the importance of the movement, or for that matter of this article on wikipedia.
I was looking at the latest edits [14] and as usual it is very biased and badly written, it needs to be a lot more balanced.
First of all the location of the passage, what has it got to do with the movement itself? Political parties are often victims of some kind of attacks one way or another, why is this placed as a level 2 heading straight after the context? As far as I know the DA, IFP, COPE, ANC and so on only have level 4 headings for political violences.
The claim "...It was reported by Abahlali baseMjondolo that mob members were affiliated with the local branch of the African National Congress and that the attack was carefully planned and sanctioned by the local police..." offers no reference apart from it's own website.
The Cape Argus, (and other), even report as unlikely the allegations that the police or the ANC knew anything about the attack [15]. Other online papers also reports that the allegations are unfounded [16] [17] and that people were in fact arrested for the murders.
So I think we need to make this event a level 3 or 4 heading, (maybe under 'Political violence'?), in any case, move it lower down the article and find some reliable sources that the attack had anything to do with the ANC and/or police. You cannot really have allegations referenced by the political party itself. More importantly this needs to be reworded to be a lot more neutral. FFMG ( talk) 16:23, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
I added a tag as the section is not balanced as mentioned before the issues are:
FFMG ( talk) 11:49, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
It does seem right that a wike entry should not be a newspaper with current events at the top. I have moved it down and added in a denial from the ANC and the police which balances it out a little. But it did occur to me that there is now a huge amount of media on this - in South Africa and around the world. Does this not mean that the attacks require a separate entry with a link from this page?
I think that a top-level link to the Abahlali baseMjondolo website is fine in the external links section, as with antieviction - these are very partisan websites to use as references in general, and we don't need all the other links in external links. Also - allafrica.com are a news aggregator and expire their articles behind a paywall - a little extra effort will find the original article, better for their credit and a more permanent link. Wizzy… ☎ 16:46, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
I think we need to come up with an alternative term than 'violence' to be used in the disagreement on section title "2009 Violence at Kennedy Road" vs "2009 Mob Attacks at Kennedy Road". The term "Mob" may be somewhat subjective. However, it is more accurate than just using the word 'violence'. Violence implies that the attacks were disorganised and/or uncoordinated. That it just happened. But in this case, the attacks, as has been reported and confirmed by the police and government, were very well organised. We should be using a term that accurately describes the incident. I suggest one of the following: "2009 Militia attacks at Kennedy Road", "2009 attacks at Kennedy Road", "2009 pogroms at Kennedy Road". It should, in my view, be a word of a couple words that say that the attacks were well organised and directed. Frombelow ( talk) 07:44, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
The article claims: "The Academic work on the movement stresses that it is non-professionalized (i.e. independent of NGO control), autonomous from political organisations and party politics[37] and democratic.[38][39][40]". Two citations for this are of the work of Raj Patel. He is an academic, but he is also the administrator of the Abahlali baseMjondolo website. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/raj-patel/off-side-at-the-world-cup_b_607951.html Therefore the impression given that Patel's take on this organisation flows from a disinterested academic seems misleading. He is part of the workings of the organisation. Suggest removing those citations or else reformulate : "The academic work, including that of persons closely allied to the movement, stresses that it is ..." . Wanya1 ( talk) 20:45, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
The talk page reveals a history of contention about claims made in this article. I made a number of edits in line with Wikipedia guidelines. I clearly summarized why: footnotes did not substantiate specific claims, were original research, were dead links and so on. I even corrected a grammatical mistake. A IP address user, reverted these edits without in any way dealing with the substantive reasons for them. This user simply accused that they were made "in bad faith", including the grammar correction. I have no intention of starting an edit war, particularly with an IP address user, whose "good faith" is hard to evaluate. I call rather for discussion on the substance of my edits so that the article is improved, not necessarily as a source of propaganda for the organisation concerned but as a neutral wikipedia entry with verifiable knowledge, citations and good grammar. Wanya1 ( talk) 08:20, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
I might add that a section of the article expanding upon criticisms of the movement, together with authoritative citations, was summarily removed. This cannot be right! Wanya1 ( talk) 08:26, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
The thrust of the criticism of Abm's conduct has been distorted by Sekwanele. The citations I provided refer to ABM's antagonism to other social movements from all over SA when it, according to the citation, disrupted a meeting of a other social movements. This is not a truth issue but a verifiable fact. I think we should stick to the original formulation of the criticism. I understand Sekwanele's attempt to hollow out the criticism of Abm (to which he is clearly devoted i.t.o. of edit history) before such a criticism is even properly made, but this is not appropriate and does not improve the article as knowledge. Should he not simply point out that the critics of Abm that are cited are connected to the CCS, although I would appreciate a reference for this contentious point? Since the whole article is so full of Abm peacockery, could not the criticism section at least be allowed to set out the other side of the story unmolested by editors with vested interests in the movement itself? Wanya1 ( talk) 13:30, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
I have begun addressing some of the issues raised recently. I have added a number of citations in places where there has been 'missing citation' identified and other places where it was not identified. If there are any other places missing citations, please identify them, that will help improve the article.
Also, talk pages should focus on improving the article in question rather than on politicised and/or personal discussions. Labeling people or subjects lunatic fringe is not helpful. While some subjects may be fringe related from one person's perspective, it might be quite mainstream for others.
If there is a particular statement that is not neutral or written in from a neutral point of view, please identify that specific statement rather than claim an entire article is 'lost' or 'worthless'. This will also help improve the article. Thanks Frombelow ( talk) 13:11, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
This page is linked to from Redshirt, but there is no use of this phrase to refer to the group anywhere in this article. Unless someone puts this nickname in this article, i will delete the line in the disambig page. Mercurywoodrose ( talk) 17:43, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
How does one clean up the talk page? its really long. Dannyboypipes ( talk) 10:03, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
This article is one of the better quality ones on a South African topic on Wikipedia (in terms of style, academic usage, layout etc). I would invite the editors responsible for this article and related topics to help edit other South African articles as well, many of which are in dire need of copyediting, updating and maintenence. Park3r ( talk) 12:40, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes, this article is referenced throughout, detailed and carefully mesured. Other pages - like for example the Treatment Action Campaign, the Anti-Privatisation Forum, the Conference for a Democratic Left, the South African Communist Party etc, etc need a lot more work to catch up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.231.129.51 ( talk) 10:21, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
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