Talk:Abahlali baseMjondolo

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Huh...?

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)[reply]

- the introduction referred to here was vandalism by Bolnick of SDI (a rival political organisation).

Copyright and citation issues

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)[reply]

I've split the article into sections, which hopefully helps with the structure. I'm not sure about the introductary paragraphs, however. Hopefully someone who knows more can look at that and see if the most important stuff is included. Their are, as is mentioned, plenty of photographs involving Abahlali online, so Wikipedia doesn't need all of them. A couple should be singled out for inclusion, and the rights to those photos should be verified. The same is true about the links at the end, only a few links need be given, especially as many of them are subpages for the same sites (such as abahlali.org).Smmurphy^(Talk) 07:22, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

bizarre caption

What does the caption "Mark of the beast, mark of resistance" mean? It doesn't sound neutral, and it certainly isn't informative. The article in general can use work on things like that. ---Delirium 16:44, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

choosing images

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)[reply]

NPOV?

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.

NPOV

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).

Bjorn

NPOV

This article seems unduly adulatory in tone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dak06 (talk • contribs) 11:20, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV

Definitely not neutral both in the point-of-view and certain adjectives and phrases. Psylocybha (talk) 15:00, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This entire article is rubbish

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)[reply]

NPOV : Again

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)[reply]

On the contrary

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)[reply]

This page needs work by people with constructive intentions - not rank intolerance and a clear refusal to actually read citations before declaring them unacceptable

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.

Looks to me like FFMG has an agenda for deleting relevant information about the largest social movement in Africa. This group is known throught the world. It is in text books in harvard and talked about in classes at UC-Berkeley. FFMG says this organisation is a joke but he does not provide any evidence that this is true.

I would also say that the article in general has a neutral point of view. There may be instances where certain words may not be entirely neutral but all that requires is a few minor grammar changes. I believe that FFMG should, if he finds any words that are not neutral, work on changing those words rather than declare the entire article irrelevant. All conventions are followed and all sources cited by relevant sources.

I nominate this article as being neutral. inkululeko (talk) 12:42, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In the wiki article Wikipedia:NPOV_dispute, there states the following requirement: "Drive-by tagging is strongly discouraged. The editor who adds the tag must address the issues on the talk page, pointing to specific issues that are actionable within the content policies, namely Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. Simply being of the opinion that a page is not neutral is not sufficient to justify the addition of the tag. Tags should be added as a last resort." Based on this, I would say that FFMG has not sufficiently attempted to explain why the article is not neutral. He/she also has not used the tag as a last resort. Therefore, I will remove the non-neutral tag. I request anyone, including FFMG, who has issues with the neutrality of the article to first attempt to resolve those. If all other avenues are pursued, then he/she may nominated the article as not-neutral if he/she gives proper reasoning, details and examples as to why it should be given this tag. jaredsacks (talk) 15:35, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not entirely sure why you are attacking me personally, but I am not the only one who thinks that this entire article is not neutral. Look at how many discussions have started here regarding NPOV.

So, please, stop your personal attacks and leave the tags/templates until others have a change of commenting. FFMG (talk) 11:21, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There was no personal attack. I was just disagreeing with you because you presented no explanation of point of view tag which is obviously wrong. I would appreciate it if you un-accuse me of the abuse you have just accused me of considering it is not true. jaredsacks (talk) 17:15, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I added, (before your new comment), an entire section about NPOV for others to discuss/review. FFMG (talk) 15:24, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with jaredsacks

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)[reply]

NPOV, ( and Peacock), issues to handle

Here are all the NPOV issues that need to be discussed.

There are 47 references in this article:

25, (over 50%), are from Abahlali[1] itself, in other words it is self referencing.
some, ([2]), are used as references but the claims are not mentioned in the text.
At least one [3] reference is by subscription and cannot be verified.
At least one reference [4] does not exist, (404 page). Making [[Abahlali_baseMjondolo#International_Condemnation_of_Repression_in_Durban|an entire section] hard to verify.
Many references do not support the statement made, [5], (reference 46), for example.
The sentence Abahlali has members in 36 shack settlements in KwaZulu-Natal points to a website about London[6]
Twenty four of these branches participate in the movement on a day to day basis has not references
...been subject to severe and sustained state repression suffering numerous police beatings and more than 200 arrests over the last three years..., no references
...Abahlali claims that it has been subject to sustained illegal police harassment, violence and intimidation. It has received very strong support from very senior church leaders on the issue of police harassment... the ref, ([7] from the Abahlali site itself), quotes 2 newspapers but does not really mention harassment.
...Journalists covering Abahlali protests have also reported violent intimidation, theft of cameras and wrongful arrest by the South African police officers..., no ref
The Context section has little or no references, the few references are not in context or simply do not mention the claims made.
- The eThekwini Municipality which governs Durban and Pinetown has embarked on a slum clearance programme... not in ref
- In these demolitions some shack dwellers are simply left homeless and others are subject to forced evictions to the rural periphery of the city... not in ref
- The movement has had a considerable degree of success in stopping evictions and forced removals... no ref
However in a number of settlements the struggle against unelected authoritarian (and often armed) local elites, who often try to deliver the settlement to a political party in exchange for petty favours..., POV with no reference.
In some of these settlements there are ongoing struggles for democratisation. In some instances people struggling for democratisation are living under death threats., POV with no reference.

There are also many peacock terms with no reference:

Abahlali baseMjondolo is a popular, entirely non-professionalized, (the reference does not mention that)
It has placed the dignity of the poor at the centre of its politics, no ref
In November 2008 the movement's paid up members reached the 10 000 mark but the number of supporters is believed to be considerably larger than that number, no ref
...Abahlali is often referred to as by far the largest oppositional movement of the poor to have emerged outside of the ANC alliance thus far in post-apartheid South Africa.
The movement has a very high media profile..., no ref.
The movement has had a considerable degree of success in stopping evictions and forced removals..., no ref
Abahlali has had great success in building popular power outside of the representative politics..., no ref, (the ref given [8] is of its own site with more interlinks to articles within the site that hardly cover the events).
In September 2007 thousands of shack dwellers were peacefully marching on Mlaba to protest against his policy of expelling the poor...

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)[reply]

Now We are Having a Useful Discussion

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. This issue 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 man 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.