Talk:1965 Burundian coup attempt

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Good article1965 Burundian coup attempt has been listed as one of the History good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
September 12, 2021Good article nomineeListed
On this day...Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on October 19, 2019, and October 19, 2022.

Value of an infobox[edit]

1965 Burundian coup d'état attempt
Mwambutsa IV pictured in 1962 on a visit to Israel
Date18–19 October 1965,
LocationBujumbura, Kingdom of Burundi
TypeMilitary coup
Cause
MotiveRegime change
TargetRoyal Palace, Burundi
Organised byGervais Nyangoma
Antoine Serukwavu
Participants34 members of the Gendarmerie
OutcomeCoup fails
  • Mwambutsa IV remains on the throne but remains in exile
  • Radicalisation of Tutsi army officers
DeathsX civilians killed


Sundostund has added this infobox (military conflict) to the article on the ground that "[an] Infobox is one of most common, core elements for articles about military coups". According to MOS:INFOBOXUSE, "the use of infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for any article" and I do not think that the fact that other coup articles use them is really a good guide. The real question is whether it adds anything for the reader?

The first thing I would note is that this coup involved a few dozen people. It cannot be reasonably described as a "military conflict". But beyond this, at the moment the infobox contains the following information:

  1. The coup's name
  2. A low-grade map of Burundi's location in Africa
  3. Its date
  4. The information that the coup failed and "King Mwambutsa IV remains on the throne, but permanently left the country into exile"
  5. The fact that the "belligerents" were the "Government of Burundi" and an "Army faction".

The information in (1), (3), (4) and (5) can all found within the title and first sentence of the lead! The map in (2) could easily be included without an infobox. In fact, information (4) and (5) is so broad and binary as to be practically incorrect - coups are complex and not easily reduced to a "government" on one side and an "army faction" on the other and I personally don't see how an improvement is possible on a binary template of this kind. Perhaps Template:Infobox historical event might be better (see French Revolution)? —Brigade Piron (talk) 10:25, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Brigade Piron: If you wanted to quote what I said in my edit summary, it would be appropriate to quote it in its entirety, not just partially. You omitted this very important part: "If you find it necessary, its always possible to expand the content of infobox, but please don't just remove it from the article". That's exactly what we should do here, not just blatantly remove infobox from the article. Infobox is a standard part of articles of this kind, and you (and any other editor) are more than free to expand it in any way possible, and to add all the data it currently lacks and you find necessary. My adding of infobox and inclusion of modest data in it was only the initial edit, and I fully expected that other editors give their contribution to its expansion, in the same way as an article I created, 1993 Burundian coup d'état attempt, was later expanded after I initially created it... You yourself quoted MOS:INFOBOXUSE, and it never said anything about removing infoboxes just because an editor doesn't like them, and just won't bother to expand them and include more relevant data. By that logic, we should remove all infoboxes from Category:Military coups in Burundi, and by the way we can go through Category:Coups d'état and coup attempts by country and remove infoboxes from all of those articles as well. Please, I call upon you to use logic, restore infobox here, and expand it in any way you see fit. --Sundostund (talk) 15:37, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Sundostund:, the purpose bringing this to talk is to get a consensus as suggested in MOS:INFOBOXUSE. Please assume good faith. You added the infobox and I did indeed "blatantly" remove it under WP:BRD. I have set out above why I think it is unhelpful.
Your arguments, if I understand correctly, are basically that (i) the infobox might be useful if more information was added to it and (ii) all other military coup articles have them. I think the second argument is already answered in the extract of MOS:INFOBOXUSE quoted above but it does not engage with whether another type of infobox might be more suitable. Again, my objection is partly that no military conflict userbox could be suitable for an event of this nature because it was not a military conflict. Filling in a few additional details, numbers, and references will not change this. However hard you look at it, it was not a battle or war which the infobox was created to address.
Please remember that we are trying to write articles that are useful to readers - not create a beautiful online collection of inboxes! —Brigade Piron (talk) 16:27, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
(On an aside, I notice that you added many of the infoboxes to other articles you mention in Category:Military coups in Burundi!) —Brigade Piron (talk) 16:30, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Brigade Piron: I am old enough to make my own assumptions, so I must politely thank you for your effort there. As for the infobox, there is absolutely no point in removing element of the article that is supposed to summarize content of the article, and make it more presentable to the reader. It certainly is not about "creating a beautiful online collection of inboxes" – in my view, aesthetics on Wikipedia is reserved for some other elements, and infobox is definitely not one of them. As for getting a consensus, I am always ready and willing for it. If you find that Template:Infobox event is more appropriate in the case of military coups than Template:Infobox military conflict, I am certainly ready to support such a move if it means that we will use that template in articles such as this one – for me, it certainly isn't crucial what version of template we will use for infobox. Would you be willing to implement that template in this article, so that I can see what is your exact idea about infobox and its content? --Sundostund (talk) 16:47, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
(On an aside – Yes, I added many of the infoboxes to articles in Category:Military coups in Burundi, but it wasn't my whim to do that – I simply followed the example of basically every article in Category:Coups d'état and coup attempts by country.) --Sundostund (talk) 16:47, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I have added an example to the talk page here. I stress that not all its fillings might be necessary or that it might be incomplete - it's only to give an idea. —Brigade Piron (talk) 19:38, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Brigade Piron: That example seems very satisfactory to me, not counting some small issues which can be corrected. We can left out "X civilians killed" if we don't have precise number of deaths, and the King's picture should be in the article separate from the infobox. A map of the country can be in its place... Would you accept to have that template in use at this article, at similar articles in Category:Military coups in Burundi, and at Category:Coups d'état and coup attempts by country in general? Of course, implementing it at the second category, by adding it instead of Template:Infobox military conflict, would take more time and should be done gradually. --Sundostund (talk) 19:53, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Just chiming in here. I was the user who expanded the 1993 Burundian coup attempt article. I think that for situations like these complex coups, or in the case of the 1993 article where we still don't really know who exactly participated and who was responsible, the article can be better served by an event infobox than a military conflict one. -Indy beetle (talk) 03:50, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I just implemented the version of infobox which Brigade Piron suggested and posted here as an example, with some changes which I saw as necessary. It seems to me that, regardless of my initial uncertainty, Template:Infobox event is a better solution for articles about military coups in general, instead of just branding them as military conflicts by placing Template:Infobox military conflict. I have no problem to gradually replace the templates on articles about coups, and I do intend to work on that. --Sundostund (talk) 18:06, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Very good then, I support that move. -Indy beetle (talk) 04:58, 26 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that in this case an event box is better. However, for other coups the military conflict box might be more appropriate if there was significant fighting.--Bob not snob (talk) 10:38, 26 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review[edit]

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This review is transcluded from Talk:1965 Burundian coup d'état attempt/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: The Rambling Man (talk · contribs) 08:23, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]


Comments

  • Link "gendarmerie" appropriately.
    • Done.
  • "were angry frustrated" one or the other.
    • Fixed
  • "Burundi's monarch" is there a link for that?
  • "prime minister " link?
    • Done.
  • "attempted putsch " putsch? link?
  • "militant Tutsi backlash" link Tutsi.
    • Done.
  • "states had traditionally had monarchies" delete first "had"
    • Revised
  • " 1959–61. " full year for 1961.
    • Done.
  • "Burundi seemed to have achieved" sounds like OR. Or is it according to someone?
    • This was interpretation of the source by a Wikipedia editor; removed.
  • "leader Louis Rwagasore, was assassinated" how?
    • Added in a plot devised by political rivals with the support of some Belgian officials. Beyond that the details aren't really relevant.
  • "Rwagasore's death derailed" His death...
    • Done
  • "the late prime minister's" don't do "late", just name him.
    • Done
  • " (pictured) angered" pictured when?
    • Date added.
  • "Hutu politicians.[9] Another Hutu politician" repetitive.
    • Excised "politician".
  • "Parti du Peuple." no link?
    • Not for the Burundian party.
  • "seven of the other 10" 7/10 or seven/ten.
    • I've never seen fractions recommend in place of prose outside of a mathematics article
      • I mean use seven and ten or 7 and 10, don't mix numerals and words for comparable items. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 20:11, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • Per MOS:NUMERAL, this doesn't seem to be a problem. I understand your qualm but "10" is used elsewhere in the article and I'd prefer to keep it consistent by order of magnitude.
  • "arrêté-loi" what's that?
    • Literally a decree-law. As the name suggests, it was basically legislation by executive fiat in Belgian legal tradition. French Wikipedia has a stub article on it.
  • "number of communes in the country" link for communes?
    • Unfortunately, one does not exist that captures what a commune in Burundi is (basically a form of municipality).
  • "burgomasters" who are they?
    • Linked.
  • "locally elected" hyphenate.
    • Done.
  • "paracommandos" link?
    • Linked to Commando.
  • "putshcists" typo.
    • Fixed.
  • "his departure greatly tarnished" according to whom?
    • That's Lemarchand's analysis of the situation. The literal words he uses are "great discredit", presumably in the eyes of the Burundian public.
  • "10 were" 10 what?
    • Hutu politicians, the people mentioned in the preceding sentence.
  • "Assembly Paul Mirerekano" overlinked.
    • Fixed.
  • "to an easy life" maybe "to a better life"?
    • Changed to comfortable. Lemarchand says he was looking forward to his "European dolce vita".
  • "Though it was obvious" to whom?
    • Lemarchand doesn't really specify. I've removed this since it's not all that informative anyhow.
  • "1966 Ndizeye" comma after 1966.
    • MOS:DATECOMMA only stipulates that for month–day–year format. Commas are not needed to separate dates form the rest of the sentence in day-month-year formats (see [1] [2]). This is a response to all of your comma concerns.
      • Well that's not the point I was making really, there's a natural pause after the 1966 which a comma would fill. But I'm not in the mood to argue over commas. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 20:11, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • ISBNs could be formatted consistently.
    • Done.

That's all I can see right now. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 17:54, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Potential resources[edit]

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