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August 2005
Didn´t Mali gain independence as the Mali Federation on June 20th? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Homagetocatalonia (talk • contribs) 22:05, 10 August 2005
Old talk
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French Sudan originally a department of France?
Was French Sudan originally a "Department" of France (like Algeria was)? I added this but I'm not sure this is true. Badagnani 00:48, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
suggestion: PRONUNCIATION GUIDE FOR "MALI" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.80.66.119 (talk) 17:52, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Economy section: NPOV
I have reviewed the "Economy" section in all country articles on Wikipedia; unfortunately, many of them have NPOV issues, and by my reading, this article is one of them.
Common issues with this section include:
verbatim quotes from the CIA world factbook
describing a country's economic policy as "sound", "unsound", "imprudent", etc.
assuming a link between economic health and low inflation
using expressions like "the GDP improved" (should be increased), "beneficial levels of inflation" (should be low levels of inflation), etc.
postulating cause-effect relationships that seem controversial.
This note will stay up for a week before I'll make any further changes. Please feel free to be bold and fix the article yourself, though! I'll also be monitoring this discussion page, and will try answering any concerns.
If you want to discuss the entire project, you can do so on my talk page or at the talk page for this specific prject.
(Note: this is only the second country page I'm trying this on, and I haven't gotten any comments so far, so please let me know what you think about the idea.)
Changed the daylight savings time information -- Mali does not use DST. Chris 11:43, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Wrong Motto in English
On the English page on the right hand side it says, 'Un peuple, un goal, une equipe' translated as 'One people, one goal, one faith'. Equipe in French means team, not faith, and "goal" is not a French word. Then I saw on the French page, the motto is said to be, "Un peuple, un but, une foi." This needs to be corrected on the English page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.80.38.19 (talk) 00:53, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Hydroelectriciy
Electricity - 700kWh generated through hydro electricity contributing 50% of the countries electricity? 700kWh is roughly equivalent to a car sized tank of diesel. perhaps the unit should be GWh —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.74.210.239 (talk) 03:47, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
That's what the source said. miranda 04:07, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
The two major Hydroelectric projects in Mali are Manantali Dam ( 200 megawatts, reported to generate " 432.85 GWh in 2002, 846.52 GWh in 2003, and is operating at an acceptable availability level. Energy sales to the three national power utilities amounted to 372.80 GWh in 2002 and 775.31 GWh in 2003."[1] and Selingue Dam (44 megawatts, producing 200 million kilowatt-hours per year). Can we generate an aggregate from these that makes sense? I'm not electrical engineer. T L Miles (talk) 06:40, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
Feel free to change. miranda 08:02, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
Percentage of Christians?
On the main page it says 5%. On the demografic page it says about 1%. Any one an idea which figure is correct?HichamVanborm 15:08, 23 October 2006 (UTC)mali is the bomdigidia
Section about Songhai
I made some minor changes to the grammar, but it appears as if the entire section has written in another language and was run through an online translator. I cannot understand the basic premise enough to fix it so that it is beneficial to the article. If someone else could that would be great. --Cdank (talk) 17:38, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
history
how does the Bambara Empire fit in the history section? It is not currently mentioned. I don't know enough about the subject to merge it in. phoebe 04:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Amazigh language?
I do not believe the Amazigh name for Mali is required for the top of the article. The lingua franca of Mali is Bambara, not Amazigh -- I think English and French are the only two necessary. Any thoughts as to whether or not I should remove it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chriswaltham (talk • contribs) 19:24, 20 November 2006
reply: don't remove it. a person who is Amazigh might read. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fver (talk • contribs) 17:01, 19 March 2007
I still disagree that the Amazigh name should be displayed; I can think of numerous languages that are more widely-spoken and recognizably Malian than Amazigh. Why don't we put those there? N'ko, Malinke, Arabic etc. Chris 18:49, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
The article mentions Malian as the Demonym for Mali, I have also heard the word Malinese used, probably first from playing Civilization, used with the Mali Empire. Malinese does not appear very frequently on a Google search compared to Malian and does not appear in my dictionary either. Does anyone know where the word Malinese came from, if it is incorrect or an archaic term. Should it be mentioned somewhere in the article?
A quick check of google seems to indicate that this computer game uses Malinese, and that it is also the Dutch / Flemish language term for people from Mali, and some translations into English of articles from these sources incorrectly render the term Malian as Malinese. I've never heard a West African use the term, or even read it before. My opinion is that it is incorrect, and if anything, you should write a letter to the makers of that video game. T L Miles (talk) 16:20, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
GA Review
This review is transcluded from Talk:Mali/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
This article is not yet ready for GA status. Please review the comments below.
Much of the article seems to be compiled from very few resources, but what's worse is that I have found entire sections of text taken directly from the source material. For example, the first sentence in the history section "Mali was once part of three famed West African empires which controlled trans-Saharan trade in gold, salt, and other precious commodities" is taken directly from the Library of Congress source text without indicating so. While it is not a violation of copyright (because works of the U.S. government do not have copyright protection), it is by all definitions plagiarism; please correct any instances of such behavior. If entire sections of the work are from another publication, then it may not even be worth completely duplicating it in Wikipedia but rather just linking to the article instead. Please make sure that information and text from the sources is not lifted directly but instead used to create new prose in the article.
Even though more citations are better than too few, it is not always necessary to cite each sentence. If a group of facts come from the same source, then that source need only be cited once.
Sections of the article are rather slim as well. They could definitely be fleshed out to meet GA standards... not too long, but a little bit more than a few sentences per section.
When issues with sourcing are taken care of please renominate for good article status. Best, Epicadam (talk) 03:11, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
The above entry has been removed and all reference in the history to it has been removed, but I would like to comment on it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JakeSturm (talk • contribs) 19:44, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
The Cruelest Journey
Earlier, I added "The Cruelest Journey" to the "Additional Reading" section of the Mali article. The book retraces the journey of Mungo Park, the first Western explorer to reach Timbuktu and to explore the interior of Mali, and as it retraces Pakr's journey the book descrbes the people, architecture, religions of current day Mali. It also covers some of the history and exploration of the country.
The book also explains that while slavery is illegal in Mali it is still practiced. The book explains that some of the Bella people are still enslaved by the Tuareg because the Bella are not of Arab ancestry. The author Kira Salak actually confirmed the existence of slavery by finding a slave owner and buying two women out of slavery and into freedom. Upon attending a National Geographic lecture by Salak, she was asked about this story and told the audience that the story was fact checked by National Geographic and the safety of the two women, several months after their freedom was bought, was verified by the magazine. It would be an excellent reference for the slavery section.
Unfortunately, I cannot put the reference in because the user “Miranda” immediately removes my addition of “Cruelest Journey” from the Mali reference as soon as I enter it, despite it being a book on Mali. Miranda is convinced that I am advertising the book when in reality I am only trying to give the Wikipedia users a useful reference on the country. I do not want to go through administrative channels to get this entry in, but perhaps if other users would review the book and based on an informative decision put the reference back in for "Cruelest Journey", maybe Miranda will stop removing it.
"Reliable non-academic sources may also be used, particularly material from reputable mainstream publications"
"Cruelest Journey" is published by National Geographic Press. It was based on a published article in National Geographic Adventure. Both are reputable maintstream publicitions with scrupulous fact checking, and meet the requirements for Wikipedia. Hopefully, this will finally resolve the issues I have been having with the user Miranda as she seems to have a misunderstanding of what are acceptable references. I am putting the reference back in again now that we have finally cleared this up.
Hi there. I've been keeping an eye on this and I believe that whilst I'm sure the source is interesting I'm unsure if it's relevant. I'm unconvinced that, if a person read the book, it would complement what's present in the Mali article. The book is descriptive, personal literature. While there's nothing wrong with that, it's problematic here as we are looking to find more analytical sources. Compare it to this situation — would My Life (Bill Clinton autobiography) be relevant further reading to the United States article? Perhaps this belongs more in the culture subsection than the main article. Sillyfolkboy (talk) 00:59, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
I seriously agree. I think it's book spam. And, I would advise neonwhite to stop revert warring with the source until we reach a consensus. miranda 05:17, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
I find that, though interesting, this should simply be on another page.
Why was this photo removed twice? It was taken in Mali and the caption is not meant to be humorous. [1] Thank you. MaxMercy (talk) 19:51, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Edit request: Remove Fashion section?
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The Fashion section at the end of the Mali article seems to be very much of promotional nature. It may be worth a sentence in the Culture section, but seems out of place as its own section. Couldn't find anything about this on the discussion page.
Done. If someone feels a sentence is warranted, they can add it with a good source. CMD (talk) 00:37, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
Adjustment in the lead? Regions and region
It appairs a sentence in the lead is somewhat inaccurate, or could be misunderstood (I'm not English-speaking). It is "Mali consists of eight regions and its borders on the north reach deep into the middle of the Sahara, while the country's southern region, where the majority of inhabitants live, features...", and as I read the sentence, it is indicating most inhabitants are living in the countries southern region (one of the eight??), while only less than three millions are living in Sikasso. It appairs somewhat questionable to mention eight regions in same sentence as region is used for half the country. Grrahnbahr (talk) 11:17, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
"Region" is once meant in the administrative sense and once in the broader sense. I propose to write "southern part" instead to avoid confusion. --RJFF (talk) 15:12, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
The change makes sense, we should probably restrict the use of Region to the official one as much as possible. CMD (talk) 15:19, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
Azawad
The article describes the North of the counrty as "known as Azawad". The region was not known as such because noone used that term to describe it prior to the MNLA declaration.
Also, for the sake of accuracy, the first section should specify that the MNLA declaration of independence is unilateral and not recognised by the Malian government, nor by the international community. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.115.1.172 (talk) 18:55, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
The nothern part of the country could be "known as Azawad", even though the name isn't approved or recognized by official authorities, but the statement lacks verification. I suggest to remove the statement, until it is proven to be known as Azawad. Grrahnbahr (talk) 07:02, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
Edit request on 11 April 2012
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69.138.162.20 (talk) 03:54, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
THE MAP OF MALI ON THIS ARTICLE IS ERRONEOUS: WE CAN CLEARLY SEE THAT IMAGE AUTHOR IS BIASED AND HAS DIVIDED THE AUTONOMOUS COUNTRY IN TWO, HENCE PUTTING DOUBTS INTO THE TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY OF MALI. PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT THIS IMAGE IS INCORRECT AND IS SENDING WRONG INFORMATION INTO THE PUBLIC. MALI IS ONE AND WILL NOT BE DIVIDED - FYI, REVIEW STATEMENTS FROM THE US DEPARTMENT OF STATE, THE UNITED NATIONS, EUROPEAN COUNTRIES AND ALL AFRICAN COUNTRIES - ALL HAVE CONDEMN TERRORRIST ATTEMPS TO DIVIDE MALI AND YET WIKIPEDIA IS PROUDLY PUBLISHING THIS OUTRAGEOUS IMAGE. PLEASE REMOVE OR CORRECT. THANKS
FROMA MALIAN CITIZAN
procedural ✗Not done: Don't shout, it hurts in the eyes and is hard to read. mabdul 07:46, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
I am agree with "Malian Citizan". The case here is, wikipedia do have to choose a side whether to describe the area as one or two countries or not. The announcement for a new country in north is discribed in the article, like it should, but the most neutral way is not to describe the Mali area as two countries, as not describing would be "status quo". The "new country" is not approved or recognized by any contries, nor by the malise people. Grrahnbahr (talk) 09:48, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
Amadou Sanogo
As captain Sanogo stated that his junta would retain supervisory role until the elections, shouldn't he also be listed as a leader? HeadlessMaster (talk) 10:44, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
The history section seems to have NPOV issues, especially regarding the March revolution of '91. Claims are made of a brutal government against almost unilaterally nonviolent protestors, with no sources to confirm. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.28.225.240 (talk) 13:53, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
Edit request on 8 June 2012
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You should change back the map of Mali to what it was - united country, unless you want to serve terrorist activities that Mali is currently facing.
Mali-Ize (talk) 09:26, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
Not done: This is Wikipedia - how would it help terrorists???? Mdann52 (talk) 16:17, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
Edit Request June 10, 2012
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As per Serbia, the map should have a caption:
| map_caption = Location of '''Mali''' (green) — ''[[Azawad]]'' (light green) on the African continent (dark grey)
Rendered as:
Location of Mali (green) — Azawad (light green) on the African continent (dark grey)
I added an adjusted caption "Mali in green, with breakaway Azawad in light green", which gives better context for the colours in my opinion. Thanks, CMD (talk) 21:45, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
Kosovo is far closer to an international recognition, and handlings in other articles can't be used to justify handlings in this article. It is certainly to push a POW to change map colors without other substance than a rebel group's claim of independence. A neutral point of view is status que, whitch is no capture of the Azawad territory. Grrahnbahr (talk) 21:48, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
On the spectrum between "Just a press release" and "Widely-recognised state", Azawad is certainly not as far along the spectrum as Kosovo or Taiwain &c but it's certainly further along than (say) Sealand. Independent sources generally haven't treated it as an independent state but they have accepted that there's some kind of substance to rebel claims - ie. [2] - and we should reflect what sources say. The two-shades-of-green thing is fine by me, but perhaps it's possible to construct more neutral wording than just "breakaway" - one which reflects some amount of de facto control but few trappings of statehood. bobrayner (talk) 22:36, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
Breakaway is the usual description of Somaliland and similar, showing control without wide recognition. Of course Somaliland is stable, whereas Azawad is not. "Proclaimed" maybe? The problem is it doesn't implicitly note that Mali doesn't control the area, which breakaway does. CMD (talk) 08:44, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
The situation is not very unlike the one for Kurdistan. Actually it appairs Kurdistan got wider international recognition, but Kurdistan is may not selfdeclared independent. Even though, it is still not marked in the articles for Turkey and Iraq. Grrahnbahr (talk) 11:58, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
It is quite unlike Kurdistan, which has not declared any sort of independence, or made any claim to statehood. That is why it's not marked on Turkey or Iraq. CMD (talk) 22:00, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
I do not feel Azawad should be included as it is not reconized by any state in the world. Take for example Somalia you do not see Somaliland added anywhere there.: - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 22:18, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
If it is an unagreement about keeping the map according to official records, it is fully legal to raise a request for comment. Grrahnbahr (talk) 08:40, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
Since "LocationMali.svg" is used in earlier editions of the article than "Mali (orthographic projection).svg", the first one have to be concidered as status quo for the article, and I'll revert the controversial adding of "Mali (orthographic projection).svg". I can not see any concensus is reach for adding a two-coloured map of Mali. Grrahnbahr (talk) 18:47, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
That's not how the idea of a status quo works. The first map used that still exists was actually File:LocationMali.png, here, but that doesn't mean that is the current status quo. The status quo changes. There was consensus as commons:File talk:Mali (orthographic projection).svg, but a new discussion below is useful. CMD (talk) 19:35, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
I see no consensus there, two editors agreed and one opposed, in addition the map was reverted on June 30th back to full green, all I am asking for is more discussion reguarding this as it is disputed. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 19:41, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
I have gone ahead and self reverted until a consensus can be reached here. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 19:59, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
All editors agreed at common. Geni's only objection was that it could be a flash in the pan, but they then agreed it wasn't. It's limited, but it's a consensus. More discussion is good, but for discussion things must be put up for discussion. Trying to justify an edit based on calling much much earlier versions the current status quo doesn't leave much up for discussion (and I appreciate the self-rv to the status quo). A similar discussion can be found at Talk:Georgia (country)/Archive 6#Which infobox map to use for Georgia (country)?, which may be interesting to read over. CMD (talk) 20:05, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
The breakaway countries of Georgia have been recognized by Russia a UN member, Azawad has no country that recognizes it. Anyways I made a discussion below lets see how it turns out, if consensus is for the map that shows the light green but fine by me. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 22:11, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
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.
Seeing I see no consensus above I am starting another chat and asking for a consensus on the matter:
Proposal 1: Insert the map of Mali without Azawad to the infobox.
Proposal 1
Support, the proposal is somewhat unaccurate, as the area known as Azawad is a part of Mali, and actually is within the area marked as Mali in the map belonging to proposal 1. I support to use a neutral map in the infobox, as Azawad is not, by Malise goverment, nor by any other goverment with significant influence (as far as I know, no other goverment at all), approved as a recognised state. A neutral map is one without boarders regarded to internal conflicts. The neutrality issue is taken care of, as the conflict is mentioned in the article. Adding a map with Azawad marked, as in a two-coloured marked area map, is taking a stand in the political case, as it is not according to official views, nor the vaste majority of RS. This article is about the political defined area Mali, not about any militaristic defined area. Grrahnbahr (talk) 21:11, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. Azawad is not recognized by any other state. The factual situation is currently unclear. The MNLA who wants to secede Azawad from Mali seems to have lost control over the territory to Islamists who have purportedly no interest in separatism. Therefore Azawad is claimed, but neither legitimate according to international law, nor existing in fact (with the MNLA having lost control over Gao and Timbuktu). Other failed states exist where the central government does not have control over the whole territory, still we use maps of these countries showing them as one (e.g. Somalia). Moreover, the border shown in the map is the border of the MNLA's claim, not the line where the central government's control ends in fact. I have not yet seen a map that shows the zones of control of the different powers and actors in Mali (and if there were one, it would probably be necessary to update it every day). Therefore, such a map is impracticable. A map of Mali as a whole should be shown. --RJFF (talk) 21:34, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Azawad is not recognized by any other state agreed. We as editors here can not declare a state is there that nobody else recognizes when it comes to Mali, an article about the state is one thing, showing it is not part of Mali when the world recognizes that it is legaly is another thing. This is very similar to Somaliland which has a source: [3]. Somaliland is not controlled by Somalia but the world treats it as if it is. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 22:20, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Now that the MNLA, the only entity declaring Azawadi independence, has lost control of Azawad, marking it on the map is both premature and inaccurate. As RJFF points out, we have no map representing the current de facto situation to work from, and with the fluid situation, such a map would be outdated in days anyway. We don't update the map on Democratic Republic of Congo everytime a warlord takes control of a group of towns; nor should we here. Khazar2 (talk) 16:27, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Maps of Mali with Azawad (e.g. File:Mali (orthographic projection).svg) show only MNLA point of view (i.e. area never controlled by MNLA, but only claimed by them). Moreover we don’t know witch area (if any...) is de facto controlled by MNLA at the moment. Most of Azawad territory (or probably even all) is under islamists control, and they aren't support independence for Azawad. In the case of Syria or Afghanistan we haven’t special maps that show separately area under control of government and area under opposite movements. I suggest to use a map: File: Mali de iure (orthographic projection).svg. Aotearoa (talk) 17:05, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Per the comments above. Azawad is part of Mali. United States Man (talk) 20:19, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Let the United Nations figure this out in due time (remember WP:NOTCRYSTALBALL) --MarsRover (talk) 22:56, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Comment Another editor found this on Azawad: [4] It seems that it is not even held anymore by the MNLA. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 23:19, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Proposal 2: Add Azawad to the map in the infobox.
Proposal 2
Support, but not with File:Mali (orthographic projection).svg because it's an image of the whole globe, not of Mali - what an odd choice. On the ground, Azawad is no longer under the control of Mali's government; we should not pretend that it's a fully-fledged independent state recognised by other states &c., but a map which presents Mali as a single block of colour does not reflect reality. I'm happy with a two-shades-of-green solution and a carefully worded footnote. bobrayner (talk) 20:43, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Azawad/Northern Mali is completely out of control of the Malian government. The MNLA managed to take the territory on the ground, and declared sovereignty. Neutrality is not created by the edicts of the UN or international politics (although if it was, life would be much simpler). Neutrality is the presentation of different viewpoints with appropriate weight. Highlighting Azawad in a different shade of green depicts the different viewpoints. First of all, both Azawad and the rest of Mali are in green, so the map shows the area the the Malian government considers Mali. The lighter shade of green means that the actual situation on the ground, of control by groups not under the state of Mali's control, is shown to the reader. To show Azawad as completely independent would not be neutral. This map doesn't do that; if it did, Azawad would be grey rather than another shade of green. Two shades of green allows the presentation to the reader of both the de jure and de facto situation in the same map, being not only more neutral than a single green or a grey Azawad, but also more informative. CMD (talk) 00:21, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Support the State of Azawad exists defacto. To not have a map of the territory the state claims in the country infobox of the page takes the purpose away of having a map at all. The situation on the somaliland page is similar and a good precedent to follow. The map should just be of the Territory that the state of Azawad claims nothing more. To deny its existance defacto by putting a map of Mali up there is non-neutralist and takes a Malist point of view.04:27, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
The map of Somalia does not have Somaliland in it, while the article for Somaliland shows where the ndependence claimed territory lies, this is how it sould be with Mali. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 05:16, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
This might be a misunderstanding. This discussion is about what map should be in the infobox of Mali, not the one of Azawad. Of course the Azawad article needs a map that shows Azawad. But the one of Mali doesn't necessarily. --RJFF (talk) 13:12, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
It is a misunderstanding and i still support. When i posted this i was under the impression that this was for the Azawad page, since there is a link on the Azawad talk page that is a bit obscure in what it actually links to as there was some dispute about maps on the Azawad page as well. However there seems to be a standard in place where unrecognized states and disputed uncontrolled territories are shaded light green on the maps of states. Note the maps on the following pages follow the convention: Serbia, Cyprus, Moldova, Georgia, Peoples Republic of China, India, Morocco (though this is in red instead of green), Japan, Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Pakistan, Argentina, Chile, . Some notable states with large territorial disputes that do not have maps that follow this convention are as Knowledgekid pointed out Somalia, Azerbajian, Venezuela, Suriname, Estonia, and Syria. Of these the maps are mixed in what they depict. Some maps like that of Azerbajian and Syria depict what is claimed, others like Venezuela and Suriname depict what is controlled. In most other states that have disputes but their map not depicting them, the area disputed is much to small to be shown on the map (as in the United States for instance). My view is that the policy on these maps needs to be brought to a single standard and that the light green shading for areas claimed but not in control of the central state is a good one that is already mostly in place and should be put in place here on the malian page as well. It should be noted that the vast majority of maps for countries pages where there are unrecognized states follow this convention (8 of 10 not including the Azadad case)XavierGreen (talk) 14:53, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
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.
mali science
I have restored it with edits after realizing the sources were not supporting. However it is maintained that there was a flourishing of math and science during its golden age this is attested in my sources. I also kept that Mali was one of the largest and richest in the world at its time. If you look carefully, you'll also see this in my sources. I have seen some of my sources do not support and since i did not know about the wikipedia neutrality rule until now, i've recognized my mistakes. i hope you go through the sources again to see the edits that do have support. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.255.163.124 (talk) 02:25, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
No, the sources say there was a university there, not much more. It wasn't even completely clear what subjects were taught. And the “largest and richest” claim I could not find in any source; the closest I came was finding a reference to there being gold mines, but that doesn't compare their wealth with all the other countries of the world. —Kerfufflerharass stalk 02:34, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
Proposed removal of redundant publisher information
A number of citations in this article unnecessarily include the publisher for periodicals and websites that have their own Wikipedia article. This information has no value to anyone wanting to check or track down references. For example, publisher=Washington Post Company for references to The Washington Post, or publisher=IMDB for references to Box Office Mojo, only make the article longer - significantly longer when repeated many times - without adding anything useful. Therefore I plan to upgrade the article's citations to remove all such redundant publisher info, bringing them into line with the recommended use of the cite template (see Template:Citation#Publisher). Please raise any questions here or on my talk page. Colonies Chris (talk) 21:44, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Language?
The only mention of language I can find in the entire article is not even a sentence: In the "info box" we read "Vernacular languages Bambara". "Vernacular"? Is bamabara slang then? I find that difficult to believe. Do we really mean native? Or, maybe, nation-wide? I can't tell. Mali was once a French colony (more or less). Is French still spoken there? We aren't told. How about English? Language is critical, and it's absolutely ridiculous that an article of this length doesn't bother to say anything about it. TheScotch (talk) 17:12, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
French is still widely spoken, especially by officialdom. To be fair, above the "vernacular languages" bit of the infobox it does say that the official language is French; and there's more coverage in the demographics section. bobrayner (talk) 18:08, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Insufficient citations
This article contains some unaddressed citation needed tags. If we want to keep the GA status, this issue needs to be fixed.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 02:02, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
GA Reassessment
This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Mali/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.
This article contains a lot of unaddressed citation needed tags, thus failing criterion 1b. I will wait a week before closing this reassessment so editors can have the opportunity to fix these issues.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 03:36, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
Hi FutureTrillionaire, I haven't reviewed your recent contributions in any great detail, but it seem--from the couple of GARs that I have seen--that you are applying standard in a GAR that are contrary to the GA requirements. WP:GA? requires only that a GA "provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines". It does not require inline citations for every fact in the article. For articles like Mali and Laura Robson, where the article has dozens of inline citations, but only a few non-contentious statements are missing inline citations, this is not a basis for a GAR. Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:59, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
@Calliopejen1: I know the guidelines. If a statement has a citation needed tag, that means the statement is "challenged". Explain to me how the statement "mass arrests and torture of leaders and participants" is "non-contentious".--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 18:34, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
That message, which I left on your userpage, was not specific to this article. But in this article you also added citation-needed tags to non-contentious things like very general statements about Malian dance--which constituted two of the six or seven (?) tags you used as a basis for this GAR. And if "challenged" meant solely that the reviewer could go through the entire article and mark anything without an inline citation as citation needed and use that as a basis to deny a GA, then the criterion would instead be that all facts be supported with inline citations. This is not the criterion. Calliopejen1 (talk) 01:56, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
Fair enough, I've removed the citation needed tags for the Dance and transportation passages. However, the statistics and the statement I mentioned above in the article do need citations.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 02:00, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
Result: Delisted. It's been a week. The article's problems have not been completely fixed.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 01:19, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
Done. If someone feels a sentence is warranted, they can add it with a good source. CMD (talk) 00:37, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
Not done: This is Wikipedia - how would it help terrorists???? Mdann52 (talk) 16:17, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
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