Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cuba in Angola

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result wasno consensus. Although upon inspection I agree that it has serious issues, including content and redundancy, AfD is not cleanup. I would, however, urge the editors to improve the article and consider a merge to fix the above mentioned issues. David Fuchs ^(talk) 14:12, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cuba in Angola

Cuba in Angola (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Five editors have said they support merging this article into other, preexisting articles, in some fashion or another. Upon closer examination of the references, I find that not only is the content inaccurate, but the references either directly contradict the content or are identical (copyvio - specifically from the book "Borderstrike!" and "The Cuban Intervention in Angola"). I oppose redirecting this to Angola-Cuba relations, as I previously suggested, because the title is totally arbitrary. If we redirect this then we should create redirects for every other military force-in-X-country. Jose João (talk) 11:13, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. Suggest you challenge the information or references that you feel are inaccurate so that other authors can have the opportunity to fix them. Consensus was largely reached on the page about the merger of this article into others, but not for its deletion. Socrates2008 (Talk) 13:44, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

It is exactly so that experienced editors can look at the content that it was moved into the proper, frequently edited, well known articles. The argument here is whether another page duplicating much existing content is correct or wise. — Deon Steyn (talk) 11:40, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we disagree - the material should be merged first. Then only, if there's duplicated content that's left over after the merger, should it be deleted. Deleting before or without merging is what I'm against here. Socrates2008 (Talk) 08:43, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

• Strong Keep First it's well-sourced; second, it's notable. Most of us in the 1970s were surprised to see Cuban troops deploying far from home in an African nation in the name of "solidarity". During the Cold War, a lot of us wondered what Cuba was preparing to do next. Like Socrates says, if you're questioning the sources, edit the article. Mandsford (talk) 15:18, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. No need to summarily delete the page or material has been demonstrated in the nomination. I agree with User:Socrates2008 that AfD is not the way to address issues with the article that can be improved by stating concerns at the article talk page and boldly fixing it. FWIW, I support further evaluation of the material for incorporation into appropriate articles. Iff all the information has been incorporated elsewhere, removed as inappropriate along the content policies, and potentially re-composed to form a sufficient, more plausibly circumscribed article subject, the non-WP:POVFORK rest of the material may be moved to a better title and then the empty page Cuba in Angola may be uncontroversially deleted under WP:CSD as an implausible search term. User:Dorftrottel 16:15, January 17, 2008
• Strong Rename - the title Cuba in Angola makes little sense to me. I strongly encourage a move of the page to Cuban intervention in Angola or something along those lines. matt91486 (talk) 20:15, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
• That's an excellent idea; Cuba in Angola now has the title Cuban intervention in Angola (1975-1991) which is more descriptive Mandsford (talk) 22:01, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
• Comment: Okay, let me try and be a little clearer.. #1 Cuba did not first send troops in 1975 so that title makes no sense. #2 There is already an article on Angola-Cuba relations. #3 It's not well-sourced, the sources are false. There is no room for improvement because the article never should have been created. Jose João (talk) 22:56, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

What exactly are you trying to argue here? That there wasn't extensive Cuban military involvement in the Angolan civil war? That's obviously untrue. matt91486 (talk) 23:43, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Is that a serious question? Jose João (talk) 03:52, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

It is. I'm actually sort of unclear with what your argument is against the page. Cuban interventionism in Angola is a perfectly legitimate encyclopedia topic. matt91486 (talk) 05:58, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I wrote the articles on Angolan Civil War and Angola-Cuba relations. I do not dispute that there were Cuban troops there. I do dispute 99% of the details on the "Cuba in Angola" article. Notice one of the sources repeatedly used is the Que Africaine documentary. If you search for this documentary on Yahoo! you find that the very description of the reference itself is false. Notice the times are completely different. Jose João (talk) 07:19, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, the movie seems to be right here. matt91486 (talk) 16:11, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

• Delete: The article overlaps with long standing articles; Angola-Cuba relations (spanning the exact period), Angolan Civil War and Battle of Cuito Cuanavale. The article was created with a bias that had already been carefully and painstakingly balanced in these existing articles. The new title also implies a certain role by Cuba which might not be accurate. Even with the new title it is still the same article as the more generic and neutral Angola-Cuba relations — Deon Steyn (talk) 06:58, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I argue the semantics of Cuban interventions in Angola being just as semantically neutral as Angola-Cuba relations (which should be moved anyway, to Angolan-Cuban relations to match with conventions. I think the general foreign relations article should take a broader scope as well, and have the intervention essentially as a fork off it. The main article should definitely extend beyond 1991 instead of stopping as the intervention article does. Both articles should remain (though the other article should be moved to a more logical title). matt91486 (talk) 07:26, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Uh... no. The consensus is against naming bilateral relations articles by adjective form. Jose João (talk) 07:31, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
      • Sino-American relations, Sino-Russian relations . . . matt91486 (talk) 15:56, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
      • And yes, I know that other articles have different titles with your standards, but upon closer examination, there doesn't really seem to be any consensus. Last night when I made the first comment, those were the first two articles I saw and I just assumed that was the standard and not that relations involving China were a special case. I obviously did not look closely enough. I'm still not sure I appreciated your tone in the response, though. matt91486 (talk) 16:11, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
        • Intervention carries the connotation of a situation that requires remedy by an outside party (see Intervention (counseling) and Intervention (law)). This paints Cuba as a rescuer and potentially Africans/Angolans as people in need of rescue. This is not neutral, because some could argue that it was interference more than intervention. A more neutral position is required and not only is Angola-Cuba relations neutral, but it is a long established article, why must it be thrown out and replaced or duplicated??? — Deon Steyn (talk) 19:35, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
          • Hmm, I understand what you mean about intervention; I don't make that association in foreign policy discussions, but I understand. Perhaps 'Cuban involvement' rather than 'Cuban intervention.' I hardly want the Angola-Cuban relations article thrown out. I'd be just as vehemently against that in an AfD. I think that this article should be summarized in the Angolan-Cuban relations, article, because the main article should not focus exclusively on their involvement in a civil war. The main article should certainly extend beyond 1991, which it doesn't really, and should have histories of ambassadors, etc. Both articles can and should coexist. matt91486 (talk) 22:54, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
            • This new article contains nothing not already covered in the array of existing articles (Angola-Cuba relations, Angolan Civil War, Angolan War of Independence and Battle of Cuito Cuanavale). Instead of adding to these articles the new user decided to tell the story from one biased pov and created a new article, because the existing articles didn't agree with his pov. You can understand the frustration of all other editors and you have to question the need and motive. We now have to repeat the process of balancing the pov for the same content already thrashed to death in 4 other articles. How many more articles to we need??? We can't have the same stuff covered in 5 places each one with a completely different pov. — 196.30.79.194 (talk) 13:32, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
              • I agree the POV is very biased. But to Sundar's credit when I made serious additions on the Cuito Cuanavale portion which gave the opposing view he was very obliging in keeping that content within the article. Virgil61 (talk) 21:20, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
• strong keep: im the one who made this article. i'm glad there is finally a discussion taking place after the article was first almost totally removed. i stated the background of this article on the direct discussion page of the article but feel it's necessary to repeat them here for the discussion. all started with watching a documentary on the german-french tv-channel arte. arte in itself is no guarantee vor unbiased or absolutely correct reporting but i do want to note, that this channel is reknown for its high quality reports. i taped this documentation and as far as i can remember it is still available on the arte-homepage. of course, the sourse jose joao mentions (gue africaine) is wrong - he needs to look it up correctly. after this documentation i was highly intrigued by this subject and wanted to know more about it. to my astonishment i found absolutely no mention of it on wiki cuba articles, so i took up research and started a subsection for cuban history. i found so much material that the article quickly became too big, so a decided to make an own article with reference from the cuba history article. of course i also considered the overlapping with many angola related articles but decided against it. looking into these i found them poorly written, poorly referenced, if at all, mostly pretty biased, issues were mixed in that didn't belong there and and fundamental statements were contradictory. i saw no way adding my article without editing most of the angola related articles. i also decided for an own article because it is possible and totally legitimate to copy sections of it into angola articles wherever deamed necessary. in fact, that is also something i had in mind doing. besides, if there is a whole article about an issue, for which i only wrote a paragraph, then this is not duplication. the reason for this article is because it sheds light on a whole new context and on history which has not been portrayed correctly in the past. i am especially referring to cuban independent policies and motives.

i'm deeply astonished with which arguments some fight against this article. considering there was no background info on this topic whatsoever, how can one argue it's inaccurate? i find it very accurate but anyone is welcome to make it even more so. nevertheless i would like to know what jose joao and/or perspicacite have in mind with directly contradicting or identical references. this is certainly not the case within the article and what's wrong with identical references? i absolutely agree with what socrates thinks about this. jose joao / perspicacite also writes, "the article is not well-sourced, the sources are false". what abundance and what better sources can there be? he writes "the article never should have been created" and disputes "99%" of the details: this is clear, he simply doesn't want it.

a change of name has been suggested. interestingly this is exactly what was done right after i put the article into german wikipedia. it was changed to cuban military intervention in angola. here my reason why i only wrote "cuba in angola": in my research i found that a great deal on cuban involvement in africa was not military but civilian. seen from the cuba-history side, this makes sense, so perhaps just simply "cuban involvement in angola" would do.

this article is still very young, i'm still doing research on this topic and i plan changes and more additions. i hope that is ok.Sundar1 (talk) 13:53, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

i suggest people interested in this discussion should also look up the contributions on the discussion page of the article. i had stated that if "bay of pigs" merits an own article then so does cuba in angola. deon steyn countered that the former merits an own article because it is well known, thus, the latter does not. no comment. Sundar1 (talk) 14:10, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about the new page title, because it doesn't specify military intervention. Civilian intervention can well fall under it. Also, if you're interested in another source that might be handy for the article or just of personal use, Another Day of Life by Ryszard Kapuściński is a fascinating account of the Angolan Civil War. matt91486 (talk) 16:09, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

• Delete: Per much of Deon Styn's rationale. It seems duplicative and already addressed in other articles. Sundar did a lot of work on this and I'd have rather he helped edit the other articles. If the article stands it will need extensive rewriting and balancing. Virgil61 (talk) 09:04, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.