Free Azawad! Options

[Mister Die]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azawad

So a rebel group declares independence and Wikipedia immediately starts treating it as its own ("disputed") country whereas the sensitivities of Mali, which potentially stands to lose like 50% of its territory, is apparently not worth taking into account.

Do they really want Wikipedia being able to influence people on events which have just transpired in the span of... less than 5 hours ago?

This post has been edited by Mister Die: Fri 6th April 2012, 11:56am

[Mister Die]

In the sense that it creates a false impression that there is a perfectly independent country called Azawad and making it look like any attempt to make this 'country' not exist would be akin to invading it, then yes.

I mean they don't even call the article the "Independent State of Azawad" or whatever, it's just called Azawad (and this has political implications as well, since the actual historical region is a fair bit larger than Tuareg-inhabited Malian territory.)

The biggest issue is that tons of people are going to be influenced by a Wikipedia article about an event that has just happened, and said event is something people have fought and died over and a fully-recognized sovereign state (Mali, of course) had a coup d'état in response to. And this is being edited by anyone.

I mean come on, they're just jumping the gun at this point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Azawad

Whole articles on Malian history and politics are going to be "adjusted" because of a sudden announcement.

This post has been edited by Mister Die: Fri 6th April 2012, 3:13pm

[Web Fred]

In the sense that it creates a false impression that there is a perfectly independent country called Azawad and making it look like any attempt to make this 'country' not exist would be akin to invading it, then yes.

I mean they don't even call the article the "Independent State of Azawad" or whatever, it's just called Azawad (and this has political implications as well, since the actual historical region is a fair bit larger than Tuareg-inhabited Malian territory.)

The biggest issue is that tons of people are going to be influenced by a Wikipedia article about an event that has just happened, and said event is something people have fought and died over and a fully-recognized sovereign state (Mali, of course) had a coup d'état in response to. And this is being edited by anyone.

I mean come on they're just jumping the gun at this point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Azawad

Whole articles on Malian history and politics are going to be "adjusted" because of a sudden announcement that the international community, nor the Malian government itself, has even responded to yet.

I think you give far too much credence to WP being a valid news source, or a place people will go to when something new occurs. It's far more likely that people will go to somewhere like the BBC or CNN (hopefully they'll avoid Fox News, which does far more harm than WP ever could) or one of the larger newspaper sites. Though they're a lost cause if they go to the Daily Mail.

Just out of interest how did you find the article?

[Mister Die]

Just out of interest how did you find the article?

I looked at the BBC news about Azawad being declared independent by the rebels, and promptly typed "Azawad" into Wikipedia to see what Wikipedians did to it.

[Tarc]

Just out of interest how did you find the article?

I looked at the BBC news about Azawad being declared independent by the rebels, and promptly typed "Azawad" into Wikipedia to see what Wikipedians did to it.

List of states with limited recognition (T-H-L-K-D)

That people have rebelled and broken away from another state, and sources discuss that breakaway and that state, is really the only threshold to meet. An article's existence and the validity of the statehood are not the same thing.