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Talk:1964 Rhodesian independence referendum

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Electorate

[edit]

Claim has been repeatedly added to the article that "All citizens of any race and creed were allowed to vote on the issue", which is cited to a book written by Ian Smith.

This clearly isn't right; only 105,444 people were eligible to vote (of which around 95,000 were white and 10,000 black), against populations of 250,000 and 3.8 million respectively.

Also, Smith can hardly be deemed a reliable source for a claim like this given his role at the time. Number 57 15:31, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Take into consideration that over 3 million of the blacks were on tribal land and considered covered by the indaba (which had next to no censuses to construct an exact population), many refused to even register to vote due to calls from Joshua Nkomo and other black nationalist leaders. Past that, one has to consider ineffective bureaucracy. Southern Rhodesia had low population density for large swathes of the land, it's possible that many never learned about the referendum due to the nature of the country's infrastructure. On the validity of Smith, his writing has been fact checked and reviewed by historian J.R.T. Wood, a former professor from the University of Durban-Westville. If you intend to question the legitimacy of a book, it's best to not go with an ad hominiem fallacy. If you can find any valid sources that contradict my claim, I will concede. But until then, the information presented should be considered valid. Drassow (talk) 16:15, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
People being represented by an indaba was not allowing them to vote, which is the claim being made by Smith. I am not sure why this is even a debateable point. Number 57 18:09, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The point still stands that the source is valid, and trying to justify it being false yourself would violate wikipedia's rules on no original research. Let this be your last warning, please don't edit war without providing valid citations and sources. Drassow (talk) 18:23, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The source isn't valid though, unless it was supporting the statement "Ian Smith claimed that all citizens were able to vote". WP:OR does not apply to talk page discussions or reasoning over the reliability of sources (and all the figures I quote above are from sources in the article). And save the warning nonsense; you've just broken 3RR, so I'll give you 15 mins to self revert before I request you be blocked. Number 57 18:30, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
WP:OR DOES apply to the article itself, which you're attempting to remove cited information based on your own logic and reasoning, rather than an actual source or citation. Your petty attempts at blackmail does not change that cited information with fact-checked information holds superiority over the self-assertions of a wiki user. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drassow (talkcontribs) 19:07, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Zackmann08 for what reason did you remove cited information? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drassow (talkcontribs) 19:30, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]