Talk:Guinea-Bissau

History Reorganization

@Moxy I agree with you that mass blanking should be discussed, so here we are. I think the majority of the history section is too detailed for this page and should be moved to History of Guinea-Bissau. Looks like a lot of it was there already, presumably the same content (but I haven't gone through it in detail) since its the same author and @Vigilantcosmicpenguin removed it for the same reasons. I'm happy to go through and summarize here, remove all the detail to the history page, add some secondary sources where I can, etc. Any help would, of course, be appreciated. Thoughts? Catjacket (talk) 22:37, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Right. I realize I may have been a tad presumptuous in removing that much content, sorry about that. That being said, I think the contents of the sections seem questionable.

The content of the "Pre-European contact" section appears highly dubious, and almost none of it has been verified in secondary sources. It mentions the "Kingdom of Guinala", the "Kingdom of Biguba", and the "Island States of the Bijagos", none of which I can find records of beyond what's cited in the article. If I'm wrong, of course, this information should be spun off into articles on each nation, with citations more reliable than a likely narrow and fanciful first-hand account from the era.

The "European contact" section is a bit better regarding that it has secondary sources, but these sources are still a bit problematic—the paper from Walter Anthony Rodney, falsely cited as being from 2020, is from 1966. There is some value in this, and I may have been in the wrong to remove it, but better sources are definitely needed.

If there's not a consensus to remove the content, I would suggest adding the cleanup templates for {primary sources}, {disputed}, {over-quotation}, {cite check}, and possibly {original research}, {specific}, and {essay-like}. The {expert needed} template might also be helpful.

—Vigilant Cosmic Penguin (talk | contribs) 00:09, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Those are all excellent points. If you restore the section and add some of those cleanup templates in the places that you think need work, I'd be happy to work on the individual issues. I've been reading the Rodney source recently (among others), so can speak to an extent about what assertions it can and can't support (besides the very true fact that it's from 1966).

Besides that, what do you think about moving the bulk of this content to the History of Guinea Bissau page? It seems too long and detailed for this page IMO. If you agree I say we start there, do all the fixing of the sources etc., and then come back here to build a pared down but well-sourced history section.

Catjacket (talk) 11:31, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that most of it belongs on the History of Guinea-Bissau article rather than this one. The summary on this page need only be a few paragraphs, judging from other articles on countries.

As for the Rodney source, I can see now that it's reliable, which was my mistake. Perhaps the information should include in-text attributions, with a link to Walter Rodney? That way it'll be more clear to readers where the information is coming from. (Tangential side note—I'd never heard of Rodney before now, but he seems cool.)

That being said, thanks for putting in the work to improve this article. I'll see how much I can do to help; I'm hardly experienced with this sort of thing but I'll do my best to find useful sources. I'll start by doing some cleanup on the citations.

—Vigilant Cosmic Penguin (talk | contribs) 20:31, 29 July 2023 (UTC)