Talk:Madilu System

Recent changes from unnamed contributor

On October 28, December 1, and December 2, a user at 96.236.33.3 made a series of edits.

Thanks for doing that. It's great to have many people improving Wikipedia, and the sections of Wikipedia on Congolese popular music -- which I think is important partly because it is amazing, great music and partly because it dominated Africa in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s -- badly need improvement. And the page on Madilu was disappointingly skeletal, especially for such an important and hugely popular musician.

But you essentially deleted the previous article and replaced it with a mass of material. This isn't the normal way Wikipedia works, that you throw out what others did to develop this page over 13 years, and replace it with your own totally different version. Instead, it normally works incrementally, with editors improving what is there, with respect for the previous work of others.

Your new material adds new info on Madilu that was missing. But:

• It deleted, and now lacks, *all* Wikipedia formatting - lead sentence, formatted headings, Wikilinks, footnoted references, etc. It is just flat text.
• There are a few typos, e.g., the repeated sentence "TPOK Jazz was a Congolese rumba band from the Democratic Republic of the Congo established in 1956. This was a Congolese rumba band from the Democratic Republic of the Congo that was established in 1956."
• Again, because this is a key shortcoming -- the text lacks references.
• Much of it reads like it was cut and pasted from some source. Without doing a close comparison, some parts are quotes from this obituary from The Independent.
• Some information from the old page is lost, such as how and when he got his universal nickname, Madilu System.
• There are unsourced evaluations that are not consistent with Wikipedia's factual approach, e.g., "who had reached legendary status", "he became the brightest vocal talent", "The two wonderful singers", "the song that his fans believed to be the best recording of his career" (That last one is better because stated as belief of some rather than fact, but needs to identify who and have a citation indicating this belief).
• "Franco died from an unknown illness". I recently edited the Franco page on this issue. It was widely rumored at the time as he had gone from extra-large to thin and weak and had sung about the dangers of AIDS, and it is widely reported now, though not universally accepted, that in 1989 Franco died of AIDS. For example, the Independent's obit of Madilu includes "Franco's death in 1989 – most probably from an Aids-related condition – was a body blow from which TPOK Jazz never recovered, although they continued to perform to considerable acclaim". Wikipedia should not avoid important issues because some would like to ignore them. Saying that some treat his AIDS as unconfirmed or some don't accept it, or simply referring to Franco's death without mentioning cause (which is not relevant on the page about Madilu) as this page formerly did, is good, but to say he died "of an unknown illness" is flatly contrary to widely agreed and reliable reporting.
• The contents and references are a jumbled mess at the bottom, with error messages.

My proposed approach is this. I will assume good faith and a plan to remedy these shortcomings. Since you have had a few stretches of edits, maybe you are in the middle of a project to fix this page and you will re-add formatting, Wikilinks, etc. and clean up the page. You are welcome to respond here on the talk page and explain. But after some time (I'd say at least a week) has gone by, if these issues are not fixed, I plan to revert your edits to the version before them.

I welcome reactions from other Wikipedians on the best approach to this situation. Sullidav (talk) 14:09, 2 December 2020 (UTC)