Talk:Treaty of the Triple Alliance

Notice of intent to remove the section Legal restrictions

Unless there is a principled objection, I intend to remove this section. In my opinion it is less clear -- and less accurate, of course -- than the text of the Treaty itself. Wholly unsourced, It is merely a piece of tendentious editorialising. Ttocserp 07:12, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Treaty of the Triple Alliance/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Magic♪piano 14:41, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   Article has grammatical errors and spelling errors. It should be copyedited by a third party after factual issues are addressed. Also, see below on structural issues.

   B. MoS compliance:

   Article lead is not a summary of the article contents.

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   Paragraphs under "Content" are almost completely uncited. Major source is in a foreign language; English sources (e.g. this one) exist and should be consulted; see WP:NONENG.

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   Sources are accepted as reliable; article appears to agree in large part with English language sources I was able to locate for comparison.

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   See below.

   B. Focused:

   See below.

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

   Article is heavily dependent on a single source, making it difficult to assess balance. Some effort appears to have been given to represent the interests of each signatory country, but Paraguayan opinion is not. (When did the Paraguayan government learn of the treaty's terms, and when were they made public?)

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   One image only. Article could use a few more, perhaps signers (if images are available of them) or Lopez.

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Factual issues

I am not well-versed in South American history, so this and related articles could be quite informative. However, I find this article to be lacking in significant background and detail, which I would expect at least some more of to satisfy 3a and b. Some specific things that I would expect to be present in a broad article on a treaty that are missing here:

• reason for the treaty (in this case, Paraguayan aggression appears to be a major motivating factor -- is it the only one?)
• circumstances surrounding the negotiation, including the individuals involved (according to this source, the treaty was negotiated in a rather hurried way, for example)
• positions staked out by the participants (or their expectations prior to the negotiations)
• a description of all of the treaty's provisions (only some of the articles are described -- others should at least be described in summary form)
• given the secret nature of the treaty, when it was made public, and any notable consequences of doing so

Other issues of fact:

• the current text implies that the treaty was signed before hostilities broke out; given that it appears to have been signed after hostile acts by Paraguay against both Brazil and Argentina, this should probably be clarified.
• the paragraph on territorial disputes dating to independence of Argentina and Paraguay should specify their respective dates of declaration and acknowledgment of independence -- it is somewhat confusing as currently written.

Structural issues

The section headed "The Treaty" is unnecessary, since the treaty text is not in this article. I would recommend uploading the treaty text to Spanish Wikisource; if an English translation exists (that meets Wikisource guidelines) it should be uploaded to English Wikisource. Links to the treaty text should be in "Further reading", "References", or "External links".

The section "Fulfilment of the Treaty" is probably better called "Consequences", and should include a brief summary of the war before going into the later treaties.

I would identify the treaty by its Spanish name (as well as the English title) in the infobox.

Status

I think the above deficiencies represent a substantial amount of work, and I suspect other reviewers would fail this article. However, I'm a good guy -- as long as I see reasonable progress being made on addressing my concerns, I will leave it on hold. Magic♪piano 16:54, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

As there has been no substantive editing since my review about two weeks ago, I am closing it as failed. If the article is renominated for GA and you would like me to perform a second review, please leave a message on my talk page. Magic♪piano 01:47, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Structural Issues

Regarding one of the structural issues Magic Piano mentioned, you said "The section headed "The Treaty" is unnecessary, since the treaty text is not in this article.". But the text of the treaty is there. I just made it collapsible as to not use a lot of space in it. There should be a "show" link on the right of that section. If clicked the entire treaty should appear (I translated it since I couldn't find a version in English of it, and since I'm a translator I thought it'd be ok). So, as to improve it, would you suggest me removing the treaty text or just not making it collapsible?

Also, I found this http://es.wikisource.org/wiki/Tratado_Secreto_de_la_Triple_Alianza. Would it work for what you said about uploading it or should I upload an English version in to the english wikisource?

By the way, thanks for reviewing this! I'll make my best to address all the great feedback and constructive criticism you just made in order to meet the standards, but you were right, it'll be a lot of work! Veritiel (talk) 18:34, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the source, I see that you have indeed included the text of the treaty. For some reason the collapsible box is not showing up in my browser (Firefox), though (I'm not a Wikicode expert so I couldn't say why). Most raw document texts (and translations thereof) should be in Wikisource and not Wikipedia; the link in es.wikisource is presumably the Spanish text. I recommend you remove the treaty text here and put your translation in English Wikisource, and use {{wikisource}} and {{wikisourcelang}} to include pointers to both in External links. Magic♪piano 19:01, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

It is pointless to provide a machine-translation of any legal text, much less an international treaty in Spanish. Do I have to do it myself? Ttocserp 14:59, 23 April 2015 (UTC) It's not difficult to find an English translation. Go to e.g. Thomson, The War in Paraguay, Appendix 2, at Internet Archive. Here's a link [1]. Ttocserp

All right, that's done now. Ttocserp 02:39, 27 April 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prkprescott (talk • contribs)

Notice of intent to remove the reference to Women in the Paraguayan War

This is worthy, but has nothing to to with the Treaty, its motives or its fulfilment. Ttocserp 07:20, 5 August 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prkprescott (talk • contribs)

Indemnity?

The Article 14 section states: "In any case at the war's end Paraguay was in no position to pay any indemnity and the demand was dropped." But the Paraguayan War article indicates that "Both [Argentina and Brazil] demanded a large indemnity, which Paraguay paid for the next century. This hobbled its development. In 1943, after Paraguay had paid nearly all of the indemnity to Brazil, the latter's president Getúlio Vargas cancelled the remainder of the debt." Neither claim is sourced. Which is correct? 2601:644:101:9616:2A:BDC2:DDAB:3767 (talk) 23:30, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Although Paraguay was forced to pay war reparations after the end of the conflict, it actually never made any payment and none of the allied countries made claims about it. In the 1940s Argentina, followed by Brazil, forgave the debt. I don't know about Uruguay. --Lecen (talk) 00:20, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Ok, that's been referenced now, thanks. Ttocserp 14:03, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Official English translation of the text of the Treaty

In previous editions of this Article, I put forward what I believed was the official translation into English as laid before the House of Commons in 1866: I derived this from Thompson, George, The War In Paraguay, Appendix II, (1869) who claimed it to be such, see page 340.

It turns out that the version in Thompson is not the official version identified above, but one of his own devising (or, I suspect, copied from made by Michael Mulhall editor of the Buenos Aires Standard, see Thompson p. vi.) While his version isn't a bad translation, it isn't the official version. This becomes apparent as soon as you compare it with the one in the House of Commons Paper, to which I've provided a link. So in a spirit of complete accuracy, I take this opportunity to substitute the real thing, with apologies for my gullibility.

Of course, the only authentic versions are the ones signed by the Plenipotentiaries at Buenos Aires, in Spanish and Portuguese. But here we want to provide an accurate English version for readers of English Wikipedia. Ttocserp 15:57, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Incidentally, it's almost impossible to download an accurate copy of the Treaty in Spanish or Portuguese. Can anyone help? On a cursory inspection the one in Spanish Wikisource, for example, lacks the Preambles, and omits the third indent of Article III. Ttocserp 11:16, 11 June 2016 (UTC)