Talk:Haile Selassie

The good article status of this article is being reassessed by the community to determine whether the article meets the good article criteria. Please add comments to the reassessment page.

^{Date: 16:36, 6 November 2024 (UTC)}

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Haile Selassie article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4: 2 months

Haile Selassie has been listed as one of the History good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
January 8, 2024	Good article nominee	Not listed
March 25, 2024	Good article nominee	Listed

Current status: Good article

Biography: Military / Politics and Government / Royalty and Nobility

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	This article is supported by the military biography work group (assessed as Low-importance).
	This article is supported by the politics and government work group (assessed as High-importance).
	This article is supported by WikiProject Royalty and Nobility.

Cold War Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Cold War, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the Cold War on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Cold WarWikipedia:WikiProject Cold WarTemplate:WikiProject Cold WarCold War articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Ethiopia Top‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Ethiopia, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Ethiopia on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EthiopiaWikipedia:WikiProject EthiopiaTemplate:WikiProject EthiopiaEthiopia articles
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Politics Mid‑importance

	Politics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Africa Top‑importance

	Africa portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Africa, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Africa on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AfricaWikipedia:WikiProject AfricaTemplate:WikiProject AfricaAfrica articles
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Military history: Biography / African / Cold War

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history articles

Associated task forces:
/
	Military biography task force
	African military history task force
	Cold War task force (c. 1945 – c. 1989)

A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on 10 dates. [show]

April 2, 2004, April 2, 2005, April 21, 2006, April 21, 2007, September 12, 2007, September 12, 2008, September 12, 2009, September 12, 2010, September 12, 2012, and September 12, 2014

GA concerns

I am concerned that this article no longer meets the good article criteria. Some of my concerns are outlined below:

The article uses lots of long block quotes: these create copyright concerns and make the text very long. I suggest that these are summarised, reduced, or removed.
The article is over 11,000 words and contains too much detail: WP:TOOBIG recommends that articles of this size are spun out to other articles and the prose reduced.
The article contains uncited prose.

Is anyone willing to address the above concerns, or should this go to WP:GAR? Z1720 (talk) 21:41, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

GA Reassessment

Haile Selassie

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result pending

The article uses lots of long block quotes: these create copyright concerns and make the text very long. I suggest that these are summarised, reduced, or removed. The article is over 11,000 words and contains too much detail: WP:TOOBIG recommends that articles of this size are spun out to other articles and the prose reduced. I think summarising the block quotes will help with this, as well as removing other material. The article also contains uncited prose. Z1720 (talk) 16:36, 6 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Many of the quotes in this article provide no substantive contribution to it, and seem to be included only for aesthetic reasons. You could argue that this article also uses too many images for the same reason. Removing some of these would be for the best. As for prose issues, I've been working on cleaning up the worst of it (the Personal life section). genderBiohazard (talk) 21:46, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation removed

I noticed that the IPA pronunciation for Haile Selassie's name was removed in [1]. Is there a reason for this? Can it be restored? Yxtqwf (talk) 03:44, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Yxtqwf: What was removed on 15 January 2024 was the IPA pronunciation, together with the source (slightly adjusted here for formatting reasons):

Amharic pronunciation: [kʼədäˈmäwi ˈhäjlə sɨlˈläse] ;^{English: /ˈhaɪli səˈlæsi, -ˈlɑːsi/ HY-lee sə-LASS-ee, -⁠LAH-see.^[1]}

Both URLs in that citation no longer work, but they have both been archived close to the stated access date: Merrian Webster gives an audio example, and Dictionary.com gives /ˈhaɪli səˈlæsi, -ˈlɑsi/ (hahy-lee suh-las-ee, -lah-see) as the pronunciation. This does not seem to agree with what we were claiming (hy-lee sə-lass-ee, -⁠lah-see), and parts of what we said (kʼədäˈmäwi ˈhäjlə sɨlˈläse) remained unsourced. Since the material in the source didn't align with what we were saying, the removal may have been justified.

CtasACT's edit summary may give further clues (again slightly adjusted for clarity):

Would someone kindly be able to put ^[2]^[3]^[4]?

I don't have access to that book. I guess CtasACT expects it to contain a more reliable pronunciation for the different parts of the name? If not then maybe they can clarify. This could be a case for an WP:RX request. Renerpho (talk) 14:25, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ "Haile Selassie". Merriam-webster. Retrieved 24 April 2014..; "Haile Selassie". Dictionary. Reference. Retrieved 24 April 2014..
^ Fay 1999, p. 902.
^ Munro-Hay 1999, p. 698.
^ Fay, Robert (1999-01-01). "Halie Selassie I". In Gates, Henry Louis; Appiah, Anthony (eds.). Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. New York: Basic Civitas Books. ISBN 978-0965032742.

Exceptional claim from obscure source

There is a claim in the 1970s section of this article that "there were no more than ten political prisoners during [Haile Selassie's] reign". This line is attributed to two sources. One of which, this article from the Independent, does not support the claim whatsoever. The other is an Amharic language book titled "የአፄ ኃይለሥላሴ ታሪክ" — I could find very little information about it online, but this appears to be the book in question. I would like to know if anyone has access to this book and could verify or share its contents. Regarding the claim itself, I could find no other sources for it online, and it contradicts various reports from Amnesty International. genderBiohazard (talk) 02:08, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The claim that there were few political prisoners detained under Selassie is widely held, most suffered from mental illness upon release as its believed they were administrated psychotic drugs. Magherbin (talk) 16:48, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[1] "Haile Selassie". Merriam-webster. Retrieved 24 April 2014..; "Haile Selassie". Dictionary. Reference. Retrieved 24 April 2014..

[FOOTNOTEFay1999902-2] Fay 1999, p. 902.

[FOOTNOTEMunro-Hay1999698-3] Munro-Hay 1999, p. 698.

[4] Fay, Robert (1999-01-01). "Halie Selassie I". In Gates, Henry Louis; Appiah, Anthony (eds.). Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. New York: Basic Civitas Books. ISBN 978-0965032742.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]