Talk:Arab Spring

Howard: How would you feel about adopting a format similar to that of Great Recession and transferring country-by-country detail to an addendum, and concentrating the main page (mainly) upon consecutive narratives? (Perhaps there might be 2 narratives, one about the Arab states and one about internatinal responses?) Nick Gardner 05:10, 28 April 2011 (CDT)

Let me go look at Great Recession. I need to understand what you have in mind as narrative.

Nevertheless, I think you have a good idea. My recommendation, however, would be to put country-by-country revolts into separate articles rather than an addendum. That would make it much easier for other articles to link to them. For example, if there were an article on "2011 Libyan revolt" or whatever it's called, the main Libya article, the articles on Operation ODYSSEY DAWN and Operation UNIFIED PROTECTOR, perhaps something on refugee flow into Tunisia, the younger Qadaffi, etc., all would link to it. Howard C. Berkowitz 12:46, 30 April 2011 (CDT)

I'll spend a few days mulling over the idea of a unifying narrative and then return here. Nick Gardner 14:19, 30 April 2011 (CDT)

Featuring soon

Hello Mr. Nick Gardner, I think it would be great to feature Arab Spring as a featured article on Citizendium by next week. I really appreciate your high-level contributions on current topics such as this and the Eurozone Crisis. Given that Gaddafi was killed few days ago, and the whole thing in ME is winding down to a close, I think now is the best time to feature the article on the front page. What do you think? Thank you. (Chunbum Park 07:59, 23 October 2011 (UTC))

Thank you for your words of encouragement. I should be pleased to see Arab Spring as a featured article, although I have no idea how such things are organised. However, I do not see the situation as "winding down to a close": there are major political issues that have yet to be resolved, and I hope to update the article with such material as it emerges. Nick Gardner 10:33, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Featured articles are not "organized" but I just pick anything that's good. There were times when I didn't care much about, but now I've come to enjoy volunteering for this task. I think it's important because the quality of our articles really shapes how people view the project. (Chunbum Park 10:54, 23 October 2011 (UTC))

An updated and more readable version supercedes the version shown on the Citizendium main page. Nick Gardner 07:49, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Other countries

How are we defining the group of nations involved? This needs to be made explicit.

The article mentions "three oil economies (Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia)". What about Kuwait and the UAE? Those are certainly Arab and obviously affected by this, and both have oil. For that matter, what about other Arab nations -- Iraq, Lebanon, Morrocco. They should be mentioned, if only to give reasons for excluding them from the rest of the discusion. Sandy Harris 06:57, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

The group of countries involved is defined explicitly by the sentence:
- "The term Arab Spring ... refers to the sequence of protest movements that started with the successful uprising in Tunisia that began in December 2010".
Morrocco and Lebanon are specifically included by the passage on the main page:
- "six diversified economies (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria and Tunisia)",
- and by paragraphs 1.5 and 1.7 of the Addendum.
If you know of reports of uprisings in Kuwait, the UAE and Iraq, please send me copies and I will include them. Nick Gardner 07:43, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Updating

I am finding the problem of keeping up-to-date with changes in so many different countries somewhat demanding, and I should be grateful for reminders of significant developments that I have overlooked. Nick Gardner 10:36, 26 October 2011 (UTC)