Talk:Muammar Gaddafi

Terrorism

The lede should make it clear that he funded and armed terrorist organisations during the 1970s and 1980s. 2A00:23C5:C410:5601:450F:B6E:785A:3B28 (talk) 14:23, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

It already does. Midnightblueowl (talk) 15:43, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Wrong word in his name.

At the beginning of the article, his name appears in Arabic as مُعمّر محمد عبد السلام القذّافي, but the fourth word (السلام)[Al-Salam] is not equal to the fourth Latin token [Minyar]. I think that the right Arabic word is (منيار)[Minyar]. So, السلام should be changed to منيار. Hene Stuchi (talk) 16:44, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't speak Arabic, but the name here matches the one at ar.wiki. The word "منيار" appears at the notes under Modern Standard Arabic. (CC) Tbhotch^™ 03:24, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Death

I see zero mention of his death and what happened. Please update. 100.4.105.230 (talk) 13:13, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

I made his death a separate section. Thepharoah17 (talk) 18:22, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Birth date

I searched this guy about a minute ago, and he was born on June 7, 1942, and died at age 69. 173.77.146.12 (talk) 16:51, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Excessive Length and Deterioration in Quality

Hello. I've been monitoring this article for many years now, having been the editor responsible for getting it to Good Article status back in 2013. Since that time, the article quality has begun to erode through the addition of more and more little bits of information, often borderline trivia. Not all of these additions are properly referenced, but have sometimes been inserted into already-referenced sentences to make it appear like the existing citations support the added information, which they don't.

Along with this general decline in quality, the article, which was long even in 2013, has now ballooned and become even longer. (Here you can see how this has been a problem since 2015 but has worsened since 2022). At present, the article is 239,550 bytes long. This is despite clear instructions at Wikipedia:Article size that articles in excess of 100 kB should be divided. Clearly, the article needs to be trimmed for concision and readability. It needs to be about half its current length.

For this reason, I would ask that User:IceFrappe reverse their mass reversion of my recent edits. The edits in question both made a start at cutting down the excess length and also removed some of the unreferenced statements that had been sneaked into the article in recent years. The article's GA-level quality (and its potential ability to reach Featured Article status) can only be retained if edits like this are made. Midnightblueowl (talk) 09:50, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

239,550 bytes is total size, not prose size. Apparently those "clear" instructions were not at all clear to you. That being said there are a few sections which don't have their own page which could, personal life and Reception and legacy seem like the low hanging fruit. I'l split off Personal life of Muammar Gaddafi and Reception and legacy of Muammar Gaddafi and we can see if thats enough. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:08, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

I have a low opinion of this article despite its apparent "good article" status as User:Midnightblueowl stated above. Before I started working on this article about a month ago, the vast majority of "sources" are based on two books no Wikipedian has access to (Qaddafi and the Libyan Revolution by Blundy & Lycett and Seeking Gaddafi: Libya, the West and the Arab Spring by Kawczynski) and we're expected to trust whoever that cited these 2 books to as editing in good faith. Almost the entire article is paraphrased exclusively from those 2 books. Based on my extensive research, some of the readily available sources actually contradict with the claims made in these 2 books. I agree with User:Horse Eye's Back that that the "reception and legacy" and "Posthumous assessment" are especially bad. The attempt to psychoanalyze Gaddafi, the Max Weber part about Gaddafi's supposed "charismatic authority", and claims of Gaddafi changing clothes multiple times a day and being a self-proclaimed fashion icon are clearly subjective opinions, unencyclopedic, and things we could do without.IceFrappe (talk) 00:30, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Those sections have already been cut down. The sections which still need to be cut down are Early life and early career, Libyan Arab Republic, Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, and Libyan Civil War. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:42, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

The priority for cutting down should be the tabloid-stye gossips (self-proclaimed fashion icon, sexual advances on female reporters, "extraordinarily vain", large wardrobes, etc), attempts at psychoanalysis (why is Max Weber's name even in the article?), and the overall reliance on one single source (the Lycett/Blundy 1987 book that most Wikipedians don't have access to and whose many claims have since been proven false by more recent reputable sources). The vast majority of the article reads like a paraphrase of the 1987 book and there's no way for any editor to verify some of these wild claims and gossips since we don't have access to that book.IceFrappe (talk) 00:54, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

What about that is tabloid style gossip? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:58, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

To give you a few examples, there are plenty of reputable sources that claim that Vladimir Putin is on the autism spectrum., that Donald Trump has a litany of undiagnosed mental illnesses , and there are plenty of speculations about George W. Bush's psyche during the buildup of the invasion of Iraq . Despite the fact these speculations all come from reputable sources, it doesn't mean any of these "diagnosis from afar" are anything more than tabloid-style gossips, much less encyclopedic for Wikipedia standards . My main problem with this article is that it is dominated by one single source (the 1987 book by Lycett/Blundy) and treating it as some sort of holy grail. The problem is a. this source is extremely dated, b. almost no Wikipedia editor has access to this book to verify some of these wild claims, c. Gaddafi's Libya was extremely isolated and essentially the North Korea of the Arab World in 1987 (a lot of the weird personal quirks and psychoanalysis about Gaddafi in 1987 read like what we're hearing about Kim Jong Un today); some of the claims from that book have since been proven wrong after Gaddafi's rapprochement with the West, and d. no article should rely so much on one single source.IceFrappe (talk) 01:13, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

We actually cover that extensively at Goldwater rule. Also note that those are living people, Gaddafi is dead so the rules are different. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:18, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Qaddafi and the Libyan Revolution is available for free and in full through the Internet Archive (the article's reference links to it). Seeking Gaddafi: Libya, the West and the Arab Spring is available through Library Genesis. — Goszei (talk) 03:56, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks I'll look into it. I read a lot of books about Libya in Arabic, English, and French, so looking forward to perusing those two. I do take issue with how much this entire article relies on the 1987 book Qaddafi and the Libyan Revolution at the expense of all other sources. RegardsIceFrappe (talk) 00:11, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

You can't get away by citing example of Vladimir Putin here since that page ensures that we are discussing an unproven claim from otherwise reliable sources.

When the source itself is unreliable, but covered by a reliable source then still we are obliged to assess credibility of the sources.

What some Brazilian nurses tell today without any evidence is not fit for inclusion. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 04:01, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Well, in that case, Blundy and Lycett shouldn't be considered above reproach either. The inner-working of Libya was extremely opaque in 1987, just like North Korea is now. Blundy and Lycett clearly relied on unreliable sources to compile their book in 1987 and some of their claims have been proven false in the decades since (especially after Gaddafi's rapprochement with the West). Are we gonna include every single one of Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung's supposed personal quirks and eccentricities just because it was in a book rather than a newspaper? Give me a break! The highly respected and well-connected Bob Woodward wrote many articles for The Washington Post around the same time as Lycett and Blundy . Are you going to dismiss him just because his reports weren't in a book? The Washington Post is universally accepted as a reputable source and Woodward is frankly a more reputable source than Lycett and Bundy.IceFrappe (talk) 05:23, 5 March 2023 (UTC)