Talk:Southern Damascus offensive (April–May 2018)

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Southern Damascus offensive (April–May 2018) 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

While the biographies of living persons policy does not apply directly to the subject of this article, it may contain material that relates to living persons, such as friends and family of persons no longer living, or living persons involved in the subject matter. Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons must be removed immediately. If such material is re-inserted repeatedly, or if there are other concerns related to this policy, please see this noticeboard.

Islam: Islam and Controversy Low‑importance

	Islam portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Islam, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Islam-related articles 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.IslamWikipedia:WikiProject IslamTemplate:WikiProject IslamIslam-related articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by the Islam and Controversy task force.

Military history: Asian / Middle East / Russian & Soviet / Post-Cold War Start‑class

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

Start

This article has been rated as Start-class on the project's quality scale.

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion not met Coverage and accuracy: criterion not met Structure: criterion not met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

Associated task forces:
/
	Asian military history task force
	Middle Eastern military history task force
	Russian, Soviet and CIS military history task force
	Post-Cold War task force

Syria Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Syria, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Syria 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.SyriaWikipedia:WikiProject SyriaTemplate:WikiProject SyriaSyria articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Terrorism Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Terrorism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles on terrorism, individual terrorists, incidents and related subjects 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.TerrorismWikipedia:WikiProject TerrorismTemplate:WikiProject TerrorismTerrorism articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Daily pageviews of this article

A graph should have been displayed here but graphs are temporarily disabled. Until they are enabled again, visit the interactive graph at pageviews.wmcloud.org

Name article[edit]

Hi, I'd suggest to change the articles name to Southern Damascus offensive (April 2018) since we also have the pages Southern Damascus offensive (January–February 2018) and Southern Damascus offensive (March 2018) I think it would make sense, hope you agree.I Know I'm Not Alone (talk) 23:13, 20 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Notability template[edit]

I've removed the template which questioned the subject's notability.

This offensive, which immediately follows "Operation Damascus Steel," is clearing the last rebel-held pocket from the Damascus metropolitan area, an important turning point in the war. -2003:CA:83D4:BF00:E892:EEB9:F054:95CB (talk) 13:24, 26 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

According to whom? The majority of sources are Syrian state media and war blogs. The two notable sources present are Xinhua and Reuters, but to base an article on two sources is not enough. Eik Corell (talk) 13:03, 27 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There are multiple sources, including the SOHR, which has a pro-rebel POV. It's beyond dispute that the offensive is indeed taking place, and that it is in fact the last rebel-held pocket in the Damascus metro-area. Also, while Al-Masdar News is a partisan source, with a pro-government POV, partisan sources may be used when they have an established track-record of accuracy (this is why SOHR is regularly used, even though it's partisan too - in the other direction). Al-Masdar News routinely reports on rebel gains against government forces whenever they occur, so, even though their coverage has a partisan slant in its tone, its facts have been shown to be reliable. As such, it's an established source here on Wikipedia. -2003:CA:83CE:EA00:FC62:385E:F0CD:D069 (talk) 14:04, 27 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You're right about SOHR and to a degree Al-Masdar news. Looking further, there does seem to be more coverage than I thought of these events as Google News lists many recognizable sources -- Bloomberg, The National, Jerusalem Post, etc, which begs the question why all these war blogs, war maps, twitter posts etc, were used in the first place. Eik Corell (talk) 14:19, 27 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As far as the why, I can only speculate, as I wasn't one of the early editors on this article. One factor is that often Twitter and blogs are faster at covering breaking news. Another factor is that Western mainstream media have something of a partisan slant of their own, generally being anti-Syrian-government, so events like this one (the Syrian government forces and their allies launching a major offensive against ISIS, shortly after the US/UK/France missile strikes no less) tend to get less speedy, frequent, and prominent coverage as some others, since they don't fit so nicely with the desired narrative. They're generally not completely blacked out - one can find coverage if one specifically looks for it - but again, they're typically not as quickly and prominently covered. -2003:CA:83CE:EA00:FC62:385E:F0CD:D069 (talk) 20:12, 27 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]