Talk:Walk of Health

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 (talk) 00:12, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

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• Article history

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• ... that dictator Saparmurat Niyazov made his officials walk an 8 km (5 mi) long walkway whilst he flew the path on a helicopter? Source: Morton, Ella (6 February 2014). "Golden Statues and Mother Bread: The Bizarre Legacy of Turkmenistan's Former Dictator". Slate.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/WBAA
  • Comment: I am aware that the article just passes 1,700 characters – finding sources relating to Turkmenistan is incredibly difficult due to the closed nature of the country.

Created by LunaEatsTuna (talk). Self-nominated at 05:12, 25 March 2022 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

• Cited: - n
• Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: The article is well written and well cited, but I do have some concerns about conflicting claims made in the article, hook, and the hook's source. Perhaps I'm just reading incorrectly, but I want to make sure it's not a mistake. The article states that the trail is 22 miles long; however, Slate (which is used as the source for the hook) states that the whole path is 28 miles long. The hook states that government officials had to walk a 5 mile section once a year; Slate says 23 miles. Before the hook is approved these contradictions should probably be addressed. Fritzmann (message me) 21:38, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

@Fritzmann2002: Sorry, this took me a while but I think I get it now: the first hike (which the hook refers to) would be 5 miles, after which the path was expanded and thereafter he made his officials walk about 22.3 miles annually (perhaps Slate rounds up to 23). Turkmenistan.ru from 11 March 2000 says (according to DeepL):

President Saparmurat Niyazov invited them to walk many kilometers along the foothills of the Kopetdag Mountains. Last year, an eight-kilometer "Path of Health" was built here. [...] Then the President announced January 2 the annual Day of Health and ordered to prolong the route for another 28 kilometers."

Thus, eight + twenty-eight is 36 km, about 22.3 mi. Turkmenistan.ru is probably a more accurate source for this than Slate, but the source is obviously biased so I decided to avoid using it. Other articles from Turkmenistan.ru record this walk happening annually. Lastly, perhaps Slate confuses 28 km with miles? Lonely Planet and the German-language travel book cited in the article both give 22 mi. LunaEatsTuna (talk) 00:35, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

@LunaEatsTuna: hmm, definitely a confusing conundrum. It looks like you've puzzled it out though. I noticed your comment that sources out of Turkmenistan are few and far between due to the insular nature of the country, so I understand the difficulty. I do have to wonder though, another source on this would really clear up some of the inconsistencies. If you're not able to find one, my recommendation would be to reword the article to take note of the discrepancies between the Turkmeni government and Slate. The government website can be used to state their claims and point out differences between what they put out and what is said about them, so long as you don't just give the biased info in a vacuum and don't make them out to be gospel.

As for the hook, I would say it should probably be made a bit less specific with the length of the trail. Let me know your thoughts on this:

• ALT1: ... that dictator Saparmurat Niyazov made his officials walk a mountain path every year whilst he flew the route in a helicopter?

By the way, a very interesting article. Turkmenistan is certainly a peculiar nation from the perspective of an outsider. Fritzmann (message me) 02:01, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

@Fritzmann2002: Yes, that works! I will also edit the article accordingly as soon as I have the time. Thank you! LunaEatsTuna (talk) 02:32, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Sounds good. Ping me here once you've updated it and I'll give it the big green checkmark. Thanks for a painless review! Fritzmann (message me) 02:35, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

@Fritzmann2002: Reckon it looks alright now? LunaEatsTuna (talk) 16:44, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

All good! Best wishes, Fritzmann (message me) 16:48, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

LunaEatsTuna DYK requires a citation right after the hook information in the article. A citation is needed directly after " Niyazov made his ministers walk the walkway whilst he travelled by helicopter to meet them at the end of the walkway." This is per the eligibility criteria under Cited hook on the DYK page. "Each fact in the hook must be supported in the article by at least one inline citation to a reliable source, appearing no later than the end of the sentence(s) offering that fact." SL93 (talk) 22:45, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

@SL93: Does it look alright now? LunaEatsTuna (talk) 23:05, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. Restoring approval. SL93 (talk) 00:10, 2 April 2022 (UTC)