Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Africa/Archive 1

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 → Archive 5

Scope

I've just added the related country wikiprojects. I am not sure as well how we'd deal with the project. On one hand we have country projects and the general Africa project. It would seem redundant but i believe we can redifine the scope of the African project in a way or another. I'd suggest though that we limit the project to general articles which are not country specific (i.e. Military history of Africa Vs. Military history of South Africa). -- FayssalF - Wiki me up ® 11:35, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

That's a good idea. What about countries that don't yet have separate projects? Should they be included? — Emiellaiendiay 21:06, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
There doesn't seem much point in including a long list of red links. This, however, might well prove to be a useful place for people interested in setting up new projects to find interested editors. Warofdreams talk 00:59, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

task template

I've added the collaboration to Portal:Africa/Things you can do, which is used as a tasks template at both WP:AFR and WP:CSBOT, last I checked. The Project may just want to use this as well, rather than creating a separate tasks template. Cheers, BanyanTree 22:24, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! — Emiellaiendiay 07:30, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

List class

Hi, I just created Category:List-Class Africa articles, hope this is ok. Belovedfreak 18:48, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Africa discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals

Description WikiProject Africa would be dedicated to improving the African related articles, such as, country pages and history pages, which are among the most lowely rated country pages. Wikiproject Africa will also address diputes over controversial topics, for exapmle Ivory Coast vs. Cote-d'Ivoire. I am relatively new to Wikipedia and could use help setting up the temporary page and templates among other things that I am ignorant of. XYZ CrVo 02:06, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Temporary Project Page: User:XYZ CrVo/WikiProject Africa

User: XYZ CrVo

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name if interested) :

Comments:

  • One noteworthy difference with this proposal is that, according to the project page, it expects to engage in assessments, which are generally not done on most of the articles in the Africa category. I too expect that editors would only work on articles within their own sphere of expertise. However, it may well be that one or more editors may be knowledgable in more than one field. Certainly, that is the case in the United States, where several editors work on articles from a variety of states, myself among them (Missouri and South Dakota, both of which I have resided in.) Also, the creation of one umbrella project does not rule out the creation of smaller projects later. In fact, if successful, it would probably make the subprojects more likely than they would otherwise be. Badbilltucker 01:01, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I also must advance some objections; in particular I'm afraid we're building too many wikiprojects in the area, with national wikiprojects (Chad, South Africa, Ethiopia, Eritrea et al.), subcontinental wikiprojects (that are being launched now) and a continental wikiproject, that would have to compete also with Wikipedia:Africa-related regional notice board, as the board is not only a talk, but also has new articles and has a peer review sections. Isn't the area becoming a bit too crammed?--Aldux 21:45, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
This is actually the oldest proposal. The others all came later. I guess what will happen is just that the first ones to get sufficient support to get started will be created, and then whichever others don't will probably eventually fall by the wayside. Badbilltucker 21:59, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm the sixth person to register support for #Middle Africa (although I would vastly prefer the name Central Africa). Is that one about ready? Or should we wait for ten people? Picaroon 22:06, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I find myself in agreement with Aldux. Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa should just be redirected to the noticeboard. Geographical regions are one thing, seeing as they actually house related countries. But continental ones are far too wide. The people of Senegal and those of Mozambique and those of Sudan are no more similar than those of Armenia, Thailand, and Mongolia - which would be grouped together under WikiProject Asia, would they not? I appreciate your interest, XYZ CrVo, but this isn't going to work out. Geographical regions are the way to go; they can peacefully co-exist with country projects and eventually be split up into them when there is enough interest (sadly, as with many things Africa on Wikipedia, that'll take a while.) Picaroon 22:06, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

WatchllistBot article/category tagging

I've been tagging categories for your project with User:WatchlistBot, and you now have over 1000, with lots more still untagged. This is by far the largest project I've ever worked with, and I wonder if it's useful to tag that many categories and articles. Your watchlist will end up split onto so many different pages (wikipedia can only handle about 9000 links/page). I'm going to take a break until I hear back from you that this is really what you want. Ingrid 03:45, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

African art discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals

Description WikiProject African art would be dedicated to creating and improving a battery of articles on African art, art movements, artists, curators, collectors, and museums. The area's woefully undercovered on Wikipedia, and while I've been trying to put a few things together, there's only so much I can do. --User:AlbertHerring Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla! 19:44, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Temporary Project Page: User:AlbertHerring/WikiProject African art

User: AlbertHerring

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name if interested)

  1. General Eisenhower (t c) we need something like this for a WikiProject
  2. Szvest - Wiki me up ® 18:49, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Comments: I think that this project should be included in WikiProject Africa, that is to say if WP Africa becomes an official project. // PoeticDecay 00:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

addendum, which it now is, Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa Chris 08:13, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Botswanan

Hi. As someone who worked and lived in Botswana for several years, I know this form to be wrong. Before I went on my wikibreak I had successfully eradicated the mistaken form from our encyclopedia. When I came back I was horrified to see someone had reinstated it! I changed them back again, but User:Number 57 has informed me they have reinstated the incorrect form. The authority? Wiktionary and dictionary.com!

You might ask yourself why, if this were so, we do not have a "*Botswanan Defence Force", but a Botswana Defence Force etc etc. I would like to settle this matter here to give everyone a fair chance to contribute to the discussion. To be honest I thought this was such an obvious issue that it would not need a consensus-building exercise, but it seems I was wrong. So, any comments? --Guinnog 16:16, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

The Oxford English Dictionary (which includes dialects other than British) also says Botswanan. I don't think there is an authority on the language (in any form) better than this. Number 57 16:24, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I think the best authority on Botswana usage would likely be the Botswana government site at http://www.gov.bw/ on which I cannot see any trace of the erroneous form. I did find a list of political parties though: Botswana Congress Party, Botswana Democratic Party, Botswana Labour Party, Botswana National Front, Botswana Peoples Party, Botswana Progressive Union, Botswana Workers Front, Independence Freedom Party, Mels Movement of Botswana, Social Democratic Party, United Action Party, United Democratic Front, United Socialist Party. This seems pretty suggestive to me. --Guinnog 16:33, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Still on the government site, http://www.botswana-tourism.gov.bw/culture_and_his/culture_and_his.html gives ""Tswana" is used as an adjective - for example "Tswana state" or "Tswana culture"." I would accept this as an alternative in preference to "Botswanan", though I think just using Botswana as the adjective is more common there. --Guinnog 16:36, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I think using Tswana would just confuse people - I doubt many would know it was a demonym for Botswana. Having read Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English (If there is a strong tie to a specific region/dialect, use that dialect), I guess Botswana might be the way to go if it is the locally-preferred term, though I'm not that happy with it. It would be nice to have some other knowledgeable people's input to the debate. Number 57 16:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
It was with that (sensible) policy in mind that I made the changes I made. English is the official language in Botswana (although Setswana is the national language), and I think for that reason we need to have the input of people with experience of the usage in that country, like myself. Next best are official Botswana sources like the ones I quoted. I hope that we can settle this once and for all here. Best wishes, --Guinnog 16:54, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Do you know of any Botswanan Wikipedians that could be asked to contribute to this discussion? Number 57 16:56, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

LOL, I do not know any Batswana Wikipedians but I do know someone else who worked there more recently than me. I will ask her to contribute here. --Guinnog 17:01, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Guinnog is absolutely right, "Botswanan" is a really jarring mistake to anyone connected with Botswana - like "Scotlandian" or "Walesish". I've been here before, so here's part of a previous discussion:

Botswanan does not exist in Botswana English - as with Hong Kong or New Zealand, the adjective is just the country's name (or Batswana or Setswana, for people or language/culture), eg: "Botswana government", "Botswana territory"[1], "Botswana football"[2], "Botswana justice"[3], "Botswana authorities"[4]. Proper nouns (although individually not a good guide) are universally Botswana, not Botswanan: Botswana Housing Corporation, Botswana Defence Force, Botswana Democratic Party, Botswana Netball Association...
Botswanan does exist in UK dictionaries, but doesn't seem to be used by people who have anything to do with Botswana. Since one usage is wrong in the local English, and the other usage neutral in all Englishes, there doesn't seem any justification for going with Botswanan.

Since the argument's come up again, I'll add that you can further confirm how the term is used by following a link like Botswana Daily News (the Botswana government news service) and searching for Botswana. For many more Wikipedia examples of states/places where the noun is the same as the adjective, take a look at any Category: Foo by country (eg Category:Law by country). Cheers, JackyR | Talk 18:05, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

This is interesting. Please confirm the version of these sentences, replacing Botswana for the USA: "I am an American. My mother is an American of Native American descent. My father is American because he was born and raised here, though his parents were Chinese. We are all Americans." Would it be correct to Botswana-ize these sentences like this?: "I am a Botswana. My mother is a Botswana of Tswana descent. My father is Botswana because he was born and raised here, though his parents were Chinese. We are all Botswana." Malangali 11:30, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I am now living in Gaborone and struggling to learn Setswana - see start of a wiki to help learners of Setswana. "Botswanan" is definitely wrong. The singular form of Batswana (people of Botswana) is Motswana (person of Botswana). So the sentence would be "I am a Motswana. My mother is a Motswana of Tswana descent. My father is a Motswana.. We are all Batswana, (and speak Setswana).

Jacobkn 13:29, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Is that the way an announcer on the BBC would say it, or should say it? Wouldn't that leave the average English-speaking radio listener in London or Sydney or Des Moines or Dodoma scratching her head and asking, "What in the world is a Motswana?" Malangali 13:52, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, Jakobkn is exactly right. In my opinion we shouldn't dumb down our encyclopedia to the hypothetically low intelligence of a hypothetical "average listener"; rather, as policy prescribes, we should use the correct local usage, with explanation and footnotes where necessary. Maybe a short section in the main Botswana article would be in order? --Guinnog 20:01, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Jacobkn: in your comment, you use the word "Batswana" to describe the people of Botswana. Don't you mean "Botswana," with an o instead of an a? Picaroon 21:02, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
No, as I said he was exactly right.
  • Botswana: the country, proper noun and adjective
  • Motswana: person from Botswana
  • Batswana: plural of Motswana
--Guinnog 21:07, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Yup, check out Tswana. As for people around the world, we just have to learn the terms - as we've learned that a USAer is usually called an American, and speaks English, but a person from America might be an Argentine and speak Spanish; a person from the United Kingdom is a Briton, although if from Wales they might be a Welshman/Welshwoman; and someone from New Zealand is a New Zealander. And yes, Motswana is definitely what the BBC should say (not sure it comes up very often!). JackyR | Talk 23:38, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks to all who contributed to this. User:Number 57 has very graciously self-reverted, and I think we have (for the time being!) established a consensus on the whole Botswana/Botswanan naming issue. I wish all disagreements on Wikipedia could be so harmoniously and collegially resolved. --Guinnog 17:57, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Princess Town or Princes Town (Ghana)

Several months ago, I put a query at Talk:Princess Town about the proper name of this city in Ghana. Different sources list it as Princess Town and Princes Town. The article is a tiny stub, and I don't think any active editors are paying attention to it — but I think that we can at least try to see whether it's named correctly. If anyone knows anything about this Ghanaian city, please reply at Talk:Princess Town. Thanks! —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:58, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Page moved to Princes Town, Ghana as per discussions on Talk:Princes Town, Ghana.--Natsubee 14:44, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Possible hoax

I've prodded ButButtChu. Just in the interest of safety, could someone check over my reasoning? I don't want to see a valid article go, even if I'm pretty sure this is nonsense. Picaroon 19:51, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

The ISBN doesn't check out. I'd say you did the right thing. --Guinnog 19:55, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Only contributor was User:Butbuttchu. I'd say you definitely did the right thing. I'm going to speedy-delete the article as nonsense; what horrifies me is that it has been here since last October! Well done for spotting it. --Guinnog 19:58, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I considered speedying it, but the fact that it had been here so long made me think twice. I found it while expanding the list of stubs at Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/Stubs - it was tagged with {{Gambia-stub}}, and its name stood out, so I clicked. Picaroon 21:51, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Cameroon

Hey, folks. I've nominated Cameroon as a featured article candidate. Feedback of all kinds is welcome on the nomination page. Thanks, — Brian (talk) 05:28, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Bilateral relations discussion

I would like to invite you all to participate in a discussion at this thread regarding bilateral relations between two countries. All articles related to foreign relations between countries are now under the scope of WikiProject Foreign relations, a newly created project. We hope that the discussion will result in a more clean and organized way of explaining such relationships. Thank you. Ed ¿Cómo estás? 17:59, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Sudan

HI WIkiAfrica. PLease can a member of your project try to expand the articles on the states of Sudan. They are very poor indeed -quite embarassing. You would expect some more detailed articles on major states of countries but often they are only two lines long and cover an area of like 400,000 sq miles!!! I hope somebody who is interested in Sudan topics will try to expand them a little. Keep up the good work everyone ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ "Expecting you" Contribs 10:03, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Fate of Proposed regional projects on Proposals page?

Would it be reasonable of me to conclude that, with this project up and running, the various proposals for regional projects at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals are now redundant? If they are, please say as much and I will remove them from that page and eliminate some of the clutter there. Also, would the members of this group consider breaking up into "task forces" relating to specific countries/areas if there were sufficient interest to create such groups? Thanks in advance for your replies. John Carter 20:04, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think they are redundant due to the creation of this project. As for country-specific task forces I find it unlikely that there'd be sufficient interest for those. There are already some national wikiprojects. Picaroon 23:05, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
On the basis of the above reply, I am removing the "regional" projects from the Proposed Project page. In the event that there ever does arise call for some specific national projects, as there already are some requests on the proposed projects page, I think it might work best to have them function as task forces of this project. John Carter 23:39, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Sounds reasonable to me. Picaroon 00:03, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

2006-07 Southern Hemisphere tropical cyclone season split

Just letting you all know that 2006-07 Southern Hemisphere tropical cyclone season has been split into three subarticles; I moved the {{AfricaProject}} tag from there to Talk:2006-07 South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season. --Coredesat 07:23, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Wildife of Africa

A new series is starting on African wildlife and soon enough I want 53 beautiful main articles. I have begun by Wildlife of Algeria please please help out on these missing articles of Africa. Even if it is just stubbing this work is much needed. ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ "Expecting you" Contribs 10:38, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

A-Class Assessments

I've just visioned the 8 articles that have been given A-Class Assessment, and I must object quite strongly to some of these. In particular I have to object to Economy of Africa, Great Mosque of Djenné and History of Namibia. A-class means that all these articles are almost ready for FAR, while it seems obvious that these articles don't stand a chance to survive GAR, let alone FAR, as they have extremely few inline citations when utterly none, and anybody that has standed for a GAR recently knows that abundant inline references is simply non negotiable, and A-class is considered higher than GA status. For this I'm oriented to review the previous assessments and give B-class to these.--Aldux 16:52, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Some, if not all, of those articles were rated by me for this project based on the fact that they were already A-Class for some other project. Not being particularly experienced at assessments for the higher classes, I just went with what was already there. Based on what you have said, I would agree that they are not A-Class. Belovedfreak 17:33, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Actually, as someone who has raised the same questions in the past, I can say that at those times I have been told that "A" is not a "higher" grade, but was actually instituted before the Wikipedia:Good article process was created. In some regards, GA designation actually requires more than A designation. Please see the specific standards at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment. I have seen where someone who helped to first initiate the assessment standards that he has himself rated articles as "A-Class" which were denied GA status, so it seems reasonable to me that such differential designation could continue. John Carter 20:20, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Just wandering by and chiming in - much of the confusion is from the fact that GA was tacked on outside the already existing scale of stub-start-B-A. The initial instructions for adding the GA template were literally along the lines of "If you see an article that you think is well done, go ahead and add the tag!" Wikipedia being what it is, a bureaucracy promptly began forming to set minimum standards, enforce those standards, manage submissions and reviews, etc etc. Contrary to what the most recent Signpost implies, this was a early example of a GA from its creator. While FA standards have risen, they haven't risen nearly as fast as the ones of GA. From being a colorful template to give editors a pat on the back, GA went to muscling itself up the assessment scale to being nearly as difficult to achieve as FA status. And now you know why some wiki-greyhairs sound irritated when discussing the role of GA. - BanyanTree 21:25, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikimania 2007

Text below copied over from Wikipedia talk:Africa-related regional notice board for those who might be interested. - BanyanTree 21:06, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Hello all Wikipedians in Africa;

Wikimania 2007, which is being held in Taipei, Taiwan on August 3-5, is offering opportunities for travel scholarships to Wikimania for active users of Wikimedia projects from the continent of Africa. Although the original scholarship deadline has passed, please, if you are interested, you may still apply at http://wm07schols.wikimedia.org/apply.php. Sincerely yours, Cary Bass 17:14, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Contemporary African Database

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has used the Contemporary Africa Database - while it doesn't have much biographical content per person, it is pretty reliable, and is often the best source for birth dates, death dates, and job titles. Recently it has switched to some sort of subcription-only set-up and a user, 84.70.118.162 (talk · contribs), decided to remove sixty one links to the site. I used the Wayback Machine and, sure enough, a version of the page was right there. So what do you guys think about this? Should all these edits be outright reverted or replaced with an IA link? Picaroon (Talk) 16:50, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Wayback Machine links are fine (as are links to subscription-only sites, if no free link is available). Warofdreams talk 01:06, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

What to do with the category list pages?

We have four pages which list Africa categories: WikiProject Africa/All categories/Algeria, WikiProject Africa/All categories/Angola, WikiProject Africa/All categories/Benin, and the parent, WikiProject Africa/All categories. Unlike the stubs subpage, however, these pages aren't maintained, and I don't think trying to do so would be viable at all. There is no central category proposal page, so new cats are harder to find, and unlike stubs, they can simply be listed by clicking the + signs on top level categories. I therefore propose we delete these for now and stick to organizing categories by making sure they themselves are categorized correctly, as opposed to trying to maintain these. What do others think? Picaroon (Talk) 00:09, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. John Carter 01:25, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Belovedfreak 12:50, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Alright, I'll delete them per our discussion here. Remember, they can be restored any time, unless this happens! Picaroon (Talk) 01:15, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Chad Peer review

Hi guys, I've requested a peer review for Chad. I'd be happy if someone could drop by to offer some advice. Ciao,--Aldux 16:20, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

See meta:Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Herero Wikipedia

If anyone here has any Herero language proficiency, please take a look at this proposal and at the small Herero encyclopedia itself to see what should be done with this wikipedia (keep it or delete it.) Keeping it implies more than a sentimental commitment ("it would be nice to have a wikipedia in every language ...") but also that it can be something more than a 10 or 20-article spam and vandalism trap and not just "someday" but in the here and now.

Please do not respond here but rather at that discussion (meta:Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Herero Wikipedia).

Thanks, --A. B. (talk) 12:11, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Ghana

I have put a proposal for WikiProject Ghana on the WikiProject proposals page. Please take a look and join up or add your comments please.--Natsubee 14:49, 25 May 2007 (UTC)


Excuse me but...

Excuse me but I am an Africa freak. I know a TON about it. I can speak some Swahili, not spell it. I can really help with the African animal project. I know almost every animal in South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. And I'm trying to go on a trip to Africa soon, but I'm not sure with the civil war and all. But what I really want to know is how do I join the project?Mattkenn3 17:15, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Just go to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Africa#Members, and sign your name at the bottom of the list. You can add the project userbox to your page by adding {{User Africa Project}}. Further down the page is Open tasks which might give you some inspiration. Belovedfreak 19:26, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, I'm in the project.Mattkenn3 15:19, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

List of African insurance companies

A "{{prod}}" template has been added to the article List of African insurance companies, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but the article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice explains why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may contest the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. Richc80 16:15, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Johannesburg FAR

Johannesburg has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Epbr123 18:40, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Chad FAC

Chad has been submitted among the feature article candidates. Feel free to leave your comments at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Chad.--Aldux 00:15, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Culture off topic

Note: This message is copied from Talk:Africa

Hey sorry about this. I know you guys are super busy keeping this page up to the best standard and I don't want to come off critizing your work. Unfortunately, I was doing research for a project and needed info on the variouse African cultures. Sadly, when I went to read beneath the culture section, there was very little about the culture, and mostly just paragraph after aganozing paragraph about apratheid, which was limited to Southern Africa, and how the classifying of races by Europeans were wrong. I wuld say that information is very important to the site, however African culture is not the best place to put that. I won't change any of the article because I am not very well versed in ALL african cultures, and I know that most people will simply go in and delete my edit, so I won't even bother. However, if someone has the time, the resources, and possibly the knowledge, please add in more aout the variouse cultures such as the Zulu or the San. I'm only mentioning South African cultures because they are the only ones I am fimiliar with, however ALL cultures in Africa should be included. Thank you very much for all your cooperation.67.170.180.215 01:11, 14 July 2007 (UTC)Ralis

Expert review: Silaba

As part of the Notability wikiproject, I am trying to sort out whether Silaba is notable enough for an own article. I would appreciate an expert opinion. For details, see the article's talk page. If you can spare some time, please add your comments there. Thanks! --B. Wolterding 11:43, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

NN. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 20:47, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
I've sent the article to AfD now. --B. Wolterding 17:04, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Add importance parameter

I think it is about time to add in the importance parameter in assessing the quality of these African articles. Other WikiProjects such as WikiProject Football have an importance rating to their articles. This project, however, is missing this parameter. --Siva1979Talk to me 12:18, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Must we? I thought it was intentionally left out, and was delighted that I'm not the only one who thinks determining the importance of an article's subject is not a worthwhile task. I think we'd all prefer writing articles actually, because that is what the project was set up to facilitate. :-) Picaroon (Talk) 17:19, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I think it might be a good idea to add it. There's currently a bot under construction which will, if developed, try to ensure that all of the most important articles we have get "ranked" as such, and it would probably help when that bot is developed. Also, it can, if done correctly, indicate which of the most important articles (like main articles on countries) in the poorest shape, and with luck get some improvement there. It should be noted that the importance rankings aren't intended to be seen as absolute, though. John Carter 17:24, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I am also not too keen on importance ratings but I suppose it's one of those things that if you like them, you can use them, if not, just ignore them. It might also be worth having a list of core topics that could be reached by consensus, that would definitely include, for example, country articles. --Belovedfreak 17:58, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I have changed the {{AfricaProject}} template to be consistent with the {{Football}} template. --Siva1979Talk to me 04:29, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
The problem with importance ratings is that they're generally pretty stupid, and I find difficult to see how they couldn't. While quality ratings are not so arbitrary, unless you're dealing with obviously important topics (for exampe, Africa, Atlantic Slave Trade), all this becomes pure and arbitrary speculation.--Aldux 11:20, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree, it's kind of contradictory. The whole point is to come across NPOV and importance ratings are POV. And honestly in this group, people who are interested in, haved lived in, or studied Africa are going to have completely different view points of what are important topics and people to have articles on then the vast majority of Americans, which is evident in many talk pages. Meateatingvegan 14:37, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
I've seen several projects really only consistently assess the Top or High importance articles, to try to draw editor attention to them here. Many of these projects might also assess some specific individual articles, like for a player on a national soccer team, as being Mid or Low, but that tends to be done less uniformly. Having the Top or High importance articles ranked somehow would probably be a good idea, if only to try to draw more attention to them. John Carter 14:40, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and reverted Siva1979's changes seeing that there is no support for it by this WikiProject. If and when the WikiProject agrees to use the importance rating, it could be added back in. --Farix (Talk) 12:45, 28 July 2007 (UTC)


Since Siva1979 had made the same proposal to multiple Wikiproject banners, I have started a centralized discussion at the Village Pump to obtain wider comment. --Farix (Talk) 13:12, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I must agree that to reach consensus on this is important. I hope that there would be support for my proposal with regards to this template. If consensus is not reached here, then the {{Football}} template needs to be changed, not the African template. --Siva1979Talk to me 17:17, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Why do they need to be the same? --Belovedfreak 20:41, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

reqphoto in the Gambia

What should be the reqphoto tag for the Gambia?

It is requested that a photograph or photographs be included in this article to improve its quality, if possible.
Wikipedians in Gambia may be able to help!

WikiProject Africa/Archive 1 or

It is requested that a photograph or photographs be included in this article to improve its quality, if possible.
Wikipedians in The Gambia may be able to help!

WikiProject Africa/Archive 1? Neither of those two things seems to be created yet.Zigzig20s 20:07, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

better you look to commons, before you spamming the articles.... e.g. Bakau has many pictures alreday in the german wikipedia. ;-) --Atamari 20:23, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
That's not 'spamming'. I am requesting photos for the article - if someone can then find them on Wikicommons, great.Zigzig20s 20:25, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
i'm helping you to insert many pictures .... --Atamari 20:27, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't have time to go through Wikicommons, I have time to add a reqphoto tag when I see a settlement page which doesn't have a picture though - because it's quick. Then someone else is welcome to go through Wikicommons or go take pictures - it's a work in progress. So which one should be used?Zigzig20s 20:50, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
In Gambia should be used. Both are used and "acceptable" titles, but the article is unnecessary and the context may imply the river (and then you would never find a photo). Meateatingvegan 16:34, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Actually, in the Gambia is the correct form on Wikipedia. It's even stated in the official policy on naming conventions - see the exceptions listed under Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Avoid the definite article ("the") and the indefinite article ("a"/"an") at the beginning of the page name. Warofdreams talk 16:08, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Okay, fair enough. After reading through the naming conventions and wondering why Gambia -er, The Gambia - was listed as an exception after reading through seven sources that said Gambia was the preferred name, I found a reference that actually explained why (Room, Adrian: African Placenames, 1994). That is still 7 references to 2 (if you count Wikipedia), but I give in. Meateatingvegan 16:42, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Template:Africa topic

Can I get some more eyes on {{Africa topic}}? Now that the Western Sahara stuff has cooled down, we're getting the Spain is in Africa argument again. *Insert sigh here* Picaroon (t) 17:10, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Countries section on project page

What is the need for the Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa#Countries section? If you haven't memorized the countries, merely searching for Africa and scrolling down is as easy as looking them up on this page, right? I propose we remove it for now. Thoughts? Picaroon (t) 04:32, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Fully agree, lets remove them.--Aldux 20:24, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Yeah that seems fair enough. --Belovedfreak 21:13, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Berbers

I believe this very unique culture, with a one-of-a-kind alphabet Tifinagh and history dating back as far as ancient Egypt, merits it's own WikiProject. There is a beautiful portal at Portal:Berbers, and I think Wikipedia would benefit greatly from this. Chris 02:30, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Featured article review of Congo Free State

Congo Free State has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. — Black Falcon (Talk) 20:47, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Picture Review

Sorry to bother all of you, but I want to be careful with a Victorian engraving I found, as the accompaning text seems sensationalist, and I'm a bit worried about promoting a racist Victorian view of the Gold Coast.


The image in question is Image:Ju-ju_house.png, which I put into the article Juju, but am having serious doubts about. There's also another one showing a woman tied to a post by the sea, waiting for the tide to come in and the sharks to eat her, which is supposedly a sacrifice to Ju-ju, but I'm... even more wary of that one.

Please help a well-meaning, but unfortunately unknowledgable fellow. Adam Cuerden talk 09:54, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Featured article review of Schabir Shaik trial

Schabir Shaik trial has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. — Black Falcon (Talk) 05:46, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Coat of arms in need of fixing

Please see the talk page of the image of the coat of arms of République de Côte d'Ivoire‎. Who can I ask to fix this error to? Regards. --Damifb 18:33, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

The best place is WP:GL/IMPROVE. I'll set something up there. Adam Cuerden talk 19:47, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I've left a note on the Heraldry and vexillology WikiProject tasks page. Alan 05:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Constitution of Chad

Constitution of Chad has been subjected under peer review. Any hint or opinion would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance,Aldux 21:01, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Featured portal candidate: Portal:Africa

Portal:Africa has been nominated for featured status. Comments and suggestions are welcome at the discussion. Thank you, Black Falcon (Talk) 19:54, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

African Military History Taskforce, WP:MIL

Would the African project like to formally take on the African MHTF as a joint grouping of the African and WPMILHIST projects? Cheers Buckshot06 14:37, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Deletion sorting

Please see my comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Deletion sorting/List control#Inactive Africa-related lists, where I've proposed deleting the inactive country-specific subpages (almost all of them) in favor of listing their occasional afds on the main Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Africa page. Picaroon (t) 20:20, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Project banner and work groups

I think it would be possible to adjust the project banner to create separate categories for each country of Africa, similar to Template:WPMILHIST. Note I said "possible", not "easy". I would want to know whether areas like Ceuta, Madeira Islands, Mayotte, Melilla, Réunion, and Saint Helena should be included as separate work groups or not. Opinions? John Carter 15:00, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

What's a "work group"? Is this wikiproject lingo I'm unfamiliar with? Picaroon (t) 19:30, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry about that. Work group or task force, basically mean the same thing. "Task force" gives the impression of being temporary, so I was thinking in terms of "work group", which is the phrase Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography uses to describe its subprojects, like Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Science and academia work group. So, basically, we could create individual pages for each country, Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/Kenya work group, for instance, where individuals with a particular interest in Kenya could work together, which would also have a assessment statistics table for specifically Kenya-related articles. I would have to adjust the banner, which doesn't look real easy, but should be possible. I hope that makes things a bit clearer.John Carter 19:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
That's what I meant above, would the Africa project like to adopt the WP:MILHIST Africa taskforce as a joint workgroup between the Africa project and the Military History project? Please talk to our coordinators if interested. Buckshot06 21:31, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Scottish English

Wikipedia:WikiProject Scotland wants to use {{User en-sc}} for Scottish English, and I have suggested they follow ISO code to use {{User en-gb-sct}} instead and allow en-sc instead for Seychellois English, per the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 having "sc" Seychelles and ISO 3166-1:GB#BS-only codes having "gb-sct" as Scotland, just like ISO 3166-1:US having "us-ca" for California and {{User en-us-ca}} for California English. Could you please take a look at Wikipedia:User categories for discussion#Scottish English and give your thoughts? Thanks! Taric25 16:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

We are currently working on the Scottish dialect of the English language, however, we have found that Scottish dialect historically precedes its current political boundiries, so we have suggested {{User en-sco}} to match the ISO 639-2 for the Scots language. Could you please take a look at Wikipedia:User categories for discussion#Scottish English categories and give your thoughts? Thanks! Taric25 22:14, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Regionalisation: Madagascar

Why does the {{Countries of East Africa}} template not include Madagascar while {{Countries of Southern Africa}} does? According to the article East Africa, Madagascar is usually considered part of Eastern Africa. Either the templates are inconsistent and perhaps {{Countries of East Africa}} should also be renamed to Eastern or the UN regionalisation should be mentioned later in the article. --Eleassar my talk 09:04, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Ivory Coast: Premier Gaou

Odd place to advertise for a song, but I just started the Premier Gaou article and would be grateful if any Ivorian/Francophone guy who understands the many slang words in the lyrics can help me out, and maybe add more info on the track before it became a hit in France. Thanks for reading! -Onomatopoeia 11:18, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Canary Islands

Should articles related to the Canary Islands be part of this project? --BelovedFreak 07:50, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

After doing some research, and asking at the reference desk, I can see no reason why the Canary Islands should come under this project so I'm going to remove the tag from some Canary Island articles that have been tagged. --BelovedFreak 16:29, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
I approve the removal of the Canary Islands from Project Africa; I never agreed with their inclusion in the first place. Thank you, Belovedfreak. ↔ Dennywuh 12:03, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
I have removed the project tag from all the unassessed Canary Islands articles. There may be others that have already been assessed, we will have to remove them as we come across them. --BelovedFreak 18:29, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Stade Brikama AfD

Greetings. Can I just flag up an AfD for Stade Brikama, a multi-purpose stadium in Gambia. Although the nominee thinks that the article is a 'fake', I wonder whether in fact it is another name for the Independence Stadium (Bakau). Would any of you have such a detailed knowledge of Gambia to be able to confirm this? Cheers! --Malcolmxl5 05:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

A new message from a newspaper: http://allafrica.com/stories/200710221304.html
This makes it not easier. I have start a draft (in german) of a list de:Liste der Stadien in Gambia.
sorry for my bad English --Atamari 18:27, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
    • The fact is: in football matches beetween two nations are only held in Independence Stadium in Bakau. --Atamari 18:33, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Template:Africa topics

Template:Africa topics is a template to aid navigation between general Africa-related topics. I attempted to make it as comprehensive as possible, without being too cluttered; it is modeled after the Category:Africa category tree.

The template is currently transcluded only in the "See also" section of Africa. It obviously does not belong on every Africa-related articles (indeed it does not belong on the absolute majority of them), but I was wondering whether it should be added to the 72 other articles which are currently linked from the template.

Since such a move would affect virtually a significant number of high-importance Africa-related articles, I thought it would be best to first ascertain whether the idea has support. Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 02:38, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I would support the template being added to articles that are linked from the template.--BelovedFreak 11:32, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
 Done It is now transcluded on 69 articles (I removed from the template three articles that seemed too specific). – Black Falcon (Talk) 16:49, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

folklore stuff - Ashanti/Ewe (west Africa), Betsileo (Madagascar) etc.

Various regions of Africa have folkloric tales of beings with vampiric abilities: in West Africa the Ashanti people tell of the asanbosam and the Ewe people the adze, the eastern Cape region has the impundulu and the Betsileo people of Madagascar the ramanga.

I wrote the above on the vampire page which I am working up for FAC. I've made stubs for a couple but my only ref is a secondary source vampire encyclopedia. I thouight it would be good to enrich the pages with some refs from books or sources which cover folklore of the given peoples. Any input much appreciated. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:33, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
I added a reference to the asanbosam article and I created an article for the Obayifo which seems to be another Ashanti creature. I found some references on google books, though only vampire related ones so far, none specifcally to do with African folklore. I will keep looking though.--BelovedFreak 12:14, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Cool. thanks! cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:56, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
From what I can see so far, vampiric creatures in Africa seem to generally be connected to African witchcraft (which could probably do with its own article). So I don't know if you want to work that into the vampire article somehow...--BelovedFreak 14:53, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Any sort of overriding theme mentioned is good to include in a paragraph on the critters simply to see the connections and make it less listy. Well spotted. Don't be afraid to stick a sentence or two in vampire either (it won't bite :) ) cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:22, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Afrocentrism

Please stop by if you have information about how Afrocentrism has played a role in historical research about colonialism and pre-colonial African states. Has Afrocentrism been an important idea in African universities? futurebird 19:46, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Post-Colonial Leaders set nomination for Version 0.7

Hi, I've just made this set nomination for the planned Version 0.7 DVD release. Many of the nominations are African, so I though people here might like to comment here. This is designed to be a list of important leaders from around the world during the period at the end of colonialism and the rise of many independent states. The list includes some apartheid leaders, since they were key players in the transition from British rule to independence with majority rule. Part of the reason for the nomination is to counter the inherent pro-US/UK/etc bias we have. We'd appreciate your opinions! Thanks, Walkerma 06:15, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

FAR

History of Cape Colony from 1806 to 1870 has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Cheers, Spawn Man (talk) 03:09, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Phoenix-wiki, who is much better at this sort of thing than I am, has agreed to work on the Africa project banner to include specific assessments for each country of Africa. He anticipates being done by about this weekend. With luck, I'll have the various work group pages made up for the various countries by that time as well. This is, of course, if you think that would be a good idea. If there are any objections, please indicate them below. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 22:17, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I think that this is a fantastic idea. What about the current country wikiprojects (like WikiProject Nigeria)? Will they be superseded? --BelovedFreak 20:26, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Probably not. They could be proposed for merger, if they were to become inactive, and I think that the banner might even be getting adjusted to provide for the various extant projects that don't yet have assessments as well. But I don't think that any extant projects will necessarily be superceded, although if they were to want to merge in as work groups I don't think anyone will necessarily oppose it. John Carter (talk) 20:30, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Is this working now? How does it work exactly? --BelovedFreak 17:47, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
You'd want to ask User:Phoenix-wiki that directly. As for how it will work, I think the banner will probably have instructions on that page when it is done. Just remember, most of the countries of Africa are going to be included in this banner, so it is probably going to wind up being about as complicated as the Template:WPMILHIST, and I can imagine that it might take a bit longer to finalize. John Carter (talk) 17:50, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Ok, cool - no problem. I thought it was finished and that I was just being stupid not working out how to use it! I will be patient... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Belovedfreak (talk • contribs) 16:27, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

"Medieval Africa"

I've made a post at talk:history of Africa#"Medieval Africa" concerning the periodization of that article. If anyone with any experience of African history could comment this, I would appreciate it.

Peter Isotalo 13:51, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

South Africa at FAR

South Africa has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Victor12 (talk) 01:20, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Mali Empire citations

Hi :) I put in virtually all the references and citations in this article. There's one for virtually every fact. Who do I talk to make sure that this is acknowledged and checked in the criteria (the one listed on the talk page). If there are any spots that need more reference, please holla at me here or on my talk page. I'll get right on it. Thnx in advance.Scott Free 21:09, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Scott. looks like an impressive article. Thanks. One thing, I tried to follow the footnote to the names of the fourteen provinces and couldn't find them. This led me to a webpage with a lot of info on it, but I only found a statement that there were fourteen provinces, not these fourteen names. Perhaps the attribution could be made precise, allowing one checking to verify the info easily. I didn't check any other footnotes. Thanks again for your work. Best Wishes, Gallador 12:04, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
thnx for the compliments and sorry i'm getting back so late. i updated the names of the provinces (with reference) on the page. the previous province names were pulled from a bunch of sources. Everywhere I looked said 14 provinces, but I kept finding different names. Initially I just included the provinces that were listed most often. My new reference gives different names but is more reliable. take care and i hope someone finishes on the footnotes :) Scott Free (talk) 00:19, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
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