Wikipedia talk:Africa-related regional notice board

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December 2004–June 2006

Contents 1 A disagreement at Iringa 2 Scam baiting 3 Standard naming scheme 4 People of African descent 5 Economy of Africa 6 Dispute at Black people 7 Sections moved from main page 7.1 Suggestions 7.2 Africa Award 7.3 Looking for Good articles 7.3.1 Articles to Consider 8 African Collaboration of the month: An impromptu feasibility study 9 Wikimania 2006 10 Expert help requested on Tutsi-related matter 11 Mark Pilgrim (presenter) 12 History of Namibia 13 South African History Wikiproject? (and Jan Smuts) 14 South African towns and cities 15 Controversy over the race of Ethiopians 16 Smithsonian Photo Initiative notice 17 Housekeeping of news and announcements 18 Swahili literature and poetry 19 Swahili stubs 20 Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact 21 Free books 22 DYK 23 Request 24 Support offered 25 pulling images from a PDF 26 New Africa Project 27 WikiProject Africa 28 Edit war at Somali clan articles 29 Fauna/Flora of Africa categories 30 Categorization for African colonial leaders and administrators 31 Delisting "History of South Africa" as a Good Article? 32 IQ by ethnicity 33 Masters theses in bibliographies 34 WikiProject African art 35 Wars involving Africa 36 Help needed vis a vis the terms East Africa and Southern Africa 37 Flag of South Africa FAR 38 peer review 39 Transport 40 WikiProjects related to Africa 41 Notice board is getting long - subpage time? 42 WikiProject Africa created 43 Photos for Chad and Niger presidents 44 Massive copyvio problems with new Sierra Leone articles? 45 Very problematic bot actions

[edit] A disagreement at Iringa

Hi, I don't suppose I could get some external comment on Iringa, concerning the best term to describe the Tanzanian settlement: either as a "city" or "town". I'm English, and I've been by accused of colonial sentimentality for preferring "town" and of trying to assert ownership over the article. Therefore I'd welcome wider comment from the community. — Matt Crypto 20:03, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scam baiting

I ran across the article scam baiting today. For those who don't know, "scam baiting" is the process of stringing along scam artists to try to confuse and humiliate them. The primarly targets are Nigerian 419 scammers. I personally find the scam baiting to be in completely bad taste; on the one hand, these scammers are legitimate criminals, and in that sense, they deserve what they get. However, the scam baiters often take things way too far, asking the scammers to send photographs of themselves holding signs with vulgar sayings on them, taking on the personae of racists or neo-colonialists, even getting the scammers (mostly non-wealthy Africans) to send them money.

At any rate, I've raised serious questions about the verifiability and point of view of the article on scam baiting. However, I fear my personal opinions on the matter may color my judgement. Please drop by and take a look. Right now, the scam baiting apologists seem to have control of the article, so I thought I'd bring it to the attention of this notice board. — BrianSmithson 17:58, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Standard naming scheme

See the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Regional notice boards#A uniform naming scheme. Zocky | picture popups 00:43, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] People of African descent

Please see the discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 July 16#Category:People of African descent. --Ezeu 19:02, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Economy of Africa

Economy of Africa is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality.Sandy 03:24, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dispute at Black people

The article at Black people is degenerating into a farce. Apparently it is not on many people's watchlists. Any input there would be welcome. --Ezeu 01:19, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sections moved from main page

As part of a cleanup, I am trying to move discussions to this talk. Please feel free to revert or partially revert. While some blurbs were moved around within the page, the complete moved sections are:

[edit] Suggestions

I'm new here -- so if this is the wrong comment in the wrong place, please fix/move/delete as you see fit. This would-be contributor feels that the problem starts at the top: the Africa main page seems neglected, eurocentric, overly concerned with racial characteristics, and conveys no sense of what Africa is actually like. I could (gradually) rewrite some of it, but I don't want to tread on anyones toes -- and anyway I am certain that a longterm fix would require a collaborative examination of other significant articles, eg: History of Africa. How does this work? --Mount Pleasant 07:45, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Africa Award

Users may present the Africa Award to anyone doing good work on Africa-related topics. This includes article creation or expansion, map design, image uploading, even redirecting and stub sorting. Users who have listed themselves above are of course eligible, but don't neglect to award users who may not have heard of the regional notice board.

Credit goes to Jcw69 for the beautiful design. Suggestions on a better name are welcome. — BrianSmithson 19:09, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

• NB: Because the award displayed to right is posted on this page, the text "Africa-related regional notice board" appears in bold text. If it is copied and pasted to another page, it will appear as a wikilink.

• • I can't find this award on Wikipedia:Other awards or related pages. Should I add it there? JackyR 14:31, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
    • That's probably a good idea. :) — BrianSmithson 14:43, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
      • Okay it's done --Jcw69 17:27, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
• The Award was moved to the PUA page. Theres is a vetting process that it should go through before it is placed on the other award page. Also, have you seen The Barnstar of National Merit?--evrik 18:45, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Yes, but as Africa is not a nation, it's not applicable. - BanyanTree 18:59, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay how do we put this award up for vetting?--Jcw69 19:07, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

If we remould ourselves into a WikiProject, the Africa Award qualifies for inclusion on Wikipedia:Other awards. What do you guys think about Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa? — mark ✎ 19:32, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• Even the wikiproject awards are supposed to get vetted. I'll go ahead and list it on the proposal page. --evrik 19:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Evrik for listing the award for vetting and what is the pros and cons between a wikiproject and noticeboard --Jcw69 19:48, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Looking for Good articles

Hi folks, I've been on the lookout for articles that meet the criteria at Wikipedia:Good articles, & have noticed that African topics are underrepresented. My intent is not only to start pushing more articles towards Featured article status, but to help identify articles for inclusion in the Wikipedia 1.0 project. Would everyone be interested in creating a list for consideration? -- llywrch 20:17, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Articles to Consider

• mouride
• Julius Nyerere
• Amadou Bamba
• Touba, Senegal
• trans-Saharan trade
• Timbuktu
• Morocco

[edit] African Collaboration of the month: An impromptu feasibility study

Wikipedia:African Collaboration of the Week and Wikipedia:African Collaboration of the Fortnight did not work for lack of participation. Is there anyone interested in reviving collaborations to improve Africa-related articles? Maybe we can collaborate to improve semi-good articles into good articles or maybe even into featured articles. Perhaps a "Collaboration of the Month" is more feasible? Whaddaya reckon? --Ezeu 18:34, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm willing to give it a try. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 20:22, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

It's worth seeing how it goes. It's probably best to pick fairly broad topics so that the widest possible range of people have an interest in editing them. --Cherry blossom tree 18:32, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Africa is the current Article Improvement Drive article. It is now 57 kb. Maurreen 16:17, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

C mon, show a little enthusiasm.--Ezeu 22:40, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, lets give it a go. Wikipedia:African Collaboration of the Month.--Ezeu 02:22, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I started in on Nelson Mandela's early life; see talk page. Ngwe 07:53, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikimania 2006

raise your hand if attending! (im semi-prepared to be disappointed by the response here)--gozar 16:11, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Expert help requested on Tutsi-related matter

Could someone knowledgable about the Tutsis take a look at African Jew#Tutsis of Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi? I've explained my doubts on the corresponding talk page. - Jmabel | Talk 22:57, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the section and offered an explanation on the talk there. - BT 19:35, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mark Pilgrim (presenter)

Is Mark Pilgrim (presenter) notable? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 11:17, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I remember him being on 5FM (radio station) and I've seen him on billboards. According to [1] he was the host of the "Big Brother" reality TV show, and while I don't have a TV, I don't remember that show entering the zeitgeist the way Survivor did. From WP:BIO he may qualify under "Widely recognized entertainment personalities" (he's bald) but that would only be in South Africa, and at the moment he fails the 100 year test. -- Jeandré, 2006-08-20t19:14z

Hey!!! I'm also bald --Jcw69 06:18, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History of Namibia

The quality of the article History of Namibia, while not too bad, is IMO far inferior to the French version of the article fr:Histoire de la Namibie, which has just been brought to featured status. I was hoping somebody could translate parts of the French article, so to expand and better the English one; my knowledge of French is not good enough for translating it myself.--Aldux 23:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] South African History Wikiproject? (and Jan Smuts)

Anybody interested in South African history? I'm thinking about starting a WikiProject dedicated to expanding and improving the current coverage of the history of South Africa. If you think you would be interested then leave me a note; if there's clear interest then I'll start one off. I didn't get much response the last time I proposed this, but I thought I'd give it one last try before forgetting about it.

Oh, and while I'm here, the article Jan Smuts's youth (dealing with, it will surprise you to learn, the youth of Jan Smuts) is up for Peer Review at the moment. If anyone has any comments/suggestions/criticism then feel free to contribute.

Xdamr^talk 00:30, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] South African towns and cities

The general guideline for disambiguating town/city/village names on the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (settlements) project page says "Comma Country" for Africa, but Category:Towns in South Africa is a mish-mash between "Comma South Africa" and "Comma Province". For instance, there's Douglas, Northern Cape, and Aberdeen, South Africa, and -- this is important -- no Douglas, South Africa, or Aberdeen, Eastern Cape to pick up redirects or guard against the creation of duplicate articles. Does anyone have any arguments against standardising on Comma Province (only when disambiguation is needed) and amending the project page accordingly? I tried to bring the matter up on talk there, but (my bad timing) it got swamped in an all-out war over the U.S. convention. Bolivian Unicyclist 15:51, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I wrote the convention for Africa and tried to get some feedback on South Africa at the time, but none was forthcoming. I've got no objection to introducing an exception for South Africa. Warofdreams talk 21:26, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply: I went and looked up previous comments on the archive here. I'll set about it next time I have a quiet moment, provided no one objects between now and then. Bolivian Unicyclist 00:16, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Done. There were two I couldn't fix myself w/o admin superpowers:

1. George, South Africa to George, Western Cape
2. Upington, Northern Cape to Upington (currently a redirect)

Bolivian Unicyclist 17:20, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Controversy over the race of Ethiopians

Is there are a controversy over the race of Ethiopians? Does anyone know if there is such a controversy. It seems to me that the article is based on original research. Any insights before it is taken to AfD? --Ezeu 06:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

There does exist such a controversy among racialist groups. A similar debate was used in propaganda during colonization of Africa to divide or have some reasons for the change in power between tribes or ethnic groups. --moyogo 08:33, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

What??? There exists no such controversy (or debate). Surprisingly it's not by Cluckbang, a (well-intentioned) editor who thinks Ethiopians are the descendents of Sabaeans. I'm going to nominate this page for deletion. Look for Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Controversy over the race of Ethiopians for comment. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 09:43, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Smithsonian Photo Initiative notice

BT in a notice about the Smithsonian Photography Initiative suggests that "a selection of African photos from the turn of the last century" is "presumably now public domain."

That presumption is erroneous. It does appear that the Photography Initiative images are made available under a relatively generous fair-use policy, compared to materials in some other Smithsonian collections with which I've worked in the past. However, the site asserts copyright over its own images, says other parties may hold copyright in others, and explicitly states that it offers no warrant as to conditions of use of images in which others hold copyright.

The Smithsonian Institute's museums and collections are not public institutions in the same sense as the National Archives or the Library of Congress. I am not sure of their exact legal status but they are some variety of what in South Africa would be called a parastatal entity -- in this country analogy might be to Amtrak or the The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which advertises itself as "a private corporation funded by the American people."

And of course even with LOC only some material is in public domain, while in other cases the LOC acts a custodian for material still owned by others, with varying degrees of access.

For extensive details on copyright issues in the P.I., see Photography Initiative Copyright Terms and Conditions. I think the most important parts are their definition of "fair use" and what they say about not all images being theirs.

Probably there is much material that could be used under fair use, but the status of images will need to be investigated. And clearly this material is asserted to be not public domain . It thus appears to fall into the usable but less preferred than clear public domain status enunciated in Wikipedia's copyright policy.

Ngwe 04:22, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I had not realized how complicated the copyright status was and have removed my post. Thanks for the clarification, Ngwe, and I'm sorry it took me so long to spot it. - BT 16:31, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

We could always contact the Smithsonian about these images on a case-by-case basis. If you do see a particular image of interest, go ahead and email the Smithsonian about it. That's how I obtained the image in the Stroh violin article. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 22:24, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Housekeeping of news and announcements

Just to let people know how I decide when and how to clean out/move posts in News and announcements: I'm using the noticeboard list template as a measure - figuring that a couple posts past its bottom end is as good an arbitrary limit as any. Anything less and that template runs into the to-do box, causing formatting problems. Most posts (announcements of new articles or WikiProjects, requests for assistance, etc) are applicable only for a short period. If those make it end, they are simply removed. Those posts that are still useful after the six-months, or however long it takes to reach the end of the list, are moved to the General suggestions section as probably worth keeping semi-permanently and reworded to make general. I hesitated to remove sigs from those bits but figured a concise summary of the message was better than simply moving them. People, especially Matt if he doesn't want to be a general suggestion, obviously can simply remove a post that they believe isn't "general" and long-term. - BT 15:38, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Swahili literature and poetry

I just discovered that we have practically nothing on Swahili literature and poetry. Babbage alerted me to his creation of Utendi wa Tambuka, one of the earliest known literary works in Swahili (1728), and upon expanding it a little I noticed that we didn't even have categories like Category:Swahili poetry and Category:Swahili literature (I have since created the first). Is there anyone else who feels like creating at least some stubs on Swahili literature? As a small start, I wrote utenzi. Asante sana! — mark ✎ 12:35, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I've just started a stub of Swahili literature. The category was subsequently created. -- Szvest 22:46, 26 September 2006 (UTC) ^{Wiki me up ®}

[edit] Swahili stubs

I've just created {{Swahili-stub}} template. Please comment about it here. -- Szvest 23:33, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact

A lenghty section about Pre-Columbian African contact w/ the Americas has been added to Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact article recently. We are discussing there an option of a split article but we are wondering about an appropriate title. I've thought about Pre-Columbian contacts between Africa and the Americas. Any suggestions? -- Szvest 00:19, 1 October 2006 (UTC) ^{Wiki me up ®}

I would suggest Speculative or Possible to modify the title you suggest. The evidence is very weak and ambiguous and not accepted by the vast majority of scholars of either Africa or Meso-America, though proponents argue that this reflects anti-black bias in mainstream scholarship. But really much of what is included in the article is not supported by the evidence; the account of the fleet sent by Mansa Musa of Mali is mostly invented for instance -- sources make very brief mention of his having sent out some sort of fleet, but not the specificity of numbers reflected in the article and certainly nothing about a return by the fleet or prolonged or repeated contact. The subject forms part of the larger debates over self-described Afrocentricity. Like other forms of Afrocentricity, the "before Columbus" claim seeks to recuperate African standing according essentially 19th and early 20th century European standards of "civilization" and theories of social evolution. A really African-centered point of view would inquire about the standards of African cultures according to their own lights as to what is good and valuable in life and the organization of society -- are Igbo societies that organized extensive cooperation and trade without the benefit of a centralized state, monumental architecture or steep gradients of social inequality necessarily "less civilized" than state-centered societies based on extensive warfare and social exploitation? The trans-Atlantic argument also has unintended consequences (at least so I presume), e.g. the claims that Africans were the progenitors of Olmec and other Mesoamerican cultures / civilizations, in aiming to claim agency for Africans, paradoxically denies it to Native Americans. Ngwe 05:53, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, the article African exploration of the Americas now exists (though I prefer Szvest's title), and it makes no mention of the controversy Chris has outlined. Good luck to anyone who wants to clean it up. -- BrianSmithson 01:28, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Free books

Today I bought a couple of books out of the series "The Ethnographic Survey of Africa". Parts VII and XIII to be precise, on "The Central Nilo-Hamites" (by P. and P. H. Gulliver) and "The Western Lacustrine Bantu" (by B. Taylor). Both books have a substantial amount of information, including tables, maps etc. If any editor would like me to post them, or would like to know some information out of them, I would be more than happy to oblige — feel free to leave a note on my talk page or email me. They were very cheap, and I don't have the time to study them properly. - Francis Tyers · 17:16, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I think "The Ethnographic Survey of Africa" was conducted by the International African Institute, a private organization, and as such the volumes probably still are under copyright. The ethnographies in the series are indeed valuable, but also need to be treated critically, as they are now half a century or more old. In the examples at hand, the category of "Hamite" -- like "Semite" reflecting old biblically-derived racial schemata referring to the sons of Noah -- came under strong criticism in the 1960s (i.e. perhaps a decade to 15 years after the Gullivers' book) as reflecting an underlying implicit racism because rooted historically in theories that tried to attribute the achievements of Sudanic peoples and states to infusions of "white blood". Please note that I am not necessarily attributing such overt motives to the Gullivers, the term was fairly conventional among European & Euro-diaspora ethnographers & historians at the time. But it is not today. The category "Nilo-Hamite" would be rejected almost universally by historians, ethnographers and linguists. Ngwe 06:05, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I certainly agree. We must always take into account the era of publication, and also the people who are doing the publishing. The volumes were published by The International African Institute, as you correctly state, and yes the volumes are still under copyright. Nevertheless, the information is interesting (even if solely from a historiographical point of view). - Francis Tyers · 07:39, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I think these kinds of books are invaluable for compiling the early colonial history of Africa, and indeed in trying to guess what things were like before. Just because a book is modern, it doesn't necessarily make it more accurate. Personally I'm looking forward to the chance to hole myself up in the Bodleian library when I next go to the UK as there are numerous books written by explorers and missionaries in German and Belgian Rwanda, which I think could benefit the Wikipedia articles considerably. — SteveRwanda 08:29, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DYK

The DYK section featured on the main page is always looking for interesting new and recently expanded stubs from different parts of the world. Please make a suggestion.--Peta 01:57, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Do people think that there's enough interest to maintain a "New pages" section on the board for people to add their new articles, templates, etc? It might give the new articles some more attention and cause a few more suggestions to flow to DYK. - BanyanTree 15:09, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

If you do feel that's worth doing, you might like to look at Wikipedia: New articles (New Zealand), which WP:NZ has been using to do something similar for over a year now. We miss quite a large number of new items, of course, but it does give us some idea of what's new. A similar page for Africa would be a reasonable way of trying to keep track. Grutness...wha? 06:19, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip, Grutness. I started Wikipedia:Africa-related regional notice board/New articles (shortcut is WP:NAFR) by going through my contribs for the past month. I encourage others to do the same. Hopefully, it'll help address some of the issues above, and well as showing how cool we all are. ;) - BanyanTree 14:58, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

BTW, I never realized how unproductive an editor I am...  :( - BanyanTree 15:00, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request

In the military history project we are lacking information on African military history and presence. If some of you are able and interested to help us contribute to this topic, we would gladly try to support you. But with our meagre background on African history and society, such a taskforce has been out of reach for us. Greetings Wandalstouring 15:06, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Since this is a subject close to me, I guess I'll respond. I hope Wandalstouring will forgive me for following him back to another conversation he was having about getting users in unrepresented topics who might, for example, write about "Bantu military theory and tactics development".

The issue for me, and someone on this board can probably correct me, is that I don't think any such thing exists. If it does, I think it is essentially irrelevant because doctrine, force structure and all those things that military historians obsess over play a role in a tiny minority of modern African conflicts. The substantially mixed-force conventional conflicts I can think of, where two armies line up with armor and artillery and have a go, off the top of my head are the Ogaden War, the Eritrean-Ethiopian War and the various ones where Israel beats up on Egypt. One could make an argument about parts of the Second Sudanese Civil War, but I'm iffy about it. South Africa certainly has a substantial conventional military, but I don't recall if it's actually used it against anyone. (Anyone know if Elf-friend will be returning?) Going back a bit, Darfur and Ouaddai had rough parity and had some nasty wars, but we barely have articles on the places, nevertheless the wars between them.

The modern African conflicts I've seen are mainly examples of asymmetric warfare, in which the result tends to depend on external backers and local terrain, and where the really interesting questions are the "why"s of the conflict. Sure, one could write an article about the First and Second Battles of Kisangani between Uganda and Rwanda, but it's basically a nasty scramble for who can loot the most, with no real national stakes for either of them and no change for Kinshasa. Similarly, the Sudan Liberation Movement isn't advertising its force structure.

I guess what I'm rambling on about is that I don't see how what I see as the MILHIST focus on figuring out the orders of battle, comparative military technology and military doctrine fits with the conflicts I write about. I'm still unsure that box at Second Congo War that insists that users fit the combatants into two sides does more good than harm, which is coincidentally the same feeling I get at Thirty Years' War, as they echo each other IMHO. No one would argue that armed conflict isn't vital in understanding Africa, but I'm not sure how you approach it in a coherent manner. Anyone else on the board have a thought on this? - BanyanTree 23:16, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I heard about Zulus using some kind of tactic for their battles, surrounding the enemy and beating him finally with their reserves that were waiting with their backs turned towards the battle. I think it was in this time life series of world history somewhere. In the crossbow article we have a source on the West African crossbow and it hints a possible use in warfare. In the battle of Tondibi for example an initial attack with cattle is mentioned, something not unknown in Subsaharan warfare. Futhermore the Nama and Boer commandos could be credited for introducing new elements to the European warfare of their time, etc. Going back to the Roman empire, they did have a war with their Nubian neighbours and finally achieved peace by retreating to their old border. Nubian archers seem quite frequent among mercenaries and I can hardly believe corps of archers employed in the Mediterranean for thousands of years did not grasp some tactics. Perhaps one could start with modern times and some examples of mercenary forces(Executive outcome)/military advisors(North Korea) in these conflicts and their influence. Wandalstouring 18:34, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

In case you need some changes to the standard procedure in military history, no problem. While we can possibly not give exact numbers for the combatants, we can perhaps tell a bit about arms and background. The Minicon (warplane) of Biafra come to my mind. Furthermore we could make some notes on how some of these forces work (for example Lord's Resistance Army). Be creative, there is no strict convention that can't be altered. Wandalstouring 18:49, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

You make some good points that I'll keep in mind. It's certainly worth keeping in mind if there's a relevant FA push originating in AFR. If milhist, lets us or a relevant WikiProject know when it's working on an Africa topic, you might pull in some knowledgeable editors that it wouldn't otherwise. Certainly none of the articles on my watchlist appear to have had identifiable milhist involvement, but there's a fruitful discussion at Talk:Battle of Adowa between the Ethiopia WikiProject members and some milhist folks. I'll give it some thought, and if anyone actually has sources on the LRA that I don't, it'd be much appreciated. - BanyanTree 20:17, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if this would help or not, but a good article on Zulu tactics might be at impi. For modern tactics, maybe try Technical (fighting vehicle). 71.253.130.106 20:32, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

It's nice to find out there exists material on Africa, with a task force within military history it would be easier to know people establishing these articles and access them in cases we need help on such articles or cooperation. It would also benefit to start a systematic coverage of the topic. Wandalstouring 21:07, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

The term "technical" seems Africa's contribution to recent military technology and do not forget soldiers in gumboots/wellington boots or attaching extra magazines via adhesive tape to the weapon's magazine. Wandalstouring 21:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Support offered

Good day, I am the trade liaison officer of the Namibian Tourism Board and have multiple resources to my disposal to assist and support this page, however I am absalutely new to this concept and need help, I also whish to have our website linked to this page as to assist possible travellers surfing the Wiki with traveling info [www.namibiatourism.com.na] please assist anyone...?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 196.44.141.155 (talk • contribs) 12:08, November 9, 2006 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for your offer! Your page is linked from Wikipedia under the section "External links" in the Namibia article.

Wikipedia isnt that complicated. The basic idea is that anyone can edit the articles, so if there is a certain field your interested in, and has knowlede in, you simply press the "edit" button and write. Important to remember is that all your write will be licensed so that anyone can rewrite and redistribute it - no copyrighted material is allowed. An other good thing to remember is to always cite your sources.

A good thing if to create an user account. Its not necesary, but its practical. Simply click the Sign in/Create account on the top right of any page, and fill in the information.

Then its just to start editing. Pages you might be interesting in are Namibia, Tourism in Namibia, Geography of Namibia, List of national parks of Namibia or just anything your interested in. Red links indicate that the page dosent exist yet. Simply click on the link to create it.

If youre not interested in editing articles yourself your always welcome to give tips on good sources (books, webpages e.t.c.) to use, or read and make comments on existing articles on their talk pages (discussion). Photos to use are also appreciated (but again, they may not be copyrighted).

Hope you will like this site. If you got any questions, feel free to ask!

--Screensaver 12:41, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] pulling images from a PDF

I recently found this report by a US congressional delegation to Darfur. It has a bunch of photos (PD as the work of federal employees on an official mission) but, after going through all the programs on my computer, I can't find a way to copy an image from a PDF and turn it into a JPEG. Anyone have any ideas on how to do this on a mac? There are a number of other reports here with photo-filled reports on Algeria, CAR, Ethiopia, etc if other people want to have a go. - BanyanTree 15:15, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Adobe Acrobat Professional has the option to export all images from a PDF. A zip archive of all 18 images in the first PDF can be found here [link removed] — mark ✎ 15:25, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I feel silly for spending an hour trying to paste images into Paint. Thanks very much Mark! I have uploaded all the images to commons and they can be accessed via commons:Category:Darfur conflict. I may feel up to doing another report later, but I'll procrastinate for now. Thanks again, BanyanTree 16:44, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Africa Project

There is a new WikiProject proposed to deal with the continent of Africa in its entirety at User:XYZ CrVo/WikiProject Africa. I know the scope of the project is enormous, but it could easily be broken into subprojects as time goes on and interest is demonstrated, and will not really try to duplicate the work of existing projects. Anyone interested in joining the project could indicate such at Wikipedia:WikiProject/List of proposed projects#Africa or at User:XYZ CrVo/WikiProject Africa. Thank you for your attention. The creator of the project is a comparatively new wikipedian, so I think he would welcome all the help he can get. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 23:10, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

One of the primary things I believe this project will try to do, and certainly the thing I personally intend to focus most of my project-related effort in, is determining just where the various articles related to Africa stand right now. Assessment makes it much easier to see which articles are at which level of quality, and to determine which are the most important articles related to a given subject. Once assessment is far enough along to have tagged a large number of articles, it will be a lot easier to help know which areas need most attention. An example of this would be the comparatively new WikiProject Germany. I believe the project is only about a month old, and already a proposed separate project related to Munich is listed as a proposal, and an old inactive project relating to Prussia is being reinvigorated. I imagine similar developments could be expected here. In fact, I don't think anyone would object is the proposed Africa project were to create "task forces" (like WikiProject Military history, WikiProject Biography, and some others) to deal with specific regions of Africa or specific nations of Africa. Personally, I think such developments are likely and would certainly be encouraged by the new project. Lastly, of course, there is a bit more of an active feel to something calling itself a "project" rather than a "notice board", and it may both get a few more editors involved and other editors more actively involved than the notice board itself. I can't know that, of course, but that has been my own experience with the Germany project. Badbilltucker 14:10, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Africa

I am attempting to start WikiProject Africa. Anyone who would like to join please go to User:XYZ CrVo/WikiProject Africa and Wikipedia:WikiProject/List of proposed projects and add your name. XYZ CrVo 23:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit war at Somali clan articles

Saleebaan, Sacad, Hawiye, and Habar Gedir all seem to be the subject of an edit war involving several editors: 134.58.253.130 (talk • contribs), whom I suspect also edits as SaleemaalQuule (talk • contribs); 172.142.246.97 (talk • contribs) (AOL address, but not on the AOL proxy list); Sacadsaciid (talk • contribs); and to a lesser extent Turdho (talk • contribs). I left some warnings regarding 3RR policy and things got quiet, but only for a few hours.

In general, articles within Category:Somali clans suffer from a lack of verifiability, particularly assertions regarding a clan's prevalence/dominance in a geographic area, or relative size. Many also include long, cumbersome lists of clan members and sub-clans. Such data is frequently inserted (usually without references) or deleted, but there really seems to be a big dust-up over these articles during the past couple of days. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 11:04, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fauna/Flora of Africa categories

Hey everyone,

There has recently been a change to the WP:TOL guidelines to aid the clean-up of the biota of ... categories. It states the following:

"Categories related to the flora and fauna of a region should should be based on the common grouping of that region used by zoological, botanical, mycological etc. publications. For example, if it is common to seperate a region based on political boundries (as in parts of Europe), categories should be seperated by countries. If it is common to seperate regions based on geographic features (such as New Guinea), categories should be seperated by geographic region."

As this notice board probably has the most people knowledgable about Africa, I was wondering if we could reach concensus as to how we should seperate the continent for fauna/flora. Basically, there are two options (though if someone can think of another, please add it). The first would be to seperate Africa by political boundaries. This has some advantages, such as allowing people who are familiar with the countries to easily find the region they are looking for so they can find the animal/plant easily. It has a large disadvantage in Africa, however, where there are a huge number of countries with very similar flora and fauna. This means that some articles have hundreds of categories. The alternative is to seperate the continent by geographic/climatic regions, such as the Sahara, southern Africa, etc. This has the advantage of not having empty categories, as it is easier to fill them, and is better for people unfamiliar with country names.

According to the wording of the new guideline, the decision should be based on how the flora and fauna of a region are normally split by publications. So does anyone know from experience, what the identification books etc. use to seperate Africa. Is it geographical or political. Whatever direction we choose to take, I will create a map similar to Category:Fauna by continent to aid navigation. Thanks. --liquidGhoul 09:27, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Categorization for African colonial leaders and administrators

I was trying to clean up Category:Cameroonian people today, and I came across some problem individuals. How should people like Hans Dominik (a German military leader who served in colonial Cameroon) and Jesko von Puttkamer (nine-time governor of German Cameroon) be categorized? They obviously qualify for various Germany-related categories, but where should they go on the Cameroon section of the category tree? Right now, they're just hanging out at Category:Cameroonian people. How have you editors who work with other African countries handled similar situations? However these individuals end up being categorized, I'd like it to be consistent with what had been done before. Thanks, — BrianSmithson 09:29, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Delisting "History of South Africa" as a Good Article?

Just now I have put reasons why I think the "History of South Africa" article should be delisted as "Good" on the talk:History of South Africa page. I do not understand yet how to do some of the technical stuff listed under Wikipedia:Good articles/Review, especially moving maintenance templates. Also it seems that raising the issues on the talk page first is good process. The problems in my view are profound and structural and not susceptible to any kind of quick fix by minor or even medium-major surgery; it needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Having said this, I suppose it is incumbent on me to do something about it. However I won't have time for about two weeks. At that point I'd like to proceed in a way that avoids reversion wars if possible (probably not, but hope springs eternal), probably by creating a version of a reconstruction for discussion prior to substituting it. I would like advice as to whether that is a good idea and if so how I can make a space to work on it. Or should I just do a wholesale change? How are such actions looked upon in Wikipedia culture & etiquette?

The talk page for the article indicates that up to now POV discussions have essentially been over anti- or pro-Afrikaner POV. The essence of my critique is that the article has a giant lack of breadth problem in failing to address the history of Africans and other black people in South Africa adequately, and a gross overemphasis on white politics and wars, which together produce illogical structure, factual problems, and a huge POV bias of an entirely different sort. There seems to be some probability that these arguments will create a megillah with at least some of those involved in previous edits. I'd appreciate it if other folks who think that South African history is and should be African history would take a look and see if you think I'm right or off-base.

Chris Lowe 06:34, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IQ by ethnicity

User:Prof101 keeps adding sections to Igbo people about how the Igbo (along with the Germans and Japanese) are one of the top three ethnicities by IQ on the planet. I've removed the information twice and have asked him to cite his sources per WP:RS, but I fear the information will continue to be added. Please keep an eye on the page, and if anyone can refute the nonsese (which it is), please do so. — BrianSmithson 11:57, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Masters theses in bibliographies

I'm currently in disagreement with a user who has added an MA thesis at Bibliography of the Darfur conflict. I reverted the original introduction; the latest talk post directed at me has the advice "never expect freindliness from others when you go on simply and easily undermining and deleting their contributions, and thus, directly ignoring their efforts and frustrating them, especially when you do this for absolutely no good reason". An outside opinion who is not already involved in the page would be appreciated. - BanyanTree 12:49, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject African art

I've proposed a new WikiProject on African art; the temporary page in my userspace is at User:AlbertHerring/WikiProject African art. I'm doing what I can, but there's a lot of work left to be done. Besides which, I don't know anything about African tribal art, so I'm limited mainly to articles about more contemporary artists. --User:AlbertHerring ^{Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla!} 19:48, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

You may also want to put the proposal on Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals to attract more folk. - BanyanTree 19:56, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wars involving Africa

Excuse me for seemingly climbing the Reichstag (I deny ever setting foot in Berlin), but I beg for some input at this CFD, vis-à-vis the renaming of Category:Wars involving Africa to Category:Wars in Africa --Ezeu 02:57, 31 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Help needed vis a vis the terms East Africa and Southern Africa

In the articles East Africa and Southern Africa, the colonial construct named Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (aka Central African Federation) is being used to define the regions currently known as East Africa and Southern Africa. This despite that the "federation" has been defunct for over 40 years, and is rather irrelevant when defining East and Southern Africa as is known today. Visit those articles and have your say, please. --Ezeu 02:05, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

In response, the Central African Federation is not being used to define countries in these regions but is a notable example which demonstrates, depending on source/perspective, that countries may be considered to be in any number of regions of Africa. For example: Zimbabwe (previously Rhodesia), a prior member of this "federation", is variably included in Southern Africa or East(ern) Africa. Thus, it is both notable and relevant. I find it useful, and I'm unsure a case can be made to remove germane information that has been in place for quite some time. And, in actuality, these regional articles appear to be built around the UN scheme for geographic regions. Corticopia 10:00, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Flag of South Africa FAR

Flag of 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. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:12, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] peer review

I wandered by Wikipedia:Peer review for the first time in many moons and noticed that topic-specific reviews have been implemented under the auspices of various WikiProjects. The way it works is that relevant PR subpages are just transcluded to all the relevant topics. This seems just about decentralized enough that the board could host it. Anybody else willing to give some time to looking over the occasional Africa article? - BanyanTree 16:47, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Sure :) - Francis Tyers · 17:01, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

In the event that an Africa related article is peer reviewed, where do you propose the page is transcluded? Or are links good enough, with no transclusion needed? Picaroon 17:58, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I just went a little silly and created an entire structure for peer review. The subpage is Wikipedia:Africa-related regional notice board/Peer review (shortcut WP:AFRPR). I've informed Martinp23 so his bot will automatically transclude to the main WP:PR page. I also added peer-review and old-peer-review parameters to {{Africa noticeboard}}, with corresponding categories at Category:Requests for Africa peer review and Category:Old requests for Africa peer review.

Based on past experience, I don't imagine that this will be an incredibly active subpage, but I figured that I'd get all of the administrative details done now so nobody has to work through a backlog at some point in the future. Please watchlist the peer review subpage. I imagine that editors seeking peer review are also free to add a relevant bullet in Portal:Africa/Things you can do with a link to the subpage.

Thanks to MILHIST for being the victim of my wording and coding theft. - BanyanTree 18:58, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Good work! This should come in quite handy. — BrianSmithson 22:55, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Great. I once was quite active over at WP:PR, but due to the sheer amount of requests posted there it has become somewhat difficult to separate chaff from wheat. I'll certainly watchlist this page and see if I can help out now and then. — mark ✎ 08:53, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

-- Szvest - ^{Wiki me up ®} 10:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely fantastic! I've often felt that there was need of a peer-review area for African topics, it great to see it's there now. I may start exploiting it in a pretty close future... ;-)--Aldux 17:09, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Why not start experimenting the new toy by presenting Chad? ;) -- Szvest - ^{Wiki me up ®} 17:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Chad needs some basic work before it can be presented for a peer-review; instead, I'm thinking of presenting Chadian-Libyan conflict, that I've almost finished, but has serious problems of length.--Aldux 18:02, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, It's there! The first peer review request directly from the board! I've selected a medium-size article (Toyota War), that I may try to propose as a GA. Any peer-reviwers around? :-)--Aldux 21:54, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Transport

Hello fellas! I have nominated rest of not yet renamed "Transport in Africa" categories at WP:CFD. Feel free to comment or vote. - Darwinek 11:28, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProjects related to Africa

Hi guys. Could you please have a look at these proposals?

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Africa
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#African art
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Eastern Africa
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Middle Africa
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Southern Africa
• Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#Western Africa
• Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#Algeria
• Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#Tunisia. Cheers. -- Szvest - ^{Wiki me up ®} 18:50, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notice board is getting long - subpage time?

The noticeboard is getting pretty long. Would anyone object if I split Wikipedia:Africa-related regional notice board#Wikipedians actively working on Africa-related topics off into a /Participants subpage? Picaroon 19:26, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I would prefer the stub section to be split off. I find the subsections in the TOC maddening. - BanyanTree 19:31, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I added those in my recent updating so as to give the section edit links - is there anyway to make them not show up in the TOC but keep the section edit links? But anyways, I typed the above before I expanded the stub section (but saved it later), so I guess its as good a candidate for splitting off as the participants section is. /Stubs instead, then? Picaroon 19:47, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I believe that one can inhibit with NOTOC and then build a customized TOC using the built-in identifiers of the section headers, but that's way beyond my technical abilities. As for my TOC obsession, I believe a TOC structure should reflect relative importance, and the current TOC tells me that half of the good of the board is in stub compilation. - BanyanTree 20:20, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Alright, I've split off the stubs section and replaced it with transclusion. Noinclude/Includeonly hocus-pocus ensures that section headers don't appear. Picaroon 22:47, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

That's a nice sleight of hand with the headers. I've created Category:Africa notice board as our subpage cup runneth over. However, wasn't the original intention to reduce the length of the page? - BanyanTree 01:42, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I was going to wait for more people to give their input on whether they'd like it linked or transcluded - this talkpage is so quiet. I just started the process to make editing easier to handle by reducing edit window size. If no one objects in another day or so, I'll switch it to a link. Picaroon 01:54, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Africa created

I've created a WikiProject Africa that has most everything it needs except members. If you're interested, please join. — Emiellaiendiay 23:34, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Since it is done, we should probably be thinking of which pages, such as the peer review and template list, should be transferred, as well as what end state we want for the board. Since the proposed continent and region projects at the Council subpage have not had their relationships thought out, as far as I can tell, maybe people can add their input. - BanyanTree 01:41, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

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)

Personally, I'm against transferring sections from the board to the project. It must be observed that the board has a far longer history, and much more members, so I'd prefer to keep the new peer review section here, as also the new articles.--Aldux 22:16, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, but didn't you just give a reason for transferring the peer review? It's less than three months old, and I'd hazard a guess that 90% of the people in that list down there don't know it exists. I think we should move the peer review it and the stub messages subpages over the the project, and scale this page back to, well, a noticeboard. Picaroon 00:35, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I've probably been as forceful as anyone in arguing against the creation of a WikiProject Africa, and I still do not see how a COTW/M can be supported. That said, the project appears to have attracted the taggers and evaluators, which is no small resource. I had envisioned the board having the functions that don't require large amounts of knowledge in common, while avoiding the pitfalls of forcing a group of people who don't have well-meshing knowledge bases to form highly organized task groups. I haven't changed my opinion but it would be silly to maintain WikiProject-esque pages here. This is simply counter-intuitive for editors not familiar with the CSB to board history. I don't know what that leaves the board, and I'm not sure it leaves it with anything but knitting circle duties, but I feel uncomfortable giving the project anything less than the best chance possible for success in improving Africa articles. I !vote for moving all subpages as well as, depending on how people feel, the award. - BanyanTree 06:32, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I must admit I've had perplexities pretty strong regarding the creation of WP:AFRICA; but its started, and as BT noted, we should give the new project the best possibilities. So I too agree, lets move the subpages.--Aldux 18:57, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Photos for Chad and Niger presidents

The number of images available for Chad and Niger-related articles. In particular, we should at least attempt to provide a photo for the Chadian and Nigerien presidents, that is François Tombalbaye (1960-75), Felix Malloum (1975-79), Goukouni Oueddei (1979-82) for Chad and Hamani Diori (1960-74), Ali Saibou (1987-93) and Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara (1996-99). Of these, Tombalbaye, Goukouni and Diori would be especially appreciated. Please help!--Aldux 23:34, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Massive copyvio problems with new Sierra Leone articles?

I don't have much experience in dealing with copyvio, but I've observed that Sittaconde (talk • contribs), probably in good faith, has committed an elevated number of copyvios, completely copying several article from the biogs in http://www.trial-ch.org/en/trial-watch.html, which have a clear copyright mark at the end of the page. Similar copyright problems (and possibly also WP:RS) come from the use of the book Sierra Leonean Heroes - Fifty Great Men and Women Who Helped to Build Our Nation. The same book is used heavily by Wikiaddict8962 (talk • contribs), maybe, but I'm not sure, to the point of copyvio. Somebody who has a major expewrience in dealing with copyright problems, please look in the topic.--Aldux 12:24, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I've left a note on the first user's talk page. The standard response is to speedy delete them using {{db-copyvio}} - they are unambiguous. I'll go through and do that. The affected articles (that I spotted - there may be some I missed) are these, if anyone wants to rewrite them - we probably should have articles on most of the subjects.

• Eustace Taylor-Cummings
• Brima Bazzy Kamara
• Santigie Borbor Kanu
• Morris Kallon
• Augustine Gbao
• Alex Tamba Brima

I've also had a flick through some of the second user's contributions. Some articles (such as Bai Bureh) are heavily based on the Heroes book but are probably just about safe from copyvios. --Cherry blossom tree 13:24, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Very problematic bot actions

Wikipedia:Africa-related regional notice board/New articles is being filled w/ many unrelated Africa-related topics. I strongly oppose the bot automatic additions and would like to stop it and do the work manually as we'd done before. I've already contacted the bot operator (User:Alex Bakharev) but i received no reply from him yet. Could someone please have a word w/ him? Thanks. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up ®} 17:12, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm a fan of the bot list. The manual lists missed most newly-created Africa-related articles. The bot's list should be a useful list of articles which are likely to be related to Africa, and may be of interest to contributors to this noticeboard. If it's throwing up unrelated articles, it sounds like its parameters need editing. If you have some examples, that shouldn't be difficult to do. Even if it were decided not to transclude the bot list (and it seems to have lots of support on the talk page), there is absolutely no need to stop the bot operating. Warofdreams talk 01:29, 28 March 2007 (UTC)