Talk:Africa
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Length
The page is now 57 kb, and I think it should be about half that. Should we move the table or shorten something else? Maurreen 06:22, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
- I think we should systematically make sure that each section with a referral to a daughter article is no longer than two paragraphs. -Fsotrain09 14:48, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
- I've cut down the Geography section using this rule, but the history section is way too big! --Thelb4 18:42, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
- Being bold, I've cut out all the subsections to the History section, and the page is 8 kilobytes smaller! --Thelb4 18:47, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
- It's now at 44 kb. Any other section merges, and/or trimming to daughter articles? -Fsotrain09 18:54, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
- Being bold, I've cut out all the subsections to the History section, and the page is 8 kilobytes smaller! --Thelb4 18:47, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
The Colbert Report
First of all, I'd like to thank Mister Stephen Colbert for including Wikipedia on his most recent July 31, 2006 episode of his hit TV news show, the Colbert Report. However, he also mentioned its downsides - such as its editability and suceptability to malicious vandalism.
Oh yes, and did I mention - he reccomended that every single memeber of the audience log on to Wikipedia and edit the Africa article to say the elephant popu;ation had tripled.
Probably something to look out for.
--Phantom.exe 03:48, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
EDIT: I'd just like to thank the administrators for such a speedy response to The Colbert Report's good-humoured promotion/vandalism, or as some call it, vandotionalism.
He actually mentioned no good side of wikipedia. The Colbert Report is a parody, and Stephen Colbert plays a character on the show. The real Stephen Colbert obviously thinks that Wikipedia is a horrible webiste because his character, who is the opposite of him thinks it's a great website. 04:47, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
- Nah-- the Colbert folks are geeks. They love it as much as we do, and they give us lots of great publicity. --Alecmconroy 05:33, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
It's a little uncertain whether he really likes it or not. But he did make a bitter observation that a lot of facts that make it into the finished article are based upon everyone else saying it's right.-- 06:44, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Stephen Colbert isn't a geek. He is very intelligent. He would not enjoy a website like wikipedia. 18:29, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I doubt Mr. Colbert takes much joy in Wikipedia, but that's neither here nor there. The important thing is that we do our best to keep the information on this site as accurate as possible.
To Be Done
I don't know why they chose an article for the Article Improvement Drive that can't be edited by unregistered users.....stupid vandals. ;(. Anyway, these are some things which registered users can do to improve the article:
- Geography: ".....one of the three great southward projections....." I don't know why, but that just doesn't sound good. It sounds like it was written from the point of view of someone who lives in the Northern Hemisphere, and Wikipedia is a worldwide institution.
- History: This has been mentioned before, but Africa HAD A HISTORY BEFORE COLONIALISM!!!!! What about Ancient Egypt? What about the Zulu Nation, and the other alliances which formed as a result of it? I mean, come on, if Africa is the place where human civilization began, then why does its history only start in the 1400's with European exploration? And there's no mention of slavery, even though the article is eurocentric. If they removed the vandalism protection thing, then I could do a lot of this stuff.
- Modern History: There are vague references to civil war and corruption, but there needs to be specific examples, like Rwanda and, more recently, the Sudan. And the apartheid, which is vital but is not included.
- Culture: A pitifully small section for a continent with so many cultures. Mention the main ones and some of their features. Also, the last paragraph is on music, which should be included in the music section.
- Demographics: Still too much emphasis on skin color. It's really not all that important. Take it out. Entirely.
- Language: The language map says that Afrikaans is the main language of South Africa, and Xhosa is the main language of the area northeast of it. In fact, Zulu is more widely spoken than Afrikaans in South Africa, and Xhosa is largely present in this country as well. You can see that just by reading the "South Africa" article right here on Wikipedia. There are probably other errors, too, that I didn't recognize. Africa has about a hundred languages -- do you really want to put only fifteen or so on the map?
Give me some feedback on these suggestions, adding and subtracting as needed. --Ellie
- The article was chosen for WP:AID before it was semiprotected.
- It would be good to have more discussion of the desired length. In a section above, I suggested shortening the article and asked about how it might best be done. No one objected; one person appeared to give at least implict support. But yestereday I was reverted twice within 10 minutes.
- I was mainly trimming, but I also added some material, which was thrown out with the bathwater. Maurreen 16:45, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
- I'm making my support explicit here, especially if most of the trimmed material can be moved to the daughter articles. You declared your concerns/intentions here before making the edits, so I don't believe reverting was called for. -Fsotrain09 17:03, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
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- Thank you. I appreciate that. Maurreen 17:17, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
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- What exactly are you saying? You did not object when the issue was raised.
- Without going into a lot of detail that might not be productive, I wonder if it's worthwhile for this to be the AID article. Maurreen 18:09, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
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I agree with Ellie. A lot has to be done on this article. It is very unsatisfactory in it's present form. But maybe initially this should only be a portal linking to other articles. When the more specific articles have ripened into good articles, one can try to summarize them to give some flesh to the Africa article. I suggest we start with the more specific articles. For example, I am currently working on the African Music and African Dance articles and I am planning some even more specific things like e.g. an article about Amadinda music from Uganda. Only after the main articles have become really good can the Africa article become really good. It is far too early to try to bring this article to featured article status. Nannus 21:54, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Latitude and longitude
I'm 25 miles from the nearest really big library, so do Africa by Evans Lewin and Merriam Webster's Geographical Dictionary really state those longitudes and latitudes, or just the approximate measurements across the continent? I looked at satellite images at http://www.Terraserver.com and I get 37°21' N, 34°50'0" S, 17°31'46" W and 51°24'55" E. I confirmed this on Google Maps - I couldn't get Google Maps to register latitude and longitude directly, but if you zoom in on something and it doesn't move then you're in the right place. So if we correct the latitude and longitudes, do we keep the references, or am I missing something? Art LaPella 21:25, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Very good article
I'd just like to say that this is a very good article and has restored my faith in the wikipedia editing system. I've not looked at the vandals comments incase that faith is removed.
Changed Africa political picture placement
I changed the placement of the africa political map so that it was closer to the heading "geography" to me it made the most sense because otherwise you would have to search for the tiny thumbnail picture of the map in the bottom. If anyone has any objections to this I would not mind hearing them.
- I have no objections it makes perfect sense. 86.138.21.180 17:41, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
This article seems to have a LOT of maps, which take forever to load on slow computers (like mine:)). Maybe we should go through them and see if we have any unnecessaries, repeats, or inaccurate maps (see my comment from a few weeks ago on the Languages map.)Ellie041505 13:28, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
White?
I'm sorry but I don't like the idea that a "White labour force" is one of the reasons that South Africa is so advanced. I am pretty sure that there are blacks that are just as educated as white people, thus i am changing part of a sentence to make it sound less offensive. Stevo D 01:48, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough. Remember tho that the white workforce is still the most skilled part of the SA workforce, as a result of deliberate discrimination through law and education during the Apartheid years. This will no doubt not be true in the future as the effects of Apartheid are rolled back.
Or, more realistically, "South Africa" will slide into third-world anarchy and chaos, as "deliberate discrimination" is "rolled back". I love the way people on this site spout the Marxist propaganda, without having any idea what the truth of the matter is.
colonialism
"Due largely to the effects of colonialism, corrupt governments and despotism, Africa is the world's poorest inhabited continent."
Please remove "colonialism" from this sentence. China,India,and Latin America have have been subjected to colonialism, but thier growth "has lifted millions beyond subsistence living", but colonialism is viewed as negative in Africa? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ( • contribs) 9 September 2006.
China, India and Latin America are not the subject. That statement is true and should NOT be changed. Even though Africa is considered the poorest does not mean that China, India and Latin America do no have high poverty rates. They in fact still do struggle with poverty even though it is improving. Just because you do not like the truth does not mean it should not be mentioned. Yes, Europeans and their brainchild colonialism have screwed up the world due to greed and a blatant disregard for human life. FACT! [Nita, 12:24am November 11, 2006]
Somethings I can't delete.
There is vandalism in the history section but when I go to edit It's not there. Zazaban 18:21, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
- I don't see any. Perhaps it's not there because you confused it with more Stephen Colbert elephant vandalism I just deleted, which was just BEFORE the history section. Art LaPella 19:59, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
No, there was "line removed as length was moving page margins" and it wasn't there when i tried to edit it. Zazaban 00:11, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
- Found it in history. [1] [2] [3] A bot deleted it a minute after it happened, too quickly for you to edit it first. Art LaPella 01:21, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
53 or 54?
193.252.13.109 changed "53 independent countries" to "54 independent countries". That seems to contradict the country list at Africa#Territories and regions. I assume entries in that list like "Mayotte (France)" aren't independent. Excluding all such countries whose name includes another country's name after them, I count 17 independent countries in East Africa, 9 in Middle Africa, 6 in North Africa, 5 in South Africa, and 16 in West Africa, for a total of 53. Art LaPella 20:30, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
Probably someone advocating for Somaililand recognition. Zazaban 01:30, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Whatever. Either way, the count should match the list. Art LaPella 02:35, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, 53: this also seems to have been a topic of prior discussion at the Geography of Africa article. 02:57, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Since there are no further comments, I'm changing back to 53. If anyone prefers 54, please change the country list to match the count. Art LaPella 23:35, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Request Fulfilled
There has been a request expand the lead to comply with WP:LEAD on the to do list. Action has been taken by me and now Africa has new content in the beginning paragraphs. Please discuss and edit as necessary. Neutralaccounting 04:58, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
africa wins again
Hope i wasnt too bold in adding to the See Also list. This was because it was without any pages linking to it and I am dealing with them at present. Remove if you will, but remember, so far this page is its only link. Fuzzibloke 14:16, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Neutrality problem
I feel that there is a neutrality problem in the history section of this article. The first paragraph seems to be evolutionist. I, a Creationist, take this offensively. The paragraph talks about how "man evolved here". Creationists believe that humans were first in Asia (where we think the Garden of Eden is), and evolutionists belive that humans were first in Africa. This paragraph specifically says that man was first on Africa. Please, somebody rewrite this paragraph. Thank you. --SilverBulletx3talkcontributions 21:34, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of geologists, paleontologists, anthropologists and historians accept the Out of Africa hypothesis. Until this changes, wikipedia doesn't need to make room for diverging fringe theories. Should we also include the Hindu belief that humans have existed for thousands of billions of years? This is all covered in the neutrality section that you linked to. Ashmoo 03:21, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
External links section
This section seems a little unwieldy and in need of a cleanup.
I suggest deleting the stricken through links for the reason given next to each one and slimming down the links identified in red by choosing the best one or two - I've noted which I think should stay and why. The idea is to develop a shorter list of good links that readers can rely on, rather than a directory of links that are of low quality or duplicate content. Let me know if this looks good.
- allAfrica.com current news, events and statistics
- BBC News In Depth - Africa 2005: Time for Change?
- Guardian Unlimited - Special Report: Hear Africa 05 Do we need two british perspectives of Africa in 20005? I suggest keeping the BBC one and losing the Guardian.
- Yale Economic Review Africa:Failed Economic History
- Photos and Information
Africa PhotosPhotos from Africa such as Ethiopia, Nigeria and South AfricaThere are lots of African photos, but they're mixed up with European ones and there are no comments inicating which are which.L'AfriqueHundreds of photographs of Rwanda, Ethiopia, Senegal, and Burundi. Also articles in French and English.A mainly french language site. Per the external link guidelines we should be linking to English sites unless there is good reason to include a non-English site. Might be a good article for the French Wikipedia Africa article though.ASAP AfricaPhoto Galleries and Information about African Community DevelopmentThis isn't a photo gallery site, it's a website for a US-based charity/nonprofit who work on African projects. They're not the biggest or most well known charity working in Africa and the info on the site isn't particularly broad. I guess I'm saying, great as they may be they don't really seem to warrant a link on this article.- Jungle Photos Jungle Photos Africa provides images and information on various countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
- Afrika.no News
African Safari NewsSeems to be a blog from a safari travel company.Inter Press Service-AfricaThis link is dead. Should be replaced by Inter Press Service-Africa- Africa Encyclopedia Article from 1920s
- Directories
Africa's social networking siteRequires registrationAfrica HomepageJust doesn't seem very good! The blog entries are sporadic and infrequent. The articles and news listings have undifferentiated advertizing links and it seems to be aggregating other feeds without any editorial control.African Community Portalagain, not very good. The "feature articles" are a year or wo old and the forum has 12 posts!AfricaResource.comAfricaresource.com is an educational portal that develops and distributes content.This is sponsored by a Binghampton University in the United States, I think it should be considered with the other US University sites. I'm suggesting striking it regardless of what happens to the other US university sites because it seems to have a heavy emphasis on African-American culture and concerns rather than on Africa.ClickAfrique - African Portal and DirectoryDoesn't seem to be that great. Heavy google ad presence, a forum with less than 50 posts, and their lead news item is Wesly Snipes.- Columbia University - African Studies Another US university site. I'm torn about this link, the Stanford, Chicago and Pennsylvania ones, and the US library of congress reading room. They all seem like good resources for readers, but the inclusion of so many resources from the same basic perspective seems a bit like overkill. I suggest keeping Columbia, Stanford and the Library of Congress.
- Contemporary Africa Database
- Library of Congress - African & Middle Eastern Reading Room
- Open Directory Project - Africa directory category
- Stanford University - Africa South of the Sahara See the Columbia University comment above.
- The Index on Africa directory from The Norwegian Council for Africa
- University of Chicago - Joseph Regenstein Library: African Studies See the Columbia University comment above.
- University of Pennsylvania - African Studies Center See the Columbia University comment above.
- Politics
- Africa Action Africa Action is the oldest organization in the United States working on African affairs. It is a national organization that works for political, economic and social justice in Africa.
- African Anarchism: The History of a Movement Is this a significant point of view? Anarchism in Africa isn't mentioned in the article at all. I'd like to strike both this, the Irish anarchist, and the Working class history below from the point of view of relevence and not being reliable sources. But if it is a significant point of view, we should represent it, and I suggest keeping the working class history link and losing this and the Irish anarchist.
An Irish anarchist in Africa, western Africa from anarchist perspective.As mentioned in the link above - this seems like over representation. I suggest striking it regardless of what happens to the other Anarchism related links because political commentary from an unknown, self-described anarchist is of limited encyclopedic value.- Commission for Africa
- African Unification Front
- Working class history in Africa-- people's and grassroots histories I'm a little torn on this. It seems to be a part of the anarchism links above. It wouldn't reach reliable source standards, but it seems to have content that isn't covered elsewhere. I'm currently thinking keep it, and sttrike the other two above.
- Culture
Traditional African Drumming Festivals and CeremoniesSeems too specific for an article on the entire African continent.
- Sports
Confederation of African Football; in English and FrenchI would simply suggest striking this, but I fear backlash from soccer fans! However, we should link directly to the English language version. Suggest replacing with Confederation of African Football
If I don't get any comments I'll go ahead with these changes tomorrow. But if there's discussion, obviously I'll hold off until we can build a consenus. --Siobhan Hansa 13:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
- I went ahead with the changes. One difference - I realized the replacement link I proposed (Inter Press Service-Africa for the dead link
Inter Press Service-Africa) was not actually an appropriate replacement. If anyone can find where the page moved to that would be great. I had another look around but didn't find it. --Siobhan Hansa 14:21, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
BC vs. BCE
I recently added a good deal of info to the history section. When supplying dates I used BCE rather than BC, shortly thereafter another individual came through and changed them all to BC. I'm curious as to whether there is a standardized practice for this. The use of BCE has become dominant in academic fields over the last couple of decades and now is by far more common in any academic texts, while BC is still common among more public texts. However, given the association of BC to Christianithy it seems to have at least some minor POV issues (though very small, I admit), which is why BCE was adopted by academics in the first place. I'd like a consensus as to which is more appropriate; I prefer BCE but if the majority of people don't I'm fine with that. --The Way 17:55, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
- Hmm. you must be new here... There is no single thing that has been more disputed on wikipedia, to the tune of hundreds of Megabytes and scores of talk page archives. THe people who claim like you do that BCE is "dominant" are a slight minority, while the other 55-60% in every poll ever taken here claim that this is PC nonsense being pushed by a vocal minority. The only compromise that has been adopted across the board is that both are officially acceptable, but articles that are written in one style should be consistent and not be changed to the other, or vice versa. (Unless there is no objection to do so on a specific article). This article was already a BC article, so under the terms of the "ceasefire" (about a year and ahalf ago this was proking massive edit wars all over the place that we don't want to flare up again) this is a "BC article" and will remain so unless everyone should agree to change it. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 18:06, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
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- I'm new to editing history articles. I'm fine with whatever decision there has been, but BCE is common in academic texts; if you pick up a modern history, anthropology or archaeology text or journal it's quite likely to be used in it. Don't want to re-ignite an old argument, though, so I'll stick with what has previously been decided. --The Way 22:36, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
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- Wikipedia Manual of Style section on this issue Art LaPella 23:07, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
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Regarding a citation disagreement with Codex
I want to question Codex's edit to the sentence about the Sahara undergoing increased desertification circa 4000 BCE and get some consensus. It's a small edit, so I don't want to make a big deal about it and I really don't want to be nuisance, but I'm not understanding how this 'violated NPOV.' Saying that the Sahara region began to dry up is no different from articles saying that the So and So River changed course or agriculture began to take place at a particular time in history. It's just as valid as any other historical view regarding a particular change in climate and I don't see how this, more than anything else in any history section, pushes a certain POV (especially with a view that is so widely held in anthropology, history and geography: one can find numberous sources regarding this; in fact that statement was already there when I started editing last night, I just added a citation because I had a source that discussed it, with a minor change in date [4500 BCE to 4000 BCE]). The idea of an in-text citation, which is also there, is so that one can cite without 'dirtying' the article with stating what source makes this claim and this statement already has a citation, it doesn't need a second one written in prose. This statement is no more POV than any other single premise in any historical article on Wikipedia including this one, yet we don't require more than an in-text citation for these other premises. If you still have a problem with it, could we say something along the lines of "It is believed that the Sahara began to dry and undergo an increased speek of desertification in 4000 BCE?" I'd just like to know what the reason is for asserting that this one sentence is more POV than any others in the history section, thus necessitating the inclusion of "According to the Oxford Atlas of World History..." (As a note, this particular historical atlas is pretty much the best in the field) --The Way 22:43, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
- The reason my edit was NPOV is because, if you're going to cite a source that authoritatively states that such and such happened in the year 4000 BC - a year for which there are absolutely no records whatsoever - without even offering the slightest explanation of how they came about this knowledge, or at least presumed to - then it's far better not to make a bald statement of fact that such and such happened in the year 4000 BC, but rather state that "according to source xyz, such and such happened in the year 4000 BC". I don't care how good you think the source is. Many people do not simply accept everything they are told to, without being told any reason why. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 02:25, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
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- That seems reasonable. --Guinnog 04:20, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Incomplete history of Africa
There is no mention of the Arab slave trade in East Africa which is estimated to have enslaved as many black Africans as the slave trade in Western Africa. No mention whatsoever of the Islamic Jihad that swept over Africa, and the hardships suffered by the indigenous Africans. Over one thousand years of brutal history are missing from this article; it is as if it never happened. 05:21, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Etymology contradiction
It seems that there is a contradiction between this article's etymology section and Africa's wiktionary entry. This article claims that the name came from a Proto-Kordofanian language, and the Wiktionary entry claims that it came from the Latin word Africa (which in turn derives from a Carthagenian word). Which one is true? Neither claim seems to have a reference. —msikma <user_talk:msikma> 14:14, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
- Argh, never seen that new template before, let alone in reference to another wiki project. I don't think it looks good at all. Is it new? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 14:51, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
- The Kordofanian stuff was added only recently by an anon, which is why I added the unreferenced section tag myself. It should probably be removed, along with both tags, IMO. The part below about the Afri is more in synch with wikt, but perhaps an exchange of information between the two articles is in order. Some references couldn't hurt either. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:01, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
- Wictionary isn't a particularly good reference to compare this article with. I agree with Codex. I'll remove both tags and comment out the disputed section until or unless someone comes up with a referenc. Fair? --Guinnog 20:44, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
"twin tragedies of slavery and colonization of Africa"=
Does this line seem a bit POV? Clearly slavery was not good but the line seems to opinionated to me 15:20, 16 November 2006 (UTC)