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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by MiszaBot II (talk | contribs) at 07:08, 10 September 2008 (Archiving 2 thread(s) from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Africa.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5

The 153rd episode of "Côte d'Ivoire" vs "Ivory Coast"

Some editor came along, decided it was obviously Ivory Coast not Côte d'Ivoire, and solved this problem in two minutes flat by ignoring the talk page and just moving it. While efficient, it ignores the ENDLESS discussion of this on Talk:Côte d'Ivoire (or somewhere, I don't remember anymore). I folks could weigh in, decide which is right, and form some concensus either way, please do. Thanks. T L Miles (talk) 19:22, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, as per WP:NAME, "Ivory Coast" is the more common name, and probably should be the name used. It's also a lot easier to type, without the diacritical marks. Personally, I'd prefer that option, but that's just one opinion. John Carter (talk) 19:29, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
At the moment, I don't have a strong preference for either "Côte d'Ivoire" or "Ivory Coast" (I'd have to read the previous discussions, look at various sources, etc.), but proposals to rename the article to Ivory Coast failed here and here. Black Falcon (Talk) 19:39, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

The editor has been blocked as a suspected sockpuppet of a banned user. Black Falcon (Talk) 07:16, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

It's one of the few countries that the non-English version is accepted usage, both official and informal, in English. It's not the same thing as naming the article on Warsaw, "Warszawa," because, in this last case, Warszawa is not an accepted foreign name in English. Just do a google search on English language pages, some time, for "Côte d’Ivoire" versus "Ivory Coast." Folks get all tied up when things are irregular--order, they cried out for. It's been that way forever, it must remain. Etc. Fact is, "Côte d’Ivoire" is an accepted name in English for the country once and also known in English as Ivory Coast. It can only have one name on en.Wikipedia, and "Côte d’Ivoire" is accepted English. --Blechnic (talk) 03:51, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

The 154th episode

See diff, as User:Proxy User removes citation of name change, and rewrites article to say Ivory Coast is the accepted name. In the background you may hear the sound of my head banging the desk... T L Miles (talk) 17:13, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

And as an aside, I reverted it once, he reverted it back without comment, so someone else can handle it. T L Miles (talk) 17:35, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Reverted, once more. Black Falcon (Talk) 23:45, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Assessment backlog

We currently have two assessment backlogs:

  1. A backlog of ca. 2000 articles (18% of all tagged Africa articles) that need to be evaluated for class (i.e. quality), and
  2. A backlog of ca. 10000 articles (92% of all tagged Africa articles) that need to be evaluated for importance.

I don't think there's any easy way to reduce the "importance" backlog, as importance is something that requires evaluation of context and judgment. (Probably the only easy way to reduce that backlog is to remove the "importance" parameter from Template:AfricaProject - see relevant discussions here, here, here, and here - but it does seem to have some usefulness.) However, there are some things we can do about the "class" backlog. For instance, we could:

Is there support for one or both of these actions? If so, we could file a bot request to have this done.

Before we submit a bot request (assuming there is adequate support), we may also wish to consider the title of Template:AfricaProject - see, for instance, the comment left here, in the section titled {{AfricaProject}}. I suppose that, ultimately, it doesn't matter too much what the template is called, but it may be something worth considering before we ask a bot operator to tag up to 2000 talk pages (again, assuming there is support for automatic assessment). – Black Falcon (Talk) 07:41, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

These both seem like very good ideas. I've been trying off an on to do this manually, and while most of these unassessed articles are stubs, there are a few starts and even "b"s in there, mostly assessed by other projects. As for the name, I have no strong feelings: the ones who'll have to do the graft of changing things should have the final say. T L Miles (talk) 16:50, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
(2 days later...) Great! I'll post the request shortly. Black Falcon (Talk) 19:07, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Done. Black Falcon (Talk) 19:09, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Is this a good idea, assigning the importance of a topic to one area to another? For example, major plant pathogens may be improtant to plant articles, but even if they impact an economic crop of Nigeria, they might not be of top importance to Wiki Project Africa. stub is good, though. What is the assessment scale, anyway? --Blechnic (talk) 03:06, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

My understanding is that the bot will assign a Quality assessment based on other current assessments of the article (assuming these is no AfricaProject assessment), not an importance assessment. Importance will have to be done manually, for the reasons you quite rightly point out.T L Miles (talk) 03:53, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
I see, I misunderstood. Thank you for clearing it up. I changed a couple of your assessments, or maybe only one, the Rap dogba one to Low rather than Mid. --Blechnic (talk) 03:56, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

User:John_Bot appears to be doing this job, but it (from a quick look) MAY be breaking the assessments. The bot appears to be "preparing" the assessments by removing previous assessments. In some case thais happens AFTER the same bot has auto placed stub assessments (I assume following topic stub tags). The upshot it that the bot is removing AP assessmements and leaving previously assessed articles unassessed. see this and this as recent examples. I left a note on the operators talk page, but an admin probably should take a look at the logs and stop the bot if needed. T L Miles (talk) 13:45, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it's screwing up. look at this diff. It takes Talk:Anglo-Zulu War, rated Start class by Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history, but no AfricaProject assessment (blank AP tag). The bot rates it B class (for some reason), with the description "m (Bot: Assessing article (b))". Then it replaces the tag it updated with "AfricaProject|class=|importance=| class=" and the description "m (Bot: Fixing template for easy assessment)". It's clearing the tag AFTER it rates it, so it should be stopped ASAP. I left a message of the owners talk page, but I can't force a stop, though any admin can. T L Miles (talk) 01:17, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
A bit similar thing here [1] too, but the bot didn't clear tag afterwards. BTW, John Bot is an AWB bot, so it should stop when somebody edits its talk page. Never tried that myself, though. Cheers, – Sadalmelik (talk) 17:51, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
The bot owner recognized the error, stopped the Bot the night of May 1, and says he'll fix it before he resumes. We should probably catalog those tags which were wiped, though. I'll try to fix what I can manually. T L Miles (talk) 19:26, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

It seems there has been a change of bots, and Betacommand (& BetacommandBot) will take care of this job now. – Sadalmelik ☎ 06:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

FA update: Cyclone Elita

The article about Cyclone Elita, a tropical cyclone that affected Madagascar in January–February 2004, was promoted to featured article status on 9 April 2008, bringing the total number of Africa-related featured articles to 33 (plus at least one featured list). – Black Falcon (Talk) 00:28, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Template

This template should not default to alphabetical order, or there should be some way to over-ride it. For example, the article on Dagara people should list Ghana first, so I listed Ghana=yes, then Burkina Faso=yes, but it shows Burkina Faso first. This should be removed, or be an option. Some pages will be far more important to one country than the next, and the most important country should be listed first on the template. --Blechnic (talk) 03:04, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that the ordering of flags should be taken as an indicator of relative importance to one country or another. The template merely identifies that the article is supported by both country-specific WikiProjects. Black Falcon (Talk) 04:08, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately it is not whether or not you or I take it as such, but in general, when things of a like kind are ordered in a list, the most important thing is listed first. This is the impression the reader of the article will get, that one is more important than another if only two are listed. Sometimes it will matter, sometimes it will not. But why default to alphabetical anyhow? --Blechnic (talk) 04:15, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
The alphabetical order comes from the order of #ifeq-statements on Template:AfricaProject. I don't it's possible to modify the templete to do what you suggested, at least without modifying all the 10,000+ talk pages where it is currently transcluded. Also I think the size and complexity of the template is already close to the limits set by the software (see Wikipedia:Template limits), so increasing the complexity of the template is not an option. It is already one of the most complex (if not the most complex) of wikiproject banners. So in the end changing the order is a huge job for little or no practical gain, and may not be possible at all. – Sadalmelik ☎ 18:47, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Featured content update: AIDS, Image:Rose Geranium.jpg

The article AIDS was demoted from featured article status on 18 May 2008. There are currently 32 Africa-related featured articles and 1 Africa-related featured list.

Image:Rose Geranium.jpg, a high resolution photograph of Pelargonium graveolens—a plant species indigenous to various parts of southern Africa—was promoted to featured picture status on 13 May 2008. There are currently 24 Africa-related featured pictures which are included in the "Featured picture" queue for Portal:Africa.

–Black Falcon (Talk) 06:20, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Draft Guidelines for Lists of companies by country - Feedback Requested

Within WikiProject Companies I am trying to establish guidelines for all Lists of companies by country, the implementation of which would hopefully ensure a minimum quality standard and level of consistency across all of these related but currently disparate articles. The ultimate goal is the improvement of these articles to Featured List status. As a WikiProject that currently has one of these lists within your scope, I would really appreciate your feedback! You can find the draft guidelines here. Thanks for your help as we look to build consensus and improve Wikipedia! - Richc80 (talk) 19:04, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

U.S. embassies

I'm not sure where to list new articles/stubs for this project, so I thought I'd add it here. Embassy of Senegal in Washington, D.C.. I have several more coming later this week.

Articles of unclear notability as of 24 May 2008

There has been another database update and this time there are 11 Africa-related articles that are tagged as having unclear notability. For more details, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Notability#Feedback on per-project listings. I've copied the list below. –Black Falcon (Talk) 16:54, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Architecture of Africa - Does it need splitting?

There has been a persistent vandal that has been trying to split the Architecture of Africa article into two, one based on North African architecture, and another on Sub-Saharan architecture. Her argument being that the two are distinctly different and unrelated, with North African bearing traits of South Mediterranean architecture and Sub-Saharan with not much. I personally don't see much issue with keeping both in a single article, as the article itself is not very long in the first place, and there is plenty of space to point out the division in style from North and Sub-Saharan within the article itself without having to split it. Only problem is her insistence on splitting it is mostly on grounds that bunching both together robs Mediterranean people of their achievements and benefits Black Africans. No idea what that's about though. Anyone want to chime in on this? Chan Yin Keen | Talk 21:45, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Whites in Zimbabwe GA Sweeps Review: On Hold

As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria and I'm specifically going over all of the "Culture and Society" articles. I have reviewed Whites in Zimbabwe and believe the article currently meets the majority of the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. I have left this message at this WikiProject's talk page so that any interested members can assist in helping the article keep its GA status. In reviewing the article, I have found there are a few issues that may need to be addressed, and I'll leave the article on hold for seven days for them to be fixed. I have left messages on the talk pages of the main contributors of the article and other related WikiProjects. Please consider helping address the several points that I listed on the talk page of the article, which shouldn't take too long to fix if multiple editors assist in the workload. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 06:13, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I have also reviewed Fair trade and have placed the article on hold. Please consider helping to address the issues raised on the talk page. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 20:51, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 2384 articles assigned to this project, or 13.0%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 18 June 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 11:57, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

C-Class introduced, aparently

A new Assessment class is being rolled out across English Wikipedia C-class. If you assess articles, please look at the new assessment scale at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment. Some Africa Sub-projects already have C-class categories, see Category:C-Class_articles. The current Africa Project Tag does not yet seem to be able to handle this. Folks should follow this process, and we can see when we can begin tagging Africa Project articles. Is there anything us laymen editors can do to help implement this? T L Miles (talk) 03:22, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that we should add class C assessments to the current template since WikiProject Africa already has Class C in its quality guide. I've created a new template that's the same as the old one except that it supports C-class assessments; it's at User:Merenta/NewAfricaTemplate. I've tested it and am pretty sure it's correct, but (of course) welcome criticism. Should there be a consensus to support class C assessments in our template, feel free to use the one that I've created. Since the template is protected, I can't do this myself; it requires admin action. Cheerio and happy editing! Merenta (talk) 18:23, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Rename proposal for the lists of basic topics

This project's subject has a page in the set of Lists of basic topics.

See the proposal at the Village pump to change the names of all those pages.

The Transhumanist    09:49, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

  • The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
  • The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
  • A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 22:25, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/Madeira work group

Hello everyone. Could you please come to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Africa/Madeira work group and participate / help? Thanks! The Ogre (talk) 14:59, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Mustafa Tajouri

An article, albeit a stub at moment, which I created has been put up at Afd. The article being Mustafa Tajouri. Tajouri is the Ambassador of Libya to Russia, and only a few sources can be found on this highest level diplomat from Libya - those sources being in English and Russian. As Tajouri is Libyan, it is likely there are going to be sources for information out there in Arabic, however, not understanding Arabic, I can't find and add these sources to the article. If any of this project members could take a look and see if they can find any info on this ambassador, and add it to the article. There are going to be a heap of ambassador articles on subjects from Africa, and they are forming part of this article I am working on developing. Also if someone could add the name in Arabic to the article, and correct it if incorrect, that would be good too. On a small sidenote, Category:Articles needing Arabic script or text has more article in it which I have created and also need names in Arabic. Ambassadors are high level representatives of their nations, and they have likely had a multitude of credentials for which they were appointed to the position in the first place, it's just finding the info that can be difficult, and it is important to fight systematic bias to have articles on these ambassadors. We need editors help. Thanks. --Россавиа Диалог 19:14, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

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