Portal talk:Africa/Archive 1

Rwanda stub templates
I've created two new stubs for Rwanda: Use them wisely! :-) TreveXtalk 15:41, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Rwanda stubs
 * Rwanda geography stubs

Ivory Coast/Côte d'Ivoire
A highly contentious vote is shaping up over at Talk:Côte d'Ivoire on which form of the country's name is the accepted standard usage; I'd encourage interested editors to drop by and note which usage you prefer, as this vote will (hopefully) establish the article's place for some time. Cheers! --Dvyost 07:43, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Article Improvement Drive
Architecture of Africa is currently nominated on Article Improvement Drive. Come to this page and support it with your vote. Help us improve this article to featured status.--Fenice 08:46, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

African military history task force
The African military history task force is a new and rapidly growing branch of the military history project. We have an open task list where anyone can drop subjects of interest that could do with some work and a discussion page where we will try to help you with articles/questions concerning conflicts in Africa. Just take a look. Greatings Wandalstouring 01:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Administrative divisions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Please could someone update the page on administrative divisions with information on the new Provinces? Kahuzi 17:52, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Colonisation of Africa
I'm not sure how English-speaking African countries spell "colonisation", but I assume they use the British spelling. However, the article "Colonisation of Africa" keeps going back and forth between "colonization" and "colonisation". As per the manual of style, if an article has strong ties with a country that uses a specific spelling, that spelling should be used. If anyone could help clear this up, that would be most helpful. Also, the article has a good start, but it could use some work, so anyone who knows something about it might want to help out. -Tea and Crumpets (Talk - contribs) 04:09, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Per Manual of Style, I changed all instances of "z" to "s", except in the references, categories, and interwiki links. I also moved the article Decolonisation of Africa to its new title, per the Manual of Style and for consistency with the article Colonisation of Africa. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 16:31, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Current events subportals
A discussion about most of the Current events subportals has been opened at Miscellany for deletion. You are invited to participate in discussing the fate of these subportals. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:26, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

In the news
I have replaced the old news items with Wikinews transclusion, using Wikinews Importer Bot. Feer 15:46, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Width fixed for Africa Topics
07-Feb-2008: I fixed the table-setting typos (from 03Oct07) to correct the overrun of the right margin at Africa Topics. The width requires either the equals-sign or style-colon format:
 * width="100%"  or    style="width:100%"

I also fixed "bground" as background and re-wrapped the longer lines to fit 800x600 screens if the page is narrowed. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:27, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Did you know section
I was wondering if anybody supported the idea of changing the "Did you know..." section so that it automatically rotates items, as Portal:Film has. (see Portal:Film/Did you know.) As well as the having the advantage of regularly alternating facts, we would be able to ensure that facts are grouped so that there is a variation in the facts displayed together. (ie. that 3 out of 4 facts displayed aren't from the same country). Any thoughts? -- Beloved Freak  13:30, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * It's possible to manually update the list using Recent additions (I admit that I had forgotten about the DYK section of Portal:Africa for some time). While an automatic rotation would be more efficient in the long run (once the structure is set up, it would be fairly easy to update), it would deviate from the structure of WP:DYK, which tends to highlight only newly-written content. At the moment, I don't have a strong preference, as both are workable alternatives. –Black Falcon (Talk) 17:42, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Gosh, I'd forgotten I'd asked this question, sorry! The reasons I thought the rotating DYK alternative would be better are 1) designing groups of facts so there is variation between the ones on display at any one time and 2) Returning the spotlight to DYK facts, most of which are on subjects which could do with more attention at Wikipedia. I think that the structure of WP:DYK works well for the mainoage given the volume of new hooks every day, it is necessary to have a quick turnaround. In a portal though, there is a much lower rate of new hook production, leaving the newest ones to sit there for months while previous ones are forgotten. Would you object to me making the change, perhaps on a trial basis to see how it works?-- Beloved Freak  10:35, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Header Image
I'm not quite sure what to say about the new header image. It is very intricate and well-made, but I don't think it is quite appropriate for a portal, mainly due to its cartoon-esque nature, but also because the content doesn't really tie in to that of the portal. What do others think? Picaroon (t) 05:50, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * User:CJ took it out with the comment: "nice effort, by you require permission to use Wikipedia's logo. moreover, the banner takes up too much space." It didn't look as good when it was first inserted in there, but I center aligned it and took out the original header, and I think it looks better. I wasn't aware of any permission requirement for using Wikipedia's logo within Wikipedia, but I do think that the image might benefit from the removal of the globe (I'd have to see it to be sure, though). I don't think the banner takes up too much space now that I rearranged it.
 * If you don't like it, go ahead and say so. -Tea and crumpets (t c) 21:36, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't want to offend anyone, but there was a request for comments on the AfricaProject page. While beautiful (and clearly requiring a lot of hard work), I have a bias against things about Africa which feature animals.  Many (not all) Senegalese folks I know find the Western obsession with wild African animals as a denial of the importance of African people, societies and cultures, and a continuation of the "Dark Continent" thing.  While I'm sure that's not the intention, folks making the decision (ie, not ME), should be aware of that sensitive point.  T L Miles (talk) 01:40, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I think that the banner image is very good, but I think it seems to symbolise wildlife rather than Africa. I wasn't aware of the issue mentioned by T L Miles above, but that is definitely something worth considering. -- Beloved Freak  19:18, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I would like to add my voice and state that while a great piece of design, the header image is contentious because of the prominence of an animal as opposed to a human or cultural depiction. I agree with the writers above and would like to ask if anyone can suggest alternatives? Being unfamiliar with the portal culture I would like to ask what the procedure is for suggesting alternatives and then replacing the header image. venzen (talk) 10:22, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Having recently joined this group I noticed that the text on the Portal is mis-aligned. Having read the above comments my question is; Is the designer still with us? Wiki User 68  Blah  Stuff  22:17, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Main Africa Article
The existence of this portal and its links to various resources is great. It is however a pity that the main Africa article is not much to be proud of. It is too long, contains much biased opinion, repeats information from other Africa pages and does not seem to have a steering committee or page strategy. Can this portal play some part in strategising and suggesting page content? This may improve the Africa content overall. venzen (talk) 10:32, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Not much organising / strategising tends to take place from portals. You might be interested in joining WikiProject Africa. Feel free to make any sugestions on the project talkpage. I agree that Africa is much in need of improvement. Unfortunately, as is usually the case, too many articles & too few editors working to improve them! -- Beloved Freak  10:39, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Th pictures are all merging together on the projects page. Besides that, it's pretty good Nightmayor (talk) 09:50, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Black supremacy
I was wondering if the Black Supremacy article should be merged in to project Africa. I'm reading a book on Africa and it seems black supremacy originated here, rather than as a response to racism. Nightmayor (talk) 10:22, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Natural resources of Africa
Hello, the key topic of Natural resources of Africa have not been expanded. May some of you work on it, that a key point for African history, African economy, and Africa today. From slavery to today diamonds and oil, all history of Africa is due to its Natural resources. Yug (talk)  22:18, 19 May 2009 (UTC) (I'm on my side rewriting the  Sino-African relations article)

Chinese involvement in Africa
Large scale copy edit need please ! This article will potentially become a Feature article after spelling and grammar correction, I'm French, help please ! Yug (talk)  23:25, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Call for editors to collaborate on a proposed African history Wikiproject
All editors with a specific interest in African history are invited to help start a new African history Wikiproject. This is not a substitute for the Africa Wikiproject, but editors with a specific interest in African history would collaborate on improving the quality of African history on Wikipedia. For more details click here or here here.

Ackees (talk) 15:44, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Horn of Afirca
Hi guys i need a third party opinon regarding the defenition of the Horn of Africa. I am curruntly involved in a disbute about defenition of this subject.The term Horn of africa originates from a geographical name refering to a peninsula in east africa comprising somalia and and a part of south eastern Ethiopia. If you look at the map of africa you could clearly see this peninsula shaped like a Horn. However this is ommited from the wiki page on the horn. when i tried to add this to the wiki page i came to a dispute with a couple of contributors. They can't get their heads round the Term Horn of africa as well as being the actual name of a peninsula that the name is also adopted and used with reference to socio political area known as the Horn of africa region. they think the the term only refers to the region.--Liban80 (talk) 21:23, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Nkon
Could editors with expertise in African history please have a look at Nkon? Some remarkable claims are being made there, with very little in the way of references. Thanks, MuffledThud (talk) 00:00, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Looks like nonsense to me. Check Special:Contributions/Capetien and Special:Contributions/De_bourbon-valois. I have reported it at Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents Wizzy&hellip; &#9742; 13:30, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Expansion
I believe that is portal is among the best on Wikipedia. I also believe that there ought to be a lot more articles linked to this portal that there currently is. I hoping that this plea will encourage all who visit this portal to try and write African articles, so we can build the fast disappearing facts of Africa which hitherto would go down to the grave with those wise men and women from the continent--CrossTempleJay (talk) 00:18, 27 April 2011 (UTC).

Problems
The "did you know" hasnt been updated in years. the "in the news" appears to be broken (so i edited it out). I updated the "topics" to use a topic template thats actually edited by people. The Featured Portal process is broken, this should not be a featured portal with stale content and stale links. I see a lot of portals created years ago that need regular updating, due to their structure, and are abandoned by their creators. i can only focus on so many. I wish there was more attention given to portals, but thats simply not happening. Mercurywoodrose (talk) 07:11, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Status report from the Portals WikiProject
WikiProject Portals is back!

The project was rebooted and completely overhauled on April 17th, 2018.

Its goals are to revitalize the entire portal system, make building and maintaining portals easier, and design the portals of the future.

As of April 29th, membership is at 56 editors, and growing.

There are design initiatives for revitalizing the portals system as a whole, and for each component of portals.

Tools are provided for building and maintaining portals, including automated portals that update themselves in various ways.

And, if you are bored and would like something to occupy your mind, we have a wonderful task list.

From your friendly neighborhood Portals WikiProject. &mdash; The Transhumanist  03:20, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Portal:Angola listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Portal:Angola. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:52, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Zimbabwe listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Portal:Zimbabwe. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:53, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Lesotho listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Portal:Lesotho. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:00, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Mpoko River
Something is wrong here. May you look over it? I do not get it. Peter in s (talk) 16:07, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Cool Tool : Play ISA and win some prizes with the Wiki Loves Africa MetaData Weeks
This is a quick announcement and call for All Commonists to come and play on the ISA tool. The images in this first Wiki Loves Africa MetaData Weeks or Africa At Play! were originally submitted to Wikimedia Commons as part of the Wiki Loves Africa 2017 photographic contest. There are prizes to be won! The competition closes on 29th November You can enter the competition here: https://tools.wmflabs.org/isa/campaigns/39

The ISA Tool was created to provide a fun way for participants to add information/ tags / descriptors that identifies the elements that makes up each image by linking it to existing WikiData statements (it was named the coolest multimedia tool at the recent WikiData Conference). ISA is one of the pilot projects for the Structured Data on Commons project and helps to make images more useful as illustrations of articles, and also more easy to search for - it is multilingual too! (It is a tool that is so cool it won the multimedia award at WikiData Conference 2019.) Isla Haddow (talk) 09:56, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia logo
The Wikipedia logo in the header is superseded since 2010: Wikipedia/2.0. I suggest to remove the image until it's updated. Nemo 09:15, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Update on Wiki Loves Women March drive
Hello!

During March, Wiki Loves Women ran the Tell Us About Her campaign on the ISA Tool. The drive was aimed at improving the visibility of political leaders and activists across Africa on Wikimedia projects. If you do not know it yet, the ISA tool is a fun and mobile-friendly tool that helps players to add better descriptions to photographs within selected categories that have been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. The descriptions make the images more useful on Wikipedia and Wikidata. The information that is added to the image description is structured data (in the form of depicts or captions). Categories chosen for the Tell Us More About Her campaign were related to politicians, activists and, in particular, feminists based in Africa.

You can find out more about the campaign and the results here. There are many campaigns currently running on the ISA Tool, this was the first women-focused one. Please feel free to add your own!

-- Isla Haddow (talk) 11:03, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Africa 2021
Would anyone be interested in joining or organizing in their country the photographic contest Wiki Loves Africa 2021 ? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Africa. This year theme will be "Health and well-being" and contest will take place mid-feb till mid-april.

If interested, contact me. Rapid grants requests to participate (Wiki Loves Africa 2021/Participating countries) must be done to the Wikimedia Foundation before 15 December. Anthere (talk) 23:25, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Chad
I want to lead calls for the revival of the portal for this country. It is at the centre of so much going these times. Bokoharamwatch (talk) 18:44, 28 May 2021 (UTC)