Talk:Liberia/Archive 2

Settlement
There is no discussion on what effect the American invasion had on the extant 16 tribes. Why? Also, what was the country called before being annexed by the Americans? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.57.20.50 (talk) 12:19, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure if American invasion is the right term, which brings up the question, what was the legal status of Liberia before it declared independence and before settlement began. was it a colony or a sphere of influence. The ACS was not a government organization, did it have a charter? Rds865 (talk) 20:10, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Question:  Liberia declared independence, says the article. From whom or what nation?Katydidn&#39;t (talk) 09:54, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Paragraph
Who wrote this completely confusing paragraph: "With some financial support from the U.S., after prompting from Taylor,[citation needed] now a prominent warlord and leader of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, that the Nigerians and Ghanains were opposed to him, Senagalese troops were brought in. Their service was however shortlived, after a major confrontation with Taylor forces.[citation needed]"

??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.162.1.41 (talk) 18:12, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Famous Liberians
I've removed practically the entire list, as it was just a list of names, no wikification or links to articles. That leaves one name, with no source as to his having been born in Liberia. Corvus cornix talk  22:13, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Currency
Currently on U.S. television there is a commemorative $20 bill for sale, commemorating the Twin Towers, and as a special feature, it has the number 9 on the left quadrant and 11 on the right quadrant of one side of the bill which is in silver leaf. The Twin Towers = the World Trade Center, in Manhattan,which was attacked by airplanes on 9/11 = Sept.11  Offered at the special price of $20 U.S.  Katydidn&#39;t (talk) 10:07, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I finally got the website for this "dollar": https://www.911twenty.com/flare/next Katydidn&#39;t (talk) 07:29, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Significant mid-twentieth century events: End of Africa's First Republic???
Liberia was not Africas first republic. There were at least six founded in What is today South Africa before the Liberian Republic was declared.See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boer_republics —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.14.218.82 (talk) 10:50, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Liberia's Rivers
"Liberia's three largest rivers are St. Paul exiting near Monrovia, the river St. John at Buchanan and the Cestos River, all of which flow into the Atlantic. The Cavalla is the longest river in the nation at 515 kilometres (320 mi)." It doesn't make much sense to name Liberia's three "largest" rivers and then name a fourth which is the longest in the nation. Perhaps it should read "Liberia's four largest rivers are...." 76.123.208.229 (talk) 15:56, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 20:42, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Take down the flag
There is nothing promotional left in the Sirleaf section. It sounds fairly neutral to me, and I have had no interest in Liberia at all.

DF —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.230.240.89 (talk) 23:26, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the previous contributor. I stumbled onto this page, and I wondered what the flag meant. I don't know what this section was like before, but now it is a neutral statement of verifiable facts. OldBoar (talk) 15:01, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Africa's first republic??
Shouldn't this be first MODERN republic? Is mentioning Carthage too pedantic? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.84.236.66 (talk) 15:55, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Sources for expansion/citations

 * PBS
 * Source for culture expansion/cites. Aboutmovies (talk) 09:12, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Spelling/Units
From my research and sourcing for this and other Liberian articles using official government sources and local media: measurements are Imperial, except temps which use Celsius. Spelling is a mixture of UK and American English, for instance programme, but both kilometer and kilometre. As to the conversion templates, those should remain in use, if one spelling is preferred over the other, the template is designed for that, see Convert. Ideally though, the order should be reversed to miles first, which would also eliminate the spelling differences. Aboutmovies (talk) 09:42, 30 July 2009 (UTC)


 * This article was originally written in American English, so, per WP policy/guidelines, it should be in American English (whether or not the govt. is consistent).
 * Template "is designed for that"? Why do I even have to think about adding a spelling switch? I saw a discussion a while back on the template page. I thought this would have been resolved by now. The units should be entered into the template as they are to be spelled in the results. Can't that be fixed? PeterH2 (talk) 10:19, 30 July 2009 (UTC)


 * For the template, you add |sp=us and that's it. But, again, the listing of the values needs to be reversed as they use imperial and not metric in Liberia, which solves any spelling problem of km.
 * As to your WP:ENGVAR item, actually you might want to study that a little closer, and take a minute to reflect on your statement. If we go by your contention, if someone from the USA first wrote the article about Australia using American English, then that would mean the article would have to remain in American English. That just isn't how that works, as ENGVAR explains: "An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation uses the appropriate variety of English for that nation."
 * Here, Liberia is an English-speaking nation, thus we use their variety of English. Which tends to be a hybrid due to its founding by US folks, but being in a more British region, and some later ties to Britain. The part that you are attempting to implement (WP:RETAIN) clearly states: "...unless there are reasons for changing it based on strong national ties to the topic." Thus per it, and WP:COMMONSENSE, is that the national variety for a nation trumps any prior use. RETAIN is meant more for articles such as automobile or physics and other universal articles. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:58, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Bias
There's bias in this bit here "The harsh dictatorial atmosphere that gripped the country was due largely to Samuel Doe's rule. ", which is just under the 1989 and 1999 Civil Wars section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wta121 (talk • contribs) 16:43, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

In the History section it is stated that "Economic development was hindered by the low level of civilization in the country". If this is not an error then this is a racist statement and needs to be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nuclearslayer114 (talk • contribs) 10:57, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Original Research?
Could the editor who questioned the weights and measures section explain his concern about it? It appears that most if not all the information is verified. Where is the problem? Michael Glass (talk) 10:24, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The issue is one of synthesis. It is verifiable that a certain government report used miles as a unit of measurement and some other used kilometers.  What is original research is to point to primary documents about bridges and roads and synthesize that to make a conclusion about the consistency of units of measure in Liberia.  Almost everything in that section after "the reality is less clear cut" is original research.  What you need is a reliable secondary source that says that the use of units of measure is inconsistent, and then you can cite that rather than citing specific government reports. Oren0 (talk) 21:53, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. As I understand it, the evidence I cited is not the problem, but concluding that the evidence is not clearcut is a step too far for you. Is that the way you see it? Michael Glass (talk) 22:27, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I have now removed the phrase that could be classed as a conclusion, but left the evidence of the usage. Michael Glass (talk) 03:41, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate that both systems are used together in the article, much like the United States, just use common sense. In grocery stores in America, everything is in pounds with the equivalent SI measure below in small print. Why, then, would Liberia need to convert to SI? Just asking, Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 00:24, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Contradictions
"Of the population, 4% hold indigenous beliefs, 85% are Christians, and 12% are Muslims.[3]" "It is estimated that as much as 40 percent of the population of Liberia practices either Christianity or Christianity combined with elements of traditional indigenous religious beliefs.[60] Approximately 40 percent exclusively practices traditional indigenous religious beliefs.[60] An estimated 20 percent of the population practices Islam"

So which is it? 98.176.12.43 (talk) 03:54, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Americo-Liberians
The Demographics section says that only 2.5% are Americo-Liberians. The history section lurches from the 19th century where the place is set up and apparently run by the Americo-Liberians to 20th century where there is no mention of them (except by virtue of Surnames Doe Taylor? etc). Do the Americo-Liberians constitute some sort of elite or have they just disappeared. There should be ome discussion of what happened to them and current position in liberian society. DeCausa (talk) 18:34, 31 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I heard that they constituted an elite in the early days. They own southern-style plantations, sat on the verandah sipping mint juleps, and watched their slaves pick cotton. Zyxwv99 (talk) 13:52, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Weights and Measures
I don't understand the significance of this section. The U.S. hasn't adopted the metric system (shame on us). Why should Liberia's adoption merit more than a single sentence along the lines of "as recently as X (year), Liberia was using the Imperial/English System of weights and measures [cite], but has moved recently to adopt the metric system. [cite]" or "is transitioning to the metric system." I could even see adding another sentence "as of Y (year) weather is being reported in degrees Celsius."

The purpose of an encyclopedia article is to provide information that the general reader would need to know (or want to know?) about a subject. The general reader is someone who knows nothing, or very little about a particular subject and wants to know more. I don't understand why a general reader would want to know about Liberia's system of weights to this degree of detail. Can someone explain? Ileanadu (talk) 03:02, 11 March 2011 (UTC)


 * You have a point; for most readers this one sentence, "is transitioning to the metric system", would probably be enough. I think that summarizes the situation well, and I will write it on top of that section. However, Metrication is a topic that is interesting for many people; the section United States contains 4 sentences, and we even have a dedicated category Metrication by country, which currently holds 10 articles. As there is no article on Metrication in Liberia (yet), the best place to keep this is probably here. &mdash; Sebastian 19:34, 11 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The phrase "Engligh to Metric" should be changed to "Imperial to Metric." English is a language, not a system of measurements. Almost all English-speaking countries use Metric. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.168.96.61 (talk) 11:10, 22 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Metric is not a specific system, but something af system can be. the SI system is metric and the English, and the other national systems previosly know around the world, are not. ºF is metric so is ºC but inch/feet/yards/miles are not, and ºK is SI.94.145.236.194 (talk) 12:31, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

In America, we use both. Common usage is British. Years ago, General Motors and IBM converted to SI metric, so did others. Often, manufacturers use metric but we the people think in "inch/pound". It works. .!. Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 00:28, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately one of the reasons of the inclusion of such a 'non-topic' is that of chauvinism. There is/are group(s) that align themselves to being 'anti-imperial-measures' (how 'emotive'). The commonly used term is along the line of 'look at the USA - they are using imperial just like and ' (the two often used are Liberia and Burma (Myanmar).  This is despite other English speaking countries using both imperial and metric (with the UK being a major 'public' user of imperial even if some of the 'behind the scenes' legal definitions are sometimes metric, sometimes imperial).  I feel uncomfortable about the subject's inclusion due to the prejudicial way the subject is used in order for it to become an 'important point' about this country.  205.177.176.242 (talk) 16:19, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

'Congo' people
'Congo' refers to any Liberian of Western slave origin, not repatriated Black Caribbean slaves specifically or the Bakongo in central Africa, according to the article linked, and they make up around 2% of the population. Few Black Caribbean descendants would even belong to this group, most likely, since the American Colonization Society which founded Liberia was, as the name implied, focused on 'repatriating' American slaves. With the Creole people of Sierra Leone, slaves were 'repatriated' by the British from former English speaking West Indian colonies as well as Black Nova Scotians who descend from Black American loyalists. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.88.24.191 (talk) 21:44, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Human rights in Liberia
The article "Human rights in Liberia" redirects to Liberia which doesn't have anything in it about human rights. Even if this old version (or newer than this one) which had a section about human rights weren't so up-to-date, it's highly important to have at least a section about human rights. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 04:18, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Literacy Rates

I don't think the literacy rates section has been updated since about the 80's considering in 2009 Liberia boasted 80% female literacy — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.206.157.159 (talk) 21:27, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Jeopardy (TV) question
The final question on April 23rd (2014) was: Which country celebrates the birthday of William Tubman for leading the country for nearly three decades? Answer: Liberia. (FYI, not for editing the article.) -- Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 01:27, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Origin of the name "Liberia"
Given the history it's pretty clear the name is derived from either directly from the English "liberty" or from the Latin root "libertas" (or both), either way meaning "freedom", and that is a rather key piece of information that ought to be mentioned in the lede. Does anyone have a reliable source for it?  Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 14:12, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Let's see what we can find. The first sentence of the right part of the lede gives their Motto: "The love of liberty brought us here." -- Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 00:04, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Ebola
"We are going to establish a command post in Liberia", President Barack Hussein Obama -- Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 20:38, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Liberia
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Liberia's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "hrw": From Eritrea: Eritrea Human Rights Overview Human Rights Watch From Foreign relations of Liberia: Guinea: Refugees Still at Risk, Human Rights Watch, Vol. 13, No. 5 (A) From Zimbabwe:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 02:33, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Non-existent Source (#104)
Source number 104 doesn't exist. I assume it existed at the time it was cited, but the website/webpage is down. This is the sentence that it verifies for easy reference: "The country's education sector is hampered by inadequate schools and supplies, as well as a lack of qualified teachers." If I did something wrong, I blame it on being new. Precociouspi (talk) 01:42, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

New NEWS today, for future editing
Amazingly, the Ebola outbreak has been contained in Liberia, it seems. Headline-1: Just five Ebola cases left in Liberia, government says QUOTE: "Liberia, once the epicentre of West Africa's deadly Ebola epidemic, has just five remaining confirmed cases of the disease, a senior health official said on Friday, highlighting the country's success in halting new infections. The worst Ebola outbreak on record has killed more than 8,600 people in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Earlier this year at the height of the outbreak in Liberia, hospitals without beds for new patients were forced to turn away victims and bodies were left in the streets. But a massive international response, including the deployment of hundreds of U.S. troops to build treatment centres, plus a public awareness campaign, contributed to a steep decline in infection rates." -- AstroU (talk) 23:16, 25 January 2015 (UTC) -- PS: FYI for future editing.
 * http://news.yahoo.com/just-five-ebola-cases-left-liberia-government-says-073729698.html

External links modified
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Local Government
In the Counties and Districts subsection, can someone had a subsection about local government in Liberia? I've been trying to find information on the issue, and have hit a wall. Are there any municipalities/municipal corporations for cities, towns and/or villages, and what level of administration are they at? I'd imagine below the level of a district, though maybe Monrovia is a special case? Someone explain this. Another confusing this is the legal status of the Greater Monrovia District. I've seen sources saying that it's not actually a district, but that seems hard to believe since districts are supposed to cover the entirety of Liberia since they are subdivisions of counties. --Criticalthinker (talk) 11:03, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Lead needs improvement
It should be shortened and have less focus on early colonial history, more about indigenous peoples.Parkwells (talk) 16:20, 4 December 2015 (UTC)


 * My changes were reverted and the Lead is again too long, too detailed and concentrating too much on the country's colonial years, while overlooking much indigenous material.Parkwells (talk) 23:20, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Expansion of early and 19th century history
Have begun to add to the history and colonization sections, including more about relation to the slave trade and similarities to Sierra Leone development. More has to be said about relations with indigenous peoples, as well as topics such as education, development, religion, etc. Have added some material from the language articles and articles about major groups such as the Grebo. This are not well-sourced, so editors need to allow time to add sources and cites here. Parkwells (talk) 17:59, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Proposition of subsection on security
Hello,

I suggest a subsection on security for the section on politics. Kind regards, Sarcelles (talk) 09:21, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Entire fourth para reads weird
Especially the sentence beginning "Although". 81.151.50.212 (talk) 23:41, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Security section
Although the Second Liberian Civil War ended in 2003, security still is fragile. Many of the women were raped in the course of the civil war. There is a United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). Using tap water is dangerous. Seeing a doctor or going to a hospital within areas affected by Ebola virus disease is dangerous, too.


 * The above subsection was added under "Politics" section, but it's disjointed and doesn't make much sense. I've moved the section here so someone can improve it and integrate it back into the article. --Iamozy (talk) 15:21, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Semi-protected edit request on 29 October 2016
We want the percentage of African Americans in Liberia to show as we depict not in other category America Liberians are still apart of our ethnic group African American here's my situation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americo-Liberians

208.54.80.193 (talk) 06:48, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. — Andy W. ( talk ) 05:00, 2 November 2016 (UTC)