User talk:Renamed user ixgysjijel/Archive5

Congo Wars
The other Congo Wars articles (and the Congo Crisis article begin with You may be looking for &elipsis; intro lines. I really don't understand who decided that the Congo Crisis is not the first Congo war, but I presume there is a logic.  In any case, either all should have "you may be looking for", or none should.  --Red King 23:34, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually, neither First Congo War or Second Congo War have dabs on top, simply because it is hard to imagine the process by which one would type those into the search engine if one didn't have a clear idea of the target. Congo war and others redirect to the disambiguation page at Congo Civil War for general terms.  "Congo Crisis" might conceivably be typed in by someone who was trying to find information on the recent conflicts, which is why there is a dab on top.  For the (not easy) decision process on how to divide the pages, see Talk:Second Congo War.  In short, First and Second Congo War used to be one article at Congo Civil War and nobody would start an article about the war at independence because nobody could figure out what it should be called.  After the division, the History of the Congo template was created to make navigation easier.  I think that there are clear reasons to have a dab on top of Congo Crisis, which could conceivably refer to the recent conflicts, and not the recent wars, which are too wordy to be easily guessed at. Cheers,   BanyanTree 23:58, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

(note from 82.14.76.118)
bellend cant you read? I said make edits where appropiate not to delete it! If you find the word 'cock' offensive then change it to penis but dont go deleting my work ok mate. comment by troll User:82.14.76.118. I added the section header for clarity -  BanyanTree 19:16, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

yeah and my article was not 'incoherent'!!! Skooky 10:56, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Whatever you say. Rather than creating an article to muse about what a word might mean, it might be easier to use the Where to ask a question link from the Main Page.  Cheers,   BanyanTree 11:10, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Thank you!
Just wanted to say thanks again for the Admin nomination and vote of confidence! -- Gyrofrog (talk) 04:55, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
 * It's well deserved. Good luck with all the new bells and whistles. :) -   BanyanTree 09:20, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Re:contribution to Lord's Resistance Army
Hi BanyanTree, it was a current event news feed and I may continue to do the same if I came across other related news events. I will however leave the decision to keep or remove these sniplets to you or other guys; you don't have to inform me again, just a short edit summary will do. Cheers. --Vsion 17:31, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
 * OK, fair enough. Thanks for your updates to Current Events.  -   BanyanTree 17:36, 5 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I would also like to commend you on your excellent contributions to these Africa-related articles. I'm new on these, so updating with these events is a way for me to find out more. Talking about current events, I'm trying to revive Current events in Africa. There are several motivations, one of which is to create those red links to see what are the neglected topics. If you have any suggestion, please let me know. --Vsion 17:45, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

african language questions
Hey, I am planning on volunteering in Africa for extended periods time in the relatively distant future (3-5 years) and have questions about the usefulness of particular languages. I am going to be signing up for a class within the next few days where I have both French (level 1 wiki-babel experience) and Swahili (no experience) available to me as options. My main intersts African interests lie in Southern and Central Africa, with special interest in the DR Congo and to lesser degree, Kenya. I ethnologically researched Bantu languages including Swahili, and I am curious as to what degree Swahili is similar to other Bantu tongues (ie Zulu). You should know i am an undergrad. college student living in the United States will live here for the next several years, in all likelyhood. That said, my question consists of two parts:

1. How difficult is speaking amongst differing Bantu languages, Swahili is grouped in the Narrow Bantu - Central family, along with most of the other languages I am interested in. Is the difference relatively minor, where there are mostly just dialects (i.e. much like Indian languages [Hindi, Urdu]) which would allow me to easily, or is it the connection more like that of the Romances languages of Europe?

2.As someone living in the United States, I have almost unlimited access to French language materials and learning tools. My interest in the DR Congo combined with this availability and the fact that I have already taught myself up to an intermediate level of skill cause me to think that I may be better off running with the French and concrentrating heavily on it. Is this a better idea?

Basically, what I am asking is which of these would better suit me for aiding those in need in Southern/Central Africa (maximize the number of Africans I can communicate with). I know this is rather long. Thank you for your time. --Gozar 04:44, 6 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Swahili is not very similar to Zulu. I speak a fair bit of swahili, but it does not help in Zululand. I would say French is a much better bet - certainly very useful in West Africa, and Rwanda/Burundi, and (I think) DRC. Wizzy&hellip; &#9742;   11:51, 6 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I'll basically repeat Wizzy. French is definitely more useful in central Africa for almost every sort of interaction, since anyone with an education will speak some French.  If you are planning on working with poor rural women, who would be least likely to speak French, then it might be worth considering Swahili as a lead into the local language but even then I'd probably still go with French so you could operate effectively in a country like DRC.
 * A dialect of Swahili is spoken in eastern DRC, but there are some significant vocabulary changes. I had a Muganda friend, who spoke the market-level of Swahili that is common in Uganda, who found that after several months of working with Rwandan refugees she would follow most Kinyarwanda conversations.  Given that knowledge of two Bantu languages and some extended contact was required to get a firm hold on a third that was geographically close, I wouldn't bet on being able to transition from a medium level of academic knowledge of Swahili into an entirely different Bantu language with any sort of ease.
 * So, go with French but I would encourage you to pick up the basic greetings, bargaining words (numbers, "how much?", etc), and directions (where is?, left, right, etc) in Swahili as well, as people will know those in regions quite distant from East Africa. One of my most ridiculous experiences was backpacking into Rwanda and realizing that of the three languages that one could operate in (Kinyarwanda, French and Swahili), I was most knowledgeable in Swahili and that was limited to phrases like "I want to go to..." and "I want beans and rice".  I ate so much beans and rice there!  Except one time when I got my words messed up and ended up with fried bread and mutton in an oily sauce.  :D Ha! I'm still not sure what I actually said to get that.  -   BanyanTree 16:58, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Hey there
Hey BanyanTree!

Seems like the previous guy on this IP wasn't playing by the rules with his 3RR stuff. I'll be hanging around for a little bit. Thanks for keeping on the ball around Wikipedia. Just to let you know, your work is really appreciated here, and I'm really glad to see so many people dedicated to this project. Cheers, and have an excellent day! --216.191.200.1 13:18, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks! -  BanyanTree 16:36, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Kassala
I noticed you added this edit without explaining the dramatic drop in population five years later - was it a poor estimate, health epidemic, war, or something else? I don't know where you got the figure, so could you please add some context as appropriate to that article. Thanks. Mindmatrix 17:15, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I've added an explanation at Talk:Kassala and removed the contradictory information. Sheer mental laziness on my part when I was merging over a duplicate page that someone had created, which did not make the distinction between the state and the town. Thanks for pointing it out. -   BanyanTree 18:10, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Also, thanks for your help with stub sorting. Your name is on over a page of my watchlist.  :) -   BanyanTree 18:21, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, and sorry I filled your screen with my pseudonym! (I would mark them as minor edits so you could filter them out, but I ususally also clean up articles while I'm stubbing them, so marking them as minor isn't really appropriate.) Mindmatrix 19:14, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Avian influenza
Thanks for fixing up Avian influenza - it certainly needed it. Wizzy&hellip; &#9742;   11:31, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I decided to break out the proverbial chainsaw after I found myself transferring misinformation from other Wikipedia articles into Spanish flu.  I'm still very unhappy with the state of such a major article; there's a lot of definitional issues that need to be worked out.  In particular, there needs to be a clear distinction between avian influenza and H5N1, so people don't keep dropping info specific to substrains into the genus page.  And I have the sneaking suspicion that I'm doing something ridiculously ignorant as this is far afield from my usual hunting grounds. -   BanyanTree 14:27, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

(edit by MarketUganda)
I was wondering why my site(MarketUganda) was being deleted everytime i added it. Whats fun is i was on of the first persons to add some of the external links on the Uganda Page and I of course included my own page. I find it unfair that my site cant be listed when i have helped to add the other external links which are by any meaning not so different from mine. I'm already listed in dmoz, so i dont see why my site cant be listed. from User:MarketUganda -  BanyanTree 14:53, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Hi MarketUganda, Wikipedia is quite strict about what is not allowed and links to commercial sites with limited relevance clearly applies. Note that you are currently in an edit war with three other users over your link, two of whom are admins.  Thank you for your useful edits to the Uganda page, but the link will not be allowed to stay up. More information can be found at WP:SPAM.  Cheers,   BanyanTree 14:53, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Yoweri Museveni
Hey BT, was just wondering what you thought should be done to the YM article before submission to FAC. I think that trimming is probablt the order of the day rather than adding reams more stuff. Even in it's current state, I am pretty sure that the article would graduate pretty quickly in FAC, but I still want something we're happy with first and foremost. What are your thoughts? No worries if you don't have time to participate in a FA push. TreveXtalk 23:21, 17 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi Trevex. The article is incredible, with a lot of detail I wasn't aware of.  I think you're right in saying that, if anything, it needs to be streamlined.  The laborious way of doing this would be to move info into History of Uganda, National Resistance Army, etc but I'm not sure what the current attitude toward long articles is at FAC and it's worth seeing what the critiques are before spending a lot of time working on it.  The one thing is that I generally limit any section with a "Main article" link to a max three paragraphs as the main article should handle details, so the section on 1985 Nairobi Agreement could be condensed.  I feel uncomfortable contemplating structural edits to an article that flows as well as this one, but could certainly break out the wiki-scalpel if there's a need to trim it down.  (I've actually been thinking about making a couple subpages from the LRA article because it's just too darn long for a convenient read.)
 * Frankly, I don't have the level of background knowledge to make an informed critique of content but I have one question: in the line "The RPF melted away into the Vumba mountains straddling the Rwanda/Uganda border." are you sure it's Vumba and not Virunga?
 * My wikitime has dropped quite a bit recently as the job has gotten silly, but I'll try to help respond to FAC comments and can certainly have a go at cutting it down if you want. Cheers,   BanyanTree 00:06, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Kampala
Sorry for my bad english, but I think, if one wants to find what is Buganda, then will find it. --KirkEN 21:33, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
 * The issue is that stating "Kampala is the capital of Uganda and Buganda" creates an equivalence between the two. Kampala is first and foremost the capital of Uganda, and that needs to be emphasized clearly.  Adding extra information in the first line just makes the text harder to follow and confuses vital facts with comparative sidenotes, in the view of the encyclopedia reader. -   BanyanTree 21:52, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

MarketUganda
Since I was thinking that someone outside was deleting the site everytime I had added it, i never realised that it was the admins that were deleting the site. But i think its weird that other "commercial" sites are allowed and listed, but not MarketUganda. My main goal for the site is to offer visitors an easy way to access uganda related web sites, a resource that is appreciated among many but if you choose to ignore it, then i have to say that its not in line with Wikipedias original idea. An simple example is if you strickly forvid commercial links, the Yahoo would not be listed, so how do you defend that? As i mentioned when i discovered Wikipedia, there were almost no external Uganda related links and I took the chance to add some on the different Wikipedia's versions. Had i known that you would saw that as spaming, well, I would have done things differently.
 * Hi MarketUganda, There is a line between legitimately useful commercial sites and spam that has been placed mainly for commercial purposes that has to be decided by Wikipedians. One of the marks of the latter is if the person putting the link in has an edit history consisting of nothing but putting the single external link in (Marketuganda and 83.233.36.192), rapidly reverts its removal and uses an IP sockpuppet to try to sneak it back in after it has been reverted (reverted by me).  I note the addition of no other links besides MarketUganda.  Users whose edit history consists of nothing but adding commercial links have very little credibility for arguing about their addition of commercial links, and thus none to fall back on when engaging in an edit war.  I would let it rest. -   BanyanTree 13:48, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Little Rock Nine
Thanks so much for your help, it is greatly appreciated. - Solar 09:29, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Rosa Parks
Hello, Thank you for the note about the dates on the Rosa Parks page. It's a good tip to know. I'm still relatively new to Wikipedia. --speedoflight 16:04, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

29 October 2005 Delhi blasts

 * Ummm... thanks. I see that you have removed without edit summary or comment on talk my contribution on the Pakistani response, which I added given that the history of such incidents would lead many to immediately suspect Pakistani involvement.  The removal seems rather reactionary, but I don't care enough to contest it.  In any case, I have put it a blurb on ITN and will leave you to it. -   BanyanTree 17:08, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

advice templates and formating
Hey, I really like having templates on pages, as a sort of see also, but better formatted. I am thinking about adding one to pages on the Sierra Leone Civil War. I made one really quick, based on Template:Islam, at User:Smmurphy/template:mano river conflict (to be retitled, my original name idea was too ambitious). I have a couple of questions. Maybe I should be asking someone else, feel free to pass me along.Smmurphy 05:09, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) I want Sierra Leone Civil War to be written larger in the first line, but i think that just adding   a couple of times would be too ad hoc.  Do you have any idea how I could do this?
 * 2) Is a template like this appropriate?  Do I have the right idea about when to use a template?
 * 3) I have a tendency to use too many/short sections, since I like how articles look and their improved readability with them; an ideal wp would have lots of sections, I think.  I now fear that I could replace the word section with templates and the same would be true (i understand templates are deleted if they are too useless, and I think I could make them seem usefull enough to avoid that).  Is this bad?  What if there was a template connecting all fuzzy logic topics, or the Liberian Civil War topics, or east coast rap?  Is that too much?
 * Hi Smmurphy, I think a navigation template for Sierra Leone Civil War would be very useful. I've done some minor edits already; hope you don't mind.
 * I don't understand what you mean in this point. If you want the font size larger, you can increase the number in , but my personal sense is that even +1 would be fine in indicating a title.
 * I like navigation templates, especially for complicated topics. The only time that I have seen an edit war over navigation templates is when they overlapped - countries in Africa vs member states of the African Union.
 * I tend to be less happy with a lot of sections consisting of one-paragraph. It often strikes me as a result of editors not having thought through the structure of an article and how topics flow into each other so they end up chopping it into discrete bits and substituting a long TOC for an explanation of how subtopics interrelate. Of course, for most of the Africa article I work on the problem is that the main body of the article is an undifferentiated mass begging for a couple sections.  But enough of my ranting, generally speaking I think a medium length article can handle up to to two templates without it being excessive if they are useful like a 'navigation template ("this article is an integral part of a web of articles on Topic A", e.g. Rwandan Genocide), a chronology navigation template (e.g. History of the DRC) or a 'group member' template ("this article topic is a member of Group A", e.g. Africa).
 * A couple of other comments:
 * All of the articles on Islam have this template, which is why there is a "Part of the series on the..." on it. Do you actually intend to put this template on Mende tribe?  If not, then the "part of a series" text should probably be removed for clarity.
 * This template is really long. Ideally, you would be able to see all of it on the screen at one time.  You can reduce the length by moving titles with shorter subjects onto one line separated by a point as Islam does and seeing how much further the topics could be pruned down to the essentials.
 * Formatting tweaks: Long article titles that go to a second line are confusing as the formatting doesn't show that the end of that title isn't a second article. Piped links to acronyms or shortened names would be in order here.  Also, the colors are currently in Islamic green; a neat tweak would be to put it in Sierra Leonean national colors.
 * Hopefully this rambling answer has been of some help. Please get back to me if you need clarification on something.  Also, a brief plug for a personal project I had almost forgotten about, I would appreciate comments on this chronology navbox that I had drafted months and months ago to bind together the many conflicts in the Great Lakes and never went live with. -   BanyanTree 15:37, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Like I said, I really like these boxes, as they allow me to parse a good deal of information quickly. So, I like yours so far, although I have two possible addition suggestions - Twa and something to do with UN involvement. I don't remember how much the Twa were involved, but I do know that some people have complained about the lack of recognision of their part in the Rwanda genocide (both killers and victims). As for the UN link, that probably reflects some sort of bias on my part, given how things are usually reported (This happened, then this, now the UN is getting involved, but the UN had to run away, so the UN . . . .UN . . . UN . . . meanwhile people are dieing, but the UN . . . UN . . .)
 * Anyway, rambling answers are great, parsimony is for the articles, not talk. I made some of the fixes you suggested.  The colors add some pizaz, I think.  I'm using the lighter SL green and the closest blue I could find.  I guess I like verticle templates more, but horizontal ones at the bottom are probably more appropriate, which do you prefer? As for length, I added a philosophy section on my main page (hopefully you will think its funny, not arrogant), which explains that if I want something to be long, I will make it long, unless someone changes it.  My other option is to do like Rwandan Genocide), and add a bunch of dabs for each topic.  That is an enticing option - something like this will tend to last, I think, so it would be nice to do it right.  I'll have to think about it. Smmurphy 05:00, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I like the new colors and the length of the template. The vertical one is more useful, I would think, placed just after the TOC so people could jump to a related page after reading the introductory paragraph...  The horizontal ones placed on the bottom tend to be for templates of groups of articles all at the same level of hierarchy.  I also did a formatting tweak so no line ended in a dash.  All in all, it looks like it's ready to go live.
 * Also, thanks for your comments on my drafted navbox. There are some major holes in the Great Lakes chronology, but it may be worth putting it out in articles so people can fiddle with it.  I read your philosophy statement and can relate to the "10 people" line.  I'm so used to having pretty much free reign within my normal editing sphere that the inevitable clashes when I edit a core page like In The News probably seem more antagonistic than they really are.  Cheers,   BanyanTree 16:20, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for all of your help. Its live, and I added it to a bunch of pages.  Hopefully I didn't add it to too many or too few.  I guess the point is to add it to pages where the reader can use it to aid surfing, so hopefully it works well.Smmurphy 06:49, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks, I didn't know about that. I've now updated my user page with that, it is very useful. Thanks again for the heads up :) -Greg Asche (talk) 01:58, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Not at all. I still remember when I first realized how to do it. Cheers,   BanyanTree 02:35, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

thank's
Thank's for the tip, but I must warn you that I'm a Spanish user of Wikipedia. I'm not going to contribute except in a few and small things, like Tongoy (one of the most beatifoul places in the World. Bye

--Rakela 01:07, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Chronic subtle vandalism?
Hello - I think I've been here before! My IP address has been blocked for "chronic subtle vandalism". Not sure why, I haven't been personally warned before this block, but a few months ago this happened and was sorted out after a day or so. Being an AOL user, IP addresses can often cause all manner of problems; unless I really am a trouble maker (and I really don't think I am), I think this block is a well-intentioned mistake. I mean no harm or offence, I have been contributing to articles for months now, have a Barnstar to prove it!!

I trust this is a mistake unless there have been complaints made against me? Hope this can be resolved, I mean nothing but good here. doktorb 04:49, 7 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi doktorb, The AOL IP I blocked has a talk page full of warnings and block notices.  I have unblocked the IP and hope that it wasn't too disruptive for you.  Regards,   BanyanTree 13:03, 7 November 2005

(UTC)


 * Ah the joys of being an AOL user! Thanks a lot for the swift reply. I always ensure I am logged in to avoid any links with anon IPs but I know how tricky it can be. Makes the whole thing that little bit more fun, eh?! Cheers doktorb 01:35, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

My Block
Why did you block me? "Chronic Subtle Vandalism"? To what, exactly? Explain your reasons and cite your evidence on my talk page please.

--Badharlick 23:04, 6 November 2005 (UTC) moved from the top of the page where I had missed it until now due to many edits to my talk page -  BanyanTree 14:32, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Military history of Sudan
Since the Collaboration of the Week folks are known for preferring Military Histories of countries, I nominated Military history of Sudan. It has been six days since then, and I have only received one more vote. Unless I get one more vote supporting this nomination, it will be closed tomorrow. Please add your support at WP:COTW/Military history of Sudan. Also see WP:COTW/Languages of Sudan. &mdash; BRIAN 0918 &bull; 2005-11-7 14:56
 * Hi Brian0918, I can contribute some for post-Independence conflicts and have added my vote. Look forward to a link to fuzzy wuzzy.  -   BanyanTree 15:59, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Abuja Agreement
I've noticed that a lot of treaties are signed in and named after Abuja, Nigeria. I decided to make the page Abuja Agreement into a dab, so I could link it to the treaty signed in Liberia, and so I wouldn't confuse it with the Abidjan Peace Accord signed during the conflict in Sierra Leone. I was wondering if you could check the list of treaties I've made there (especially since I included one for the Darfur conflict). Its redlinks right now, do you think treaties are inherently significant enough for a stub, or should they be rl until someone expirienced can fill them out? Is there a consensus on naming in this case (my names are like: Abuja Accord (Liberia))?Smmurphy 00:27, 8 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't see any one Abuja Agreement that is obviously more important that another so a dab looks like a good solution. I'm all for stub in the lack of actual articles.  I normally don't start one unless I have at least three sentences worth of information, but have certainly seen one-sentence substubs gradually grow into interesting stubs or short articles over a course of months.  There isn't really a formal naming policy, but Nairobi Agreement, which is also a dab, uses years rather than locations. -   BanyanTree 00:59, 8 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the copy edit, that was worse writing than usual for me ; ) I guess I like using dates better, as multiple countries may be involved, etc.  BTW, do you know when to use "agreement" and when to use "accord," i don't know the difference?Smmurphy 02:03, 8 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't actually. Accord sounds like it should be more comprehensive, but they seem to be used interchangeably.  -   BanyanTree 09:03, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

My RFA
Thank you very much for supporting my rather contentious request for adminship, but now that I've been promoted, I'd like to do a little dance here *DANCES*. If you have any specific issues/problems with me, please feel free to state them on my talk page so that I can work to prevent them in the future, and thanks once again! ALKIVAR &trade; 07:34, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Baku
A significant number of the refugees are from Chechnya and the North Caucasus. I would speculate that some others are coming from the Nagorno-Karabakh region, and perhaps a few Iranian Azeris. &lt;nowiki&gt;&lt;/nowiki&gt;&amp;mdash;&#91;&#91;User:Thames&#124;thames]] 17:46, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Ah. That's what I get for editing in an area that I know nothing about.  Thanks for correcting me. - BanyanTree 18:21, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I officially hate YM
Hey BT, glad to see about Museveni. To be honest, I'm still not happy with it and will enjoy tweaking it before its 24 hours of glory. Disgusted to see that he has finally lost the plot. have you seen the news recently??! It makes me want to buy a £400 ticket over there and write for the monitor until they throw me out. Involved with lots of fairtrade activism down my neck of the woods, and thus my wikibreak. btw, if you're ever in the UK be sure to look me up. TreveXtalk 02:06, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that thing with the gunmen outside the courthouse is just absurd. At least we don't have to wonder about his motivations anymore.  I'm actually surprised that the Monitor is still in operation at this point.  It all deserves a good description on WP.  There's a fair amount of activity over at Kizza Besigye, but I look forward to your edits to M7.
 * Good to hear that you are off doing good when not on the wiki. I've been thinking that I need to take a break myself, but I keep coming back "just" to check on anon edits to my watchlist.  Kate's counter recently told me that one year ago today I started editing on Wikipedia, after being appalled at the state of the LRA stub.  Thanks for the invite and will do so.  Cheers, BanyanTree 15:20, 18 November 2005 (UTC)