Paul Hjul

Hi there, and welcome to Wikipedia! I see you've been around for a while, so you have some idea of what's going on, but here are some useful links, anyway:

• Welcome, newcomers - a general introduction, and a good starting point
• The help centre and FAQs
• The Manual of Style - a guide to the community's writing conventions

Also, welcome to Wikipedia:WikiProject South African municipalities. It's good to have someone else on board.

In response to some of your queries about data for the project: I'm not sure where the area data is coming from, but the use who's been automatically creating pages recently is User:Waynedam. He'd be the best person to ask about where he got that data from.

Anyway, don't forget to be bold, keep your cool, and have fun. -Kieran 19:04, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup Templates

I noticed that you recently applied an improperly formatted cleanup template. I have fixed the template, but felt I should tell you that it needed to be replaced. You can find a list of properly formatted cleanup templates here. Please note that it is never appropriate to substitute a cleanup tag.

Thank you very much for your contributions to Wikipedia. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Alphachimp ^talk 23:20, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Grahamstown

They are indeed my photos; I spent six months in RSA in 2003 and am just now putting some of the pictures on Wikipedia, since lots of the SA pages seem to be a bit lacking in them. Totsiens, Tim giddings 10:10, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

SA History

Are you 196.34.167.130?

re. South Africa Act 1909. I have a copy of the Act here. Essentially I am going through it section by section, summarising the content for the article (referencing each legal proposition as I go along). I think anything more than an outline of the Act's legal content is best put elsewhere. Any discussion of the various features of the constitution (as taken from Thompson's book, for instance) could go in an article about the Convention, or perhaps in The Constitution of the Union of South Africa (or similar). The life and times of the Union could then go into the Union article (with more detailed sub-articles as appropriate, eg Maritz Rebellion, Constitutional Crisis). The History of South Africa article would serve as a brief precis of all the various SA history articles, brought together in one place for the reader, who could then look at the main articles if he wanted more detail. How does that sound, conceptually speaking?

Thanks for the good wishes re my work on the life of the Oubaas. The first article, Early life of Jan Smuts seems to be almost FA standard, Jan Smuts in the South African Republic is a very rough, unreferenced draft, the others I have not touched yet. When I started out I had no idea just how much work would be required to do the job well! I have a mass of notes and references now though, so I should be able to start to get things sorted out soon.

Best wishes, Xdamr^talk 16:01, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

re. wikisourcing the SA Act 1909. Excellent idea, one which I hadn't considered. I was under a hazy impression that such repoduction might not be allowed without permission (Crown copyright), but I did a simple search and came up with 'Reproduction of Legislation, seems to give us carte blanche.

All this leads me to consider the role of the South Africa Act 1909 page. I don't think that my continuing to summarise the Act is useful if we have the actual text, perhaps we should turn this into the more discursive page with discussion of the various features?

So, we would then have:

• Wikisource Act's text
• South Africa Act 1909 - Discussion of Act; this would be the 'Constitution of the Union of SA' page. Most of the Constitution section of the Union of SA article could move there.
• Article on the moves towards Union: Work of the Kindergarden, Self government, Customs and Railways, Union Convention, UK approval. Call it the Unification of South Africa, or similar. Perhaps, in time, there might be scope for adding details of the abortive attempts at Union such as the 1881 annexation of the Transvaal here.
• Union of South Africa - History from 1910-1961 (with sub-articles for more detailed treatment of topics as necessary, eg Maritz Rebellion, Constitutional Crisis).

How's that?

Xdamr^talk 13:11, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Sounds perfect, also other important texts can eventually land on the Wikisource. The South Africa Act article may get clumpsy, so I suspect that keeping it one article but in three sections makes sense - Section 1 A general discussion of it as the Constitution of the Union of South Africa, Section 2 The down to earth legal summary you've been putting together Section 3 - Analysis of the South Africa Act and the Constitutional structures of the Union. We can create a re-direct from 'Constitution of the Union of South Africa' to the South Africa Act. I also tend to believe that most of the non-South Africa Act constitutional matters ultimately require their own treatment elsewhere (such as National Symbolism)

Pretoria/London Conventions

I think that I started off the London Convention page (under it's formal title). I've been meaning to write an article on the history of the Transvaal for some time now, the Pretoria and London conventions would have been summarised, in much the same way as I did the SA Act 1909, and linked to in the main SAR article. They've been on the radar, on my 'long-term to-do list' for a while now. Stubs/orphaning aside, both pages are presently very much placeholder articles - I don't think that their present content should be of too much concern.

As far as merging them goes, I don't think that this is advisable. Although very much linked, they are two seperate instruments, as such I think that they merit seperate treatment. Over the weekend I'll have a go at starting them off properly. See what you think of them after that.

ps. I think that it is appropriate, for an international treaty at least, to list them under their formal titles (such as the London Convention presently is). I'll move the Pretoria Convention to Convention for the Settlement of the Transvaal Territory (with redirects set appropriately) - any objection?

pps. Do you know any other SA (or foreign) editors interested in SA history? I've been thinking for a while now that this area could do with some kind of wikiproject to coordinate effort (in much the same way as we are doing here, although on a larger scale, with more editors to get all this work done!).

Best wishes, Xdamr^talk 18:08, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I've just come across Wikipedia:WikiProject_South_Africa. It seems to be in a state of some atrophy, but perhaps could be knocked back into shape?

Xdamr^talk 18:48, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Grahamstown reply

From User talk:ScottDavis#Grahamstown

I didn't realise that there was a town in Aus with the name Grahamstown. I got quite confused when on checking the Ght entry to spot a disambiguation link (that at the time was a red link), so I was looking up to check if it was vandalism - based on the admin account that theory went down. (but by then I'd already hunted down the user page and now feel obliged to at least leave a message)

Anyway owing to the fact that I don't know how big the Australian Ght is Im not sure whether the South African article shouldn't be renamed to 'Grahamstown (South Africa)' or such? (I think not but then again Ght is partly home) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paul Hjul (talk • contribs)

The Australian Grahamstown is tiny. The Grahamstown Dam appears to be noteworthy. I live almost 2000 km away, so visiting is a little out of the question, but Google found some interesting pages. I created the {{otheruses}} and Grahamstown (disambiguation) pages just so there was somewhere to hang the links in case someone wants to link there for some other reason. Thanks for checking. Sorry I confused you by saving the main Grahamstown page before the dab page. If the South African Grahamstown were to be moved, it should be to Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, I think. --Scott Davis ^Talk 12:21, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

London Convention

Finally managed to get some more content on the page. I wasn't desperately keen to type the whole Convention out, eventually I managed to find a copy online. In a day or so I will probably wikisource the actual text, replacing it, so far as the article is concerned, with a summary. As as far as other content on the page goes, do you have any views? I've included the historical context of the Convention, though a bit more about the 1881 annexation would probably be good. Maybe note why the Pretoria Convention needed to be replaced. Any other thoughts?

re. your merge proposal, quoting from the note you left on my talk page:

I'm thinking something along the lines of an article on the Constitution of the ZAR which has each of the conventions as a section.'

I don't think that this would work very well, unfortunately (for reasons other than those I've previously mentioned). There is the actual SAR Constitution to consider. Although it didn't recieve much respect in the days of Oom Paul, it did exist as a separate document. I think that the foundation of the SAR's governance, the constitution, needs separate treatment from the foundation of the SAR's independence, the Conventions.

By the way, if you don't have the texts yourself, I found a book on the gutenberg.org site, Selected Official Documents of the South African Republic and Great Britain (1900). It has various useful texts such as the London Convention (not Pretoria unfortunately), SAR Constitution, OFS Constitution, 2nd Volksraad legislation, Franchise Law, the Ultimatum, and others. If you want a copy you should be able to find it easily enough, or I could email one across.

Xdamr^talk 01:30, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Bloemfontein

Hello. For now I've add back Bloemfontein as an university town. It seems to be a marginal case, given the size of the city. Thanks for your information. Chanheigeorge 21:18, 25 January 2007 (UTC)