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What next for capital "T" in The Gambia?

I'm starting a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#What next for The Gambia? about how to followup on the RfC which changed Wikipedia style to use a capital "T" for The Gambia mid-sentence and mid-article title. Please participate in the discussion there. Thank you,  SchreiberBike | ⌨  04:01, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Is this missing a link or some context? The discussion here and at MOS both came to no consensus, which they would have to do since—no—mid-sentence capitalized The isn't ever going to be standard English for any country. Even if some single vote in a single place got a local consensus for it (which doesn't seem to have happened), it'd be overturned in time as more readers and editors noticed the weirdness and started reacting to it.

If you were just confused by the bad research above, someone did a % analysis of the capitalizations without considering that most of the (limited) items they were counting were already in title case. You'd need to rerun the thing with normal sentences to get anything useful. — LlywelynII 13:59, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Burkina Feb 2023

What's the name of the attack that killed 70 soldiers? Bokoharamwatch (talk) 20:37, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

@Bokoharamwatch: The 2023 Oudalan attacks.[1] (Plural, because if you're thinking of an article, I think the same article could cover the attack in Tin-Akoff a couple days before.) [2] Larataguera (talk) 21:59, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Edielu Silas

Edielu silas aka silent burner is one of the prominent music makers in the ugandan musical platform. He is marked by his melodic voice that impress than unimpress his fans.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.210.147.250 (talk) 13:47, 2 March 2023 (UTC) 

Publicizing RM on Somali Civil War

Please see Talk:Somali_Civil_War#Requested_move_5_March_2023 - Tbf69 🛈 🗩 12:27, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Invitation to episode 23 of WikiAfrica Hour, titled Gender Focus

Dear all,

It is my pleasure to invite you to commemorate the International Women's Rights Month 2023 with us on episode 23 of WikiAfrica Hour titled Gender Focus.

We will be spotlighting the achievements, challenges, lessons and prospects of gender gap initiatives.

Guests include:

1. Sunshine Fionah Komusana - Coordinator, #VisibleWikiWomen campaign by Whose Knowledge?
2. User:Ciell - Volunteer, WikiProject GenderGap
3. Masana Mulaudzi - Senior Manager, Programs, Wikimedia Foundation
4. Darina - Volunteer, #SheSaid campaign, Ukraine
5. Afek Ben Chahed - Coordinator, Wiki Loves Women

• Date: 31st March 2023
• Time: 4pm UTC
• Details: w.wiki/5dft

Ceslause (talk) 21:56, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Project-independent quality assessments

Quality assessments are used by Wikipedia editors to rate the quality of articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Wikipedia:Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a |class= parameter to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project decides to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass {{WPBannerMeta}} a new |QUALITY_CRITERIA=custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:40, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Mount Kenya

Mount Kenya has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:21, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

African Queens (docu-series)

I started an article on the documentary series produced by Jada Pinkett Smith. Harizotoh9 (talk) 17:03, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Invitation to episode 24 of WikiAfrica Hour, titled Tech Ops

Fellow Wikimedians,

I'm delighted to invite you all to episode 24 of WikiAfrica Hour, titled "Tech Ops".

We will be discussing the work of the product and technology teams of Wikimedia Foundation, how the Wikimedia Foundation plans to achieve its technological goals of the 2030 Movement Strategy, the annual plan of the product team, among other interesting points.

Guest:

• Selena Deckelmann - Chief Product & Technology Officer, Wikimedia Foundation

Date:28th April 2023

Time: 3pm UTC

Details: http://w.wiki/5dft Ceslause (talk) 18:57, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Invitation to episode 25 of WikiAfrica Hour, titled Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards

Fellow Wikimedians,

I'm delighted to invite you all to episode 25 of WikiAfrica Hour, titled "Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards".

We will be discussing the Wikimedia Foundation's Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards...the categories, nomination process, timeline and many other details around the prospects.

Guests:

1. Daniel Anyorigya - Member, Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards Working Group
2. Romeo Lomora - Member, Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards Working Group
3. Olaniyan Olushola - Member, Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards Working Group
4. Winnie Kabintie - Member, Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards Working Group
5. Gwadamirai Majange - Member, Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards Working Group

• Date: 03/05/2023
• Time: 4pm UTC

Details: http://w.wiki/5dft Ceslause (talk) 12:28, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

North Africans are invaders myth

Hello, I have come to ask for help on a topic that I lack knowledge in. Recently I have been seeing claims that the modern-day inhabitants of North Africa are the descendants of invaders and that the indigenous people of North Africa are actually "Black Africans" that were forcibly removed, and that all of the accomplishments of North Africa before the spread of Islam were made by said "Black Africans". I know that these claims are untrue, but the frequency of these claims appearing before me is high enough for me to see if there was already a Wikipedia article on it. Is this topic notable enough to make into an article, especially with the recent backlash these claims have made in Egypt with Kevin Hart's show being cancelled and Netflix being sued for its portrayal of Cleopatra as a Black woman? Also, is there something I'm wrong about in this post, I'm not too knowledgeable in this subject. – Treetoes023 (talk) 05:14, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

It is interesting. I don't know if the US black power movement's pseudohistorical fringes has a single article since it's so nebulous and comes from so many different directions at once. I know the racist Reddit &c. meme form is "we was kings" but that only redirects to "List of symbols designated by the Anti-Defamation League as hate symbols", which only links to the Ancient Egyptian race controversy. It probably would be useful to have one place to redirect to, rather than having separate well-sourced debunkings at every place this pops up... but there's just tons of them. For what it's worth, though, yeah, there absolutely was an Arabicization of the entire region where leaders everywhere from the Berbers to the Somalis pretended to be Arab and have lineages tying them into Muhammad, playing down their own origins to fit into the major faith and power in the region post-invasion. That spilled over into client states and trading partners who were never even invaded themselves. Similarly, yeah, the area's early major power Carthage had a leadership and culture pulled from Tyre and the Middle East but a polity made of a mix of local people plus extensive trading ties with southern Africa even if you don't believe the legends about them rounding the entire continent by galley. — LlywelynII 13:48, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

@LlywelynII: I would support the creation of an article about the US black power movement's pseudohistorical fringes. Regarding the information you've brought up about the North Africans are invaders myth; I do know that North Africa was Arabicized heavily, but the ethnic groups there are still the same they were before Arabicization. The myth claims that before the Arabicization the people that lived there were "Black Africans" and that those people were removed during the Arabicization and replaced with the people that exist there today. Having researched this topic further, I am now certain that this is a myth. The best evidence we have that this claim is a myth is ancient DNA that was sequenced in Morocco, this DNA is so ancient that it is the oldest DNA sequenced in Africa. This ancient DNA is almost identical to the DNA of the modern inhabitants of North Africa, which supports that the modern inhabitants have always been here, even before Arabicization. It is important to note that the ancient DNA does have more "sub-Saharan African" DNA than its modern counterparts, but the decrease of "sub-Saharan African" DNA was not caused by Arabicization and instead was caused by the isolation of the two groups of people due to the increase of the size of the Sahara. The increase in size of the Sahara caused reproductive isolation and in turn genetic drift. The level of "sub-Saharan African" DNA present in North Africans reached about the same level it is now before civilizations had emerged in the world. – Treetoes023 (talk) 15:32, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Eh, that's obviously untrue. You can have many genes remaining as a statistical matter (especially mitochondrial), but the "ethnic groups" in north Africa today are only "the same" in the vaguest possible sense. Phoenicians built cities and hired mercs from across the Mediterranean, Roman legionaries were settled there, the Vandals ran an entire kingdom in the area and faced a Byzantine reconquest, Arabs intermixed for centuries, trade across the Sahara was ongoing, there were Arab occupations of Sicily and Catholic Crusades in Tunis, Ottoman pirate kings and white slave raiding, 19th-century imperialism, &c. The whole time local tribes were forming their own alliances and crushing enemies as best they could. No, Carthage wasn't majority black African but, no, the Berbers haven't been untouched by the ages either.

Oversimplifying to serve modern psychological and social purposes is where the pseudoscience is coming from on the other side. Opposing that with a new competing oversimplification isn't a decent answer. — LlywelynII 15:45, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

@LlywelynII: My apologies, I clearly have more to learn about this subject. I don't really know the history of Africa, let alone North Africa (no thanks to the American school system), and generalizing people based purely on genetic similarity and disregarding the history of those people and the area they live in is surely to lead to misinformation on my part. – Treetoes023 (talk) 15:56, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

I know, I know. The baseline is always WP:AGF. Still, I'm sometimes I'm blown away by how good some Wikipedians are. Please do keep on being a mensch, keep learning, and keep helping out the project. Thank you for cheering me up today. =) — LlywelynII 16:00, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

@LlywelynII: Thank you! It made my day knowing that I cheered you up! – Treetoes023 (talk) 16:06, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Biledulgerid

Eh... there's a stub article on this imaginary place that someone knowledgeable in NW Africa really should clean up when they have the time. We shouldn't completely delete it since it does show up on many many period maps, but we should make it clear that it wasn't a real thing, who the actual people in the area were, and what the actual states were during the 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s when Europeans just handwaved the region with this mangled Arabic name. — LlywelynII 13:48, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Mali government maps

Are there any maps released by the Mali government which show accurate borders for the new regions of Mali and cercles of Mali? There are some maps but I can't figure out if they are accurate because they lack sources. Any map released from 2016 should work. Any additional publications (government or otherwise) with statistics about each region should be helpful too. Among other things, I don't know which sources are considered reliable for Mali. I'm also not sure why the name "Taoudénit" is used instead of "Taoudenni" or "Taoudeni". —Lights and freedom (talk ~ contribs) 19:00, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Invitation to episode 26 of WikiAfrica Hour, titled Africa & Movement Charter

Fellow Wikimedians,

It is my pleasure to invite you to episode 26 of WikiAfrica Hour, titled, Africa & Movement Charter.

This session aims to explain in detail the concept, offerings and steps of the Movement Charter, and its relevance to the African community.

Guests:

1. Anass Sedrati - Member, Movement Charter Drafting Committee
2. Georges Fodouop - Member, Movement Charter Drafting Committee

• Date: 26th May 2023
• Time: 4pm UTC
• Details: http://w.wiki/5dft

NB: This episode will be in both English and French! Ceslause (talk) 14:24, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Lofa County districts and map update

I just updated Kolahun District, and found out that two districts split from Kolahun, meaning the map on that article is no longer accurate. Does anyone know how to make a more accurate one? (These articles could also use quite a bit of improvement, but they seem serviceable for now. I'll clean up some more stuff once I get around to actually pulling up the 2008 census so I can work with it properly.)

(Side note: is the 2022 census reliable? Liberian Observer is not convinced, but like I said, I know nothing about Liberia. Would like to not have to re-update a bunch of numbers with 2022 if it turns out that the data is reliable.) Skarmory (talk • contribs) 23:12, 24 May 2023 (UTC)