Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethiopia

This page is for discussing General strategies, Hierarchy, tasks, and all around general issues of the Ethiopia WikiProject. For more specific discussions, go to the talk pages of the specific sub-pages (i.e. /History and politics, /Geography, /Linguistics, /People and culture, /Economy and infrastructure, /Climate and environment, /Transliteration, etc.).

Original researches at Oromia

Hi, I would like the page Oromia to be reviewed because of MfactDr is consistently presents primary sources that is directly copied from the subject Oromia government, not the federal government. See [1] and [2], for the sentence "The capital city of the State of Oromia is Addis Ababa, also known as Finfinne by Oromia Supreme Court. But he persistently deletes the highlighted "Oromia Supreme Court", despite these sources are primary source and Finfinne is used by Oromia Supreme Court according to them. I told him very well at its talk page to stop editing war and adviced him to search new independent secondary reliable sources for a meantime. However, he continues to insist and reverting many times when I told him these source should be used as claim and not notable unless secondary sources are available outside Oromia related website and authorship, such as international media outlets, BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera etc that are independently published by non-Oromo journalist and pundits in order to neutralize the article. The Supermind (talk) 21:13, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Kedus Harbe reign date debate

Some historians say Kedus Harbe reigned from 1079 to 1119. Other say from 1160 to 1185, which seems improper chronology of Gebre Meskel Lalibela's reign from 1181 to 1221. I think this source is not reliable. The Supermind (talk) 05:20, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Amharic Wiktionary, Wikidata, amharic translations

Hello fellow volunteers of Ethiopia wiki-project. I just discovered this niche community and I still can't believe it really exists, since I don't really see too much activity across Wikimedia projects regarding Ethiopia and its (85?) languages. Since November 2 I started to contribute in particular in ዊኪ መዝገበ ቃላት, I also added amharic in the phrasebook project within English Wiktionary and tried to translate in other wikis: my purpose is to link amharic with other languages by either direct translations or through left side inter language link. For that matter I think we should create and update everything we know or discover about Ethiopia on Wikidata. This is a really good way to connect all human knowledge. All this being said, now I have some issues/questions:

1. Currently, I am mainly focused on the growth of amwikt and translations of amharic. May I join WikiProject Ethiopia anyway?
2. I think there's a problem with the counter on the amharic version of Wiktionary because never see it changes in the value of total number pages. It's a little bit frustrating.
3. Is there any admin there or in other ethiopian wiki? I ask this because I don't know where to submit some requests (E.G for bot account or to import xml from other wiki
4. Last but not least: is it possible to import or create (if yes how) Translation templates like {trans-top}? Thanks.

Abreham97 (talk) 14:08, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Hello, Abreham97. Sorry no one responded earlier. (1) Yes, you can join Wikiproject Ethiopia. It's as simple as Watchlisting this page. You can also go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethiopia#Members and add your name to the list. (2) You should ask Wiktionary questions over in Wiktionary space (not Wikipedia). (3 & 4) I have no idea; those questions are way over my head. Platonk (talk) 09:21, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. Abreham97 (talk) 21:09, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Military ranks

Hey, I was wondering if anyone has any reliable sources for the Military ranks of Ethiopian National Defense Force, and their Amharic names. Thanks Skjoldbro (talk) 20:59, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Woreda or District? Which word?

It has been proposed to start using 'district' instead of 'woreda' where woreda is not part of a place's actual name. The reasoning is that it is an Amharan word and not all of Ethiopia speaks Amharan. Give me your thoughts and opinions about this proposal. Thank you. Platonk (talk) 04:15, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

And please make sure I've got this right:

• Ethiopia is divided into Regions (11 regions + 2 charter cities)
• Regions are divided into Zones
• Zones are divided into Woredas

Platonk (talk) 04:21, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Support district Use of the English name is best for an English encyclopedia. For example the German name for district is Landkreis but in the list of German districts page, most articles start of as [District name] is a district in [city/town], Germany. Plus it will match up with the region articles which arent called kilil (the Amharic name).

And you're sort of right. Some woredas are in two (maybe more) Zones . For example, the Lasta woreda is in the North Wollo and South Wollo zones. Ue3lman (talk) 04:39, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Are you saying that some woredas span zone boundaries and sit partially in two zones at the same time? (If that's true, it must be an administrative nightmare for the various government agencies.) Platonk (talk) 05:15, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Zones and districts are a nightmare for editors since there's no clear distinction on how many there are. I use the UN as a map source since they're the only one that maps all the way from regions to kebeles. That's how I was able to see Lasta being in two different zones. Ue3lman (talk) 23:37, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

@Ue3lman: Per the Constitution of Ethiopia, Article 5, Amharic shall be the working language of the Federal government. [3] so maybe we should stick with "woreda". Oddly, in the constitution the first division are called "States", not "Regions" (previously they were called "Provinces"). Neither Zones nor Woredas are mentioned. I updated 1995 Constitution of Ethiopia to include several links to the constitution. Another argument against using 'district' for 'woreda' is the fact that these templates, list articles, etc. use 'district' for more than one reason; more than just for 'woreda', so it could be confusing to change it away from 'woreda'. Platonk (talk) 19:29, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

@Platonk: All online versions of the constitution are old and outdated. In 2020 the federal government added 4 new working languages besides Amharic, which all have different sayings for district. Likewise, including regional working languages which are not all Amharic, it's best to name it as district instead of 'woreda' (or another name for it like Aanaa in Oromo) because it will make it way too complicated to find/name them if they went by their region working language. Another example would be Switzerland which has 4 working languages. There you will see all the districts go by the English name and not by the language of the people who live there. Ue3lman (talk) 23:37, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

@Ue3lman: Is there an official, current online version? Like one published by the Ethiopean fed government? I wasn't able to find one, but you seem far more versed in this subject. Platonk (talk) 02:08, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

@Platonk: Sorry for the late reply. Not that I know of. Don't even think there's an updated physical one (public) in Amharic. Ue3lman (talk) 00:54, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

• Comment It seems to me that there have been quite a few changes in administrative boundary changes/names in XXIst C Ethiopia, especially since the 2018/Abiy era started, apparently giving self-determination to local groups on different geographical scales, and not many of the geographical articles have been updated. There's also a problem that new editors think that the articles should reflect the "current" situation, so that we have unreferenced new information replacing unreferenced old information. News type articles - often sources that require some common sense to judge what sort of info can reasonably be taken from them rather than a straight out reliable/unreliable source judgment - tend to be the most useful, in my experience in the modest number of articles like this that I've tried to improve. The news articles tend to announce that woreda X is reorganised into parts of old woredas mostly W and Y and a bit of Z, for example, together with roman spelling variations, after protests and/or killings (I'm sure there are negotiations, but they get less press coverage). Given the current TDF and OLA wars, and to some degree other conflicts, these changes are unlikely to stop any time soon, so proper dating and referencing will be essential to help readers and other editors.
  As for "woredas" versus "districts", I think that following Ethiopian English usage would make the most sense. Wiktionary wikt:woreda seems happy with the word, but without references and no discussion nor 'citations' (which in Wiktionary mean example usage).
  If you browse through the Federal Negarit Gazeta website (external links there) - live and archived - you might find legal details at a lower level than the Constitution; these laws might define 'woredas' (or 'districts'?) and 'zones'. Boud (talk) 22:13, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes, there is an unmistakable absence of "History" sections in most of the location articles. Having a history section, even if brief, would probably help with new user confusion.
    I started straightening out some of the templates; I settled on Template:First-level administrative divisions of Ethiopia (over about 4 variations with different names) and changed all the articles to use just the one. That's when I found some of the old "province" articles which I instead directed (via navbar or see also) to a history page instead of a navbar of "current regions". What a mess this is.
    Boud & Ue3lman, what would you think about me adding the old provinces to Template:First-level administrative divisions of Ethiopia on a third line labelled "Historical"? Platonk (talk) 23:02, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't see a reason to do that as that's not the current day administrative divisions. Ue3lman (talk) 23:37, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Sometimes seeing other things in counterpoint increases understanding. For example, if I had been reading about A Region, B Region, and C Region, and then I saw "B Province", I might think B Region = B Province. But if I saw three "region" names on one line, and under that saw three similarly-named "provinces" with a label/title "Historical", I might realize that B Region ≠ B Province. Sometimes counterpoint brings a better or wider understanding. It's worth a thought or two. Platonk (talk) 00:00, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Good point. Though I don't see how that would make any sense for a template like that. They're supposed to go by current day. I don't see how someone would get confused when they could just hover over the wikilink and see in the first sentence of the article if the region/province exists or not. Ue3lman (talk) 00:54, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

@Ue3lman and Platonk: "woreda" is not exclusive for Amharic name. But the government of Ethiopia assigned every districts as "woreda" and its special name for Ethiopian districts like European division commune or Russian oblast. I'm not agreed to prevent to say "woreda" in Wikipedia articles, but it is not obligatory to have. For example, it deserve to put in "|settlement_type =" infobox parameter because of it is known special name by local government, but we can say "district" in the short description to notify what it is for amateur readers, ex {{short description|District in Amhara Region, Ethiopia}}. The Supermind (talk) 12:13, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

@The Supermind: I agree with you. I have, however, seen the word "district" used a lot around the Ethiopia articles and it is confusing. I'm working to organize the list articles and navboxes (navigation templates) to be a little more streamlined and standardized. For example, the prominence of the article Districts of Ethiopia introduces the word "district" as if it is a broadly-used term in Ethiopia (which I'm finding out is not the case). Eventually, that article will probably need to be renamed, but I would like to straighten out all the templates and other article wording before I tackle that one. Platonk (talk) 20:05, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Translation advice

When you add citations to Amharic-language sources, please designate the language and provide a translation of the title. If you are using the {{cite web}} method, use these parameters:

     |language=am |trans-title=

You can also help readers by adding short relevant quotations from the source, and a translated quotation:

     |quote= |trans-quote=

This advice applies equally well to any non-English source (German, French, Arabic, Dutch, etc.), but especially for languages that use non-Latin/Roman alphabets. For other language codes, see this list.

I have found Google's translation tool and webpage translation tool to be quite helpful.

Finally, some of the non-English news websites also have an English section, and some of their non-English articles have counterparts in English. Since we're working in English-Wikipedia, it is better to cite an English source rather than a non-English source when there are two equivalent choices.

Platonk (talk) 21:13, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Need RS for 2020 woreda reorganisation, Tigray Region

I am trying to verify the concept of a 2020 woreda reorganization and get a reliable source that can be cited.

Editor Rastakwere (now blocked) had added sections titled "2020 woreda reorganisation" into dozens of individual woreda articles (one example), citing the ResearchGate-hosted upload called "The Atlas", which I remind is self-published and shouldn't be cited. That document also only covered the Tigray Region, not all of Ethiopia. The only text I find in the document on this subject says this:

"Between 2018 and 2020, as part of a reform aimed to deepen and strengthen decentralisation, woredas were reorganised. As smaller towns had been growing, they were now providing a range of services (markets, even banks), so that people were travelling to the closest such towns for these services, but continued to have to travel to the formal woreda centre, often in a different direction, for most government administrative services. A huge consultation, involving numerous village meetings, was organised in this period, and we witnessed heated debates, particularly in the more remote areas. Based on these consultations, Tigray was re-organised into 88 woredas in January 2020, basically along the lines of the 1991 woredas to which 21 independent urban administrations were added (Map 2)."

The Atlas doesn't cite its source other than to mention "Data source: CSA & BoFED (2020)" and a search into footnotes mentions https://data.humdata.org/dataset. (Interestingly, it cites Wikipedia for pre-2020 woredas.) I am unable to find this data in the humdata-dataset. There is a document which mentioned 'woreda' and I downloaded the file 'ethiopia_admin3_woredas.json' but cannot figure out how to use it. At any rate, as a database it would be a primary source, and even if it mentioned a list of the new woredas it wouldn't mention "a reorganization".

Request #1 - Does anyone have any reliable source that we can use to cite the Tigray Region woreda reorg changes (to swap out the Atlas citation)?

Request #2 - Does anyone have any RS that lists all of the new Tigray Region woredas (or a complete list of them post-2020 changes)?

Platonk (talk) 10:55, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm still not finding any written (textual) sources supporting the Tigray woreda reorganizations, but many of the *.et websites belonging to the Ethiopian government entities are down (have been down for a while), especially all websites related to Tigray. However, today I found two very recent maps on Humanitarian Response/OCHA's website which matches most of the new woredas in the Nyssen Atlas's map2 (the map is uploaded into wikimedia here). This leads me further to believe that the woreda "splits" actually happened, but I think we still need more than some maps to use as citations in the various articles on the newer woredas. Several woreda and tabia/municipality stubs have been draftified by editor Mccapra, a new page reviewer (WP:NPP).

According to WP:NPLACE and WP:GEOLAND:

• Populated, legally recognized places are typically presumed to be notable, even if their population is very low.
• Populated place outcomes generally follow WP:GEOLAND, which means that they're usually kept if they either have legal recognition or can be shown to meet GNG through significant coverage.
• Legally recognized cities and villages anywhere in the world are generally kept, regardless of size or length of existence, as long as that existence and legal recognition can be verified through a reliable source. This usually also applies to any other area that has a legally recognized government, such as counties, parishes and municipalities.

I am most concerned about the woreda articles (the equivalent to a 'county' in the USA) because it affects the templates (navbars) I have been working on (the 11 region templates with zones down the left side and districts/woredas in the body). The tabia/municipalities are towns/villages and I'm less interested in those now-draftified stubs. I'm sure user Rastakwere had a plan for the ones he created, but I'm not seeing it when I poke around.

We might be able to get info from the https://data.humdata.org/dataset. If anyone is willing to rummage around on that website/database, I would much appreciate it. I was unable to find anything, but it is supposedly a source for both the Nyssen Atlas Map2 and the OCHA maps. Platonk (talk) 09:21, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

References

Administrative divisions of Eritrea

Also, I have earlier posted a technical/semantic question at Talk:Eritrea#Administrative divisions that has not yet been addressed. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:41, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Discussed, but with remaining questions. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:11, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Use of unreliable sources leads to advocacy mess : A study of Wukro in the Tigray War

tl;dr → Most of the casualty information is an advocate's original research. Source it properly, or remove it.

Editor Rastakwere (now indef blocked) was using documents self-published on ResearchGate to make his advocacy articles (over 150, by my count), ignoring Wikipedia's reliable source policies. As for the town of Wukro, he created 5 separate articles (and 4 redirects) claiming death counts sourced from the 'Atlas' document. (He also used the self-published tghat.com victim spreadsheet to support the atlas, but don't get me started on that.)

5 standalone Wukro 'massacre' articles

Articles: Bombing of Wukro (claims 14 deaths) November 2020 Wukro massacre (claims 220-245 deaths: (14 on Nov16, 11 Nov17-21, 20 on Nov27, and 200 on Nov28) December 2020 Wukro massacre (claims 12 civilian deaths on Dec 30 February 2021 Wukro massacre (claims 18 deaths on Feb 10) March 2021 Wukro massacre (claims 5 deaths on Mar 14) Redirects: Wukro massacre (November 2020) Wukro massacre (December 2020) Wukro massacre (February 2021) Wukro massacre (March 2021)

Rastakwere also added these death counts and dates (which haven't been confirmed with reliable sources) into multiple articles:

Data inserted into these 3 Wikipedia article
This also affects entries in these articles (among others; not a comprehensive list): Casualties of the Tigray War 220 on Nov 27-28 18 on Feb 10 3-5 on Mar 14 Timeline of the Tigray War 14 on Nov 16 220 on Nov 27/28 8 on Dec 22 12 on Dec 30 Timeline of the Tigray War (January–June 2021) 500 on Jan 2 18 on Feb 10 3 on Mar 14

The self-published 'Atlas' document has a spreadsheet at the end which lists "Wukro" 7 times.

Wukro death counts/dates from self-published 'Atlas' document on ResearchGate
Atlas Annex A spreadsheet mentions: 14 on Nov 16 7 on Nov 17 200 on Nov 25-29 20 on Nov 27 12 on Dec 30 18 on Feb 10 18 on Mar 14

However, I have dug through all the Wikipedia articles/sections/paragraphs and there are only 3 reliable sources cited in all these articles and paragraphs mentioning these incidents, and they do not support the counts from the 'atlas'.

Reliable sources and excerpts

1 December 2020 by Agence France-Presse via The Jakarta Post Nov 29: "Fighting took place Sunday in the towns of Hawzen and Wukro, north of Mekele, and there were "small unit activities" farther west near Shire, Debretsion said." 16 March 2021 by Agence France-Presse via France 24 18 in mid February: "There had been protests in town that week -- young men burning tyres and denouncing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ... was one of 18 civilians shot and killed that day by Ethiopian soldiers" bombing event: "Ahead of federal forces' arrival in late November, heavy shelling levelled homes and businesses and sent plumes of dust and smoke rising above near-deserted streets." looting/killing scores: "Many fled to the surrounding mountains ... What they returned to was even worse: Angry Eritreans who spent days looting homes, banks and factories and shooting dead scores of young men suspected of sympathising with the TPLF "junta", according to religious and medical officials." scores killed (duplicate?): "By early December, scores of young men were dead in Wukro, including 81 now buried at the back of an Orthodox church." 6: "one night in late November. [Eritrean] soldiers killed six people that night" 3 November 2021 by OHCHR "between 25 and 27 November 2020 an undisclosed number of civilians died in Wukro due to exchange of artillery fire between the ENDF and TSF, and several private and public property were damaged;" "During its visit to Wukro on 27 May 2021, the JIT found that shelling had occurred in the town between 25 and 27 November 2020, which led to multiple civilian deaths and injuries, as well as destruction of property." "The JIT found that there was fighting between two parties in Wukro from 25 to 27 November 2020 and that both sides were reportedly using artillery; the ENDF was in Adigrat and the TSF was in Agulae." "Witnesses informed the JIT that on 27 November 2020, the ENDF entered Wukro." "The JIT was told that a nearby military camp/depot in Arato, in Wukro, was shelled. However, the JIT was not able to attribute responsibility for the civilian deaths or the destruction of property to either of the conflicting parties." "The GoE notes that although the factual setting of the events leading to the seizure of Wukro - including the use of heavy artillery - is well documented, the JIT was not able to attribute responsibility for the civilian deaths or destruction of property to either ENDF or TSF."

EEPA situation reports have been heavily used to source claims of casualty counts and dates, however EEPA disclaims verification and takes no responsibility for their publication, thus making it fail reliable source tests. My viewpoint of the EEPA documents is as a notation that some other source might be found on a particular incident. Unfortunately, the EEPA reports do not provide many hints as to where they got their information from.

Marginal source, EEPA

EEPA reports each carry a disclaimer: "Disclaimer: All information in this situation report is presented as a fluid update report, as to the best knowledge and understanding of the authors at the moment of publication. EEPA does not claim that the information is correct but verifies to the best of ability within the circumstances. Publication is weighed on the basis of interest to understand potential impacts of events (or perceptions of these) on the situation. Check all information against updates and other media. EEPA does not take responsibility for the use of the information or impact thereof. All information reported originates from third parties and the content of all reported and linked information remains the sole responsibility of these third parties." Dec 15: "Further drone attacks were reported ... in Wukro and Tembien where hundreds of civilians died among others with bombardments carried out with drones ((15/12 2020)" No date, might well cover all events from November & December 2020: "Many towns in Tigray have been attacked by ENDF and Eritrean troops by heavy artillery. The towns include: Humera, Shire, Aksum, Adwa, Adigrat, Wukro, Mekelle, Hewane, Workamba, Abi Adi, and Hagerselam. In these operations innocent civilians were attacked. ... It is reported that 1000 civilians were killed in attacks on Aksum town and 500 civilians in Wukro." No date, presumed February: "During the protests in Wukro on Wednesday 18 youth were killed by Eritrean soldiers." No date, presumed March: "Reported that ENDF soldiers have shot five civilians in Wukro town, three reportedly died. Locals understood this to be a retaliation by ENDF soldiers for attacks by Tigray regional forces."

As you can see, the reliable sources (or RS plus EEPA) don't come close to matching what Rastakwere added to Wikipedia.

I have no doubt that fatalities happened — a lot of them – but Wikipedia has fairly stringent policies on what can and cannot be used as a source in order to put content in Wikipedia mainspace. This project (tracking down the Wukro incident information) has just highlighted for me (yet again) how poorly cited most of the 'casualties' content is in Wikipedia (as related to the Tigray War) and how far the pro-Tigray advocates have gone to push their point of view. The content wording is often loaded language (not used by the media) such as: "Wukro is a martyr town, affected by every phase of the Tigray war"; "the specific event in which victims died is not known yet"; saying the "perpetrators" were ENDF when the reliable sources say that mortar shelling occurred between two parties, catching civilians in the crossfire, and that both parties not one side are responsible.

In addition, these 150+ articles are all named such as "_______ massacre" when the media doesn't use any of these names/titles/terms/terminology (I've tried finding them in google; no such luck). Around 50+ of these articles have already been deleted from Wikipedia through AfDs. In almost all of these articles, editor Rastakwere states that the perpetrators are ENDF (or their allies), even when reliable sources state that shelling occurred between two warring parties. Sure, atrocities occurred, and RS tells us that both sides (and the allies of both sides) have all been complicit, but Rastakwere's articles would have you believe that Tigray is always the victim. POV-pushing.

We know a bit about why Rastakwere holds these viewpoints [4], and though he may have had a real-life excuse, most of us do not. I have been horrified to discover how far he was allowed to spam Wikipedia with this stuff, meanwhile collecting fellow advocates/followers who have repeated using these unreliable sources, and some who even fought with me over their desire to continue to use them.

Wikipedia community consensus has long been determined to use only reliable sources as outlined in numerous written policies and guidelines, and enforced by editors involved in AfC, NPP, AfD, RfC, RSN and other group discussions. It's time we got back to the basics here.

Rastakwere made well over 100 of these poorly sourced 'massacre' articles. Based on my experience working on them so far, I estimate that maybe a dozen may remain standing in the end. That's a lot of advocacy and POV-pushing, but a hell of a lot more time has been required for cleanup than it ever took him to create them in the first place. And I'm about to exchange my edit-scalpel for an edit-jackhammer.

It is time to remove the remains of this POV-pushing. Months have gone by and no one seems interested in finding reliable sources for these events. It is not vital that Wikipedia include every possible casualty count. There are plenty of articles explaining the Tigray War, the main events that have taken place, and placing the information in context.

I'm not against listing casualty counts as long as they're accompanied by dates or approximations (so there's no duplication), and they come from reliable sources. However, ResearchGate, blogs, and EEPA's situation reports just don't reach the RS bar.

Platonk (talk) 07:28, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Sources

Reliable sources or not? eritreahub.org, martinplaut.com, eepa.be

I went down a Wiki rabbit hole after reading the discussions at:

• Talk:Axum massacre#Martin Plaut is not a credible source
• Talk:Axum massacre#One-source tag

The initial allegation is that eritreahub.org is operated by Martin Plaut. (For this exercise, the second allegation is irrelevant; whether Plaut is pro-TPLF or not.) Here is what I discovered:

• On eritreahub.org, there are 2,041 articles (1,900 news, 102 research, 29 maps, 10 immigration). Martin Plaut is author on 951 posts (47%), anonymous poster Eritrean Hub has 1069 posts (52%), and there are a mere 9 posts by 'Information', 5 by 'Ehadmin', and 7 unaccounted for.

So I could confidently conclude that Plaut operates or co-operates eritreahub.org (not a 'guest author'). Since Plaut hangs his shingle as an "independent journalist", this leaves no doubt that there is likely no editorial staff. I would therefore label eritreahub.org a self-published source. There are currently 30 articles in mainspace using citations to eritreahub.org. (Side note: Later, searching twitter for 'eritreahub' produces about 3/4 calling out Plaut for journalistic errors^(euphamism) on his EritreaHub, and 1/4 neutral or supportive.)

MartinPlaut.com has 2,006 posts from 2011-2021. I didn't look closely, but I suspect this website is not far different than eritreahub.org. Both use a Wordpress engine. I did notice that martinplaut.com has copied all of the EEPA situation reports, right down to the disclaimer and links-of-interest at the end of the EEPA reports.

There are 5 wiki articles with citations to martinplaut.com in them.

Since I had also seen several complaints in Twitter about copying from other journalist's articles, I decided to pick a few random articles.

• Agence France-Presse: martinplaut.com barrons.com
• Bloomberg News: martinplaut.com bloomberg.com
• Martin Plaut: martinplaut.com This article seems to link/refer to EritreaHub and some Tweets (@MapEthiopia), a Wikipedia article, and some other sources.
• BBC: martinplaut.com bbc.com Including copying the 4 images in the article.
• Haaretz: martinplaut.com haaretz.com
• The Economist: martinplaut.com economist.com

These were the first six random ones I clicked on. 5 are word-for-word copies of other articles. 3 of those 5 are news agencies, but I don't believe Haaretz and Economist are. I also seriously doubt that Plaut is a subscriber to AFP, Bloomberg, and BBC, as that would probably be prohibitively expensive for an 'independent journalist'.

I started to check eritreahub.org to test for the same copy patterns. Each article I clicked on was a copy from a different website; some blogs, some NGOs, some newspapers, no news services (in the subset I checked). I didn't go deep, but concluded that the pattern is the same — copying content from other sources. So much for the 30 wiki articles with citations to eritreahub.org.

I don't feel like diving down the EEPA rabbit hole... again. I already wrote about EEPA's dislaimer at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethiopia#Use of unreliable sources leads to advocacy mess : A study of Wukro in the Tigray War. There are 65 wiki articles with citations to eepa.be.

I find a lot of these self-published types of sources are citing each other. (Including a few specific Tweeters and other blogs which I haven't named here, but have mentioned before.) They all publish the same rumors, and none of them lead to or from any reliable source. It's quite the Information laundering operation, but none of them pass the bar for a reliable source. In addition, citing to martinplaut.com or eritreahub.org would likely violate WP:COPYVIOEL, a restriction on linking to possible copyright violations. EEPA.be is just unsubstantiated/unsourced rumors. Platonk (talk) 10:37, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Pinging those who have been particularly active in Ethiopia topics recently: @Boud:, @BushelCandle:, @Dawit S Gondaria:, @Dunutubble:, @Garmin21:, @Jim Michael:, @Matthew C Konyake:, @The Supermind:, @Ue3lman:, @WMSR:, @Wowzers122:. Apologies if I've missed anyone (or pinged someone who doesn't want pings). And please watchlist this page if you are continuing to be active with the Ethiopia topics; it's the best central location to send a message to everyone. Platonk (talk) 10:37, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for all your research and clear exposition of the results, Platonk ! 16:31, 9 January 2022 (UTC) BushelCandle

@Platonk, after taking in your investigations, and doing my own checking-out of these sites, I have concluded that martinplaut.com and Eritreahub should be treated like blogs. Even if their content is mainly factual they are still self-published and most likely run by a single person. On the other hand, I think that EEPA is indeed a reliable source. And thank you for pinging me. :) Dunutubble (talk) 17:59, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

• On his website, Plaut clearly gives the source of his copy/pastes of news articles, e.g. 1 2 3; and Eritreahub also seems to be quite clear in attribution. Both cases, in legal terms, quite likely violate copyright, but there's no hint of plagiarism: Plaut and the Eritreahub team choose to take the legal risk of copyright violation. Those articles obviously can't be used on Wikipedia (except from their original sources).
  citing to martinplaut.com or eritreahub.org would likely violate WP:COPYVIOEL – Citing the copy/pasted articles would violate WP:COPYVIOEL. Whether citing the articles that are original to martinplaut.com or Eritreahub would be acceptable is open for community consensus; up to now, these have generally been accepted by the community of editors.
  I suspect this website is not far different than eritreahub.org. Both use a Wordpress engine. Common use of Wordpress doesn't tell us much. The two websites are clearly set up quite differently: third-party javascript sites at eritreahub.org seem to be only *.wp.com sites; while third-party javascript sites at martinplaut.com include *.gravatar.com, *.gstatic.com (google), *.wordpress.com, *.wp.com, and *.pubmin.com; the user's privacy is better respected at eritreahub.com.
  EEPA.be is just unsubstantiated/unsourced rumors. Martin Plaut and Mirjam van Reisen are well-identified (non-anonymous), well-qualified, journalist/academic sources that we can reasonably expect to have expert knowledge on the topic. Their method of publishing their knowledge (through eritreahub.org, martinplaut.com, eepa.be) does not satisfy the stricter Wikipedia standards. The anonymity of the Eritreahub.com editorial team makes it hard to judge the quality of editorial checking, and clearly Plaut has a dominant role in content contribution. That does not justify the use of the terms "information laundering" or "rumours". Given that the field of knowledge under discussion here - quite likely an ongoing genocide, although this does not yet have consensus - is one that is severely subject to statistical demographic biases, and given that there have been strong communication blocades on Tigray Region since 4 November 2020, whether to use any of the particular source articles or not should be up to the community to discuss and obtain consensus on.
  In terms of RS terminology, these can be rated somewhere in the intermediate range in between "generally reliable" and "generally unreliable". An automatic acceptance/rejection wouldn't be justified (except in the obvious case of copy/pasted articles from other sources). Boud (talk) 23:20, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

New campaignbox; please help

I have just created a campaignbox for the Tigray war. Given that I don't think I could single-handedly apply this to every Tigray war-related article that comes along, I'd like to announce it here so other people can help do the job for me. I'd also like to know if this template needs fixing. It looks like this:

Is there anything that could be improved? Dunutubble (talk) 16:35, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

33 images nominated for a deletion discussion at Commons

A discussion is taking place as to whether 33 images should be deleted or not. They will be discussed at this discussion page until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Platonk (talk) 05:35, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Puzzle

The Edaga Arbi town article says it is in woreda Werie Lehe of Misraqawi Zone. But woreda Werie Lehe says it's in the Maekelay Zone. And woreda Enticho of Maekelay Zone says it has a town named Edaga Arbi. Who is up to figuring out this Russian Doll puzzle of which town belongs inside which woreda and inside which zone, etc. and re-word a few bits of article so they make sense? Platonk (talk) 07:57, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

@Platonk: according to this map of travel website, https://travelistica.com/en/destinations-guide/Edaga-Arbi/Map-of-Edaga-Arbi.m.142112/ , Edaga Arbi is located slightly west of Eastern Tigray aka Misraqawi Zone zone and appears to falls under Maekelay Zone. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 08:51, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Looking at the GIS map OCHA published in December 2021 (which is based on CSA data), Edaga Arbi is a woreda and not a town and Werie Lehe is a town part of Edaga Arbi (that's why the article says it was a woreda). Enticho is now a town woreda. All of them are part of the Central zone. The woreda reorganization from 2018-2020 did happen but I can't find anything from the CSA to reliable sources about them. Looking at the map, Tigray has at least a dozen new woredas with no articles on them. I recommended everyone use this map. It includes all map data from regions to woredas and includes the administrative capital of regions, zones, and woredas (they're those blue icons). Ue3lman (talk) 21:51, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Zone rename proposal

See Talk:Maekelay Zone#Requested move 28 January 2022 for a proposed generic renaming of the zones in Tigray Region from their Tigrinya names to their English names (actually, I don't even know if these roman spellings are Amharic or Tigrinya...). Boud (talk) 22:19, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Request, need new categories for South West Region

If there's anyone who is familiar with making categories, we need at least three new categories for the new South West Ethiopia Peoples' Region.

• Category:Districts of the South West Ethiopia Peoples' Region
• Category:Zones in South West Ethiopia Peoples' Region
• Category:Populated places in the South West Ethiopia Peoples' Region

There may be other categories we'll need, but I've only identified these three (above). I can help populate the category, but I've never made one, and I'd rather not mess it up. Platonk (talk) 05:37, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Getting notified of deletion discussions and moves/merges, etc.

For those of you interested in keeping track of deletion discussions when they are submitted, you can watchlist this page. It is automatically updated when someone submits an article for AfD as long as Wikiproject:Ethiopia is on its talk page. It's like a one-stop-shop for all Ethiopia-topic AfDs.

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Ethiopia

A slightly different page which is also convenient for your watchlist is this one. It is in summary format and shows PRODs, move and merge discussions, etc.

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethiopia/Article alerts

Both are automatically updated daily, and you get a notification on your watchlist if there's a new addition.

Platonk (talk) 18:27, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Notice of discussion, Old navbar redirects for Ethiopia Wikiproject

There are multiple zone/woreda/district template-redirects (final batch) up for discussion at: Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 February 2#Old navbar redirects for Ethiopia Wikiproject. Please join in the discussion. Platonk (talk) 00:14, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Tabia/tabiya needs new redirect. Seeking suggestions on name.

There are over 70 articles which use the term tabia/tabiya without really defining it (57 articles, tabia 14 articles, tabiya), and it should be redirected to Wards of Ethiopia through an appropriately named redirect.

Similiarly, there are 216 articles which use the term kebele, though I didn't check to see if those wikilink to Kebele which redirects to Wards of Ethiopia. Though kebele is unique, the terms tabia/tabiya have other uses in Wikipedia (outside of Ethiopia), so we need to make a redirect but it can't be named simply Tabia or Tabiya, unfortunately. Perhaps Tabia (Ethiopia) (which I don't really like)?

Or maybe we can push the current Tabia to Tabia (disambiguation), leave Tabiya pointing to the chess move, and co-opt Tabia for our use.

I would like some suggestions because when I start adding wikilinks to articles, I don't want to change them again when someone later comes up with a better naming convention.

Thoughts? Platonk (talk) 22:01, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Making it a disambiguation page seems like the best option. Ue3lman (talk) 23:55, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Fano (nationalist movement) to Fano (militia)

I proposed on the talkpage [[5]] of the article to move the name back to Fano (militia), since no one is reading there, i'm proposing it here as well. The previous user that moved the article to the current name is blocked. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 06:47, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Aritcle names changed by Rastakwere

If anyone hasn't yet noticed, Rastakwere changed several article names from their English spelling to their Oromo spelling in August 2021 without using the page move function. He instead copy-pasted that article's content into the Oromo spelled article page and made the old article into a redirect. I didn't notice this when I made a move request from Kamisse (Oromo spelling) to Kemise (original article name before Rastakwere changed it) in November and I didn't request a page merge which I'm pretty sure means the article history before August is lost. However, I did notice when I made my second request in December for Bati which resulted in the article Baati (Oromo spelling) being merged into Bati. If anyone would like to continue requesting page moves and history mergers you can use the list made by Platonk for Rastakwere's article creations which shows the location name changes. Ue3lman (talk) 14:41, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Lalibela (Emperor of Ethiopia)#Requested move 28 March 2022

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Lalibela (Emperor of Ethiopia)#Requested move 28 March 2022 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 07:04, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Content dispute at Ethiopia

There is a content dispute at the main article Ethiopia (Talk:Ethiopia#April 2022) that would benefit from input from knowledgeable editors.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:09, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

@Cuchullain: Is that correct to restore this version for a meantime because there are a lot of vagueness and too lengthy. I mean can the lede should summarize with significant events. Why you refused to review my Prehistory edit which was supported by another reference that I added. I think this version is compatible with MOS:LEDE, at least reduced amount of stuffs and shortly summarized. Please be hurry to discussion. The Supermind (talk) 15:49, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Competency in the English language is real concern here..... we currently have an article that is almost incomprehensible. Would love anyone to take look see if a copy edit is posible....or if we should revert a months worth of edits.Moxy- 23:40, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

@Moxy:, @Cuchullain:, @The Supermind: Didn't see this dispute till now, i'll join in the discussion. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 17:39, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

@Moxy and Cuchullain: Without knowing prehistory of how the proto-Ethiopians community grouped and started their civilization, we don't know how Ethiopia was build, and the notion of "Afroasiatic homeland", where Afroasiatic language originated from northeast region, specifically in Eritrea and Ethiopia. Simply detailing archeological findings is not adequate for Prehistory. (See also other country article in History section) The Supermind (talk) 08:56, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

User script to detect unreliable sources

Main page: User:Headbomb/unreliable

I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. Some of you may already be familiar with it, given it is currently the 39th most imported script on Wikipedia. The idea is that it takes something like

• John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)

and turns it into something like

• John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.

It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{doi}}.

The script is mostly based on WP:RSPSOURCES, WP:NPPSG and WP:CITEWATCH and a good dose of common sense. I'm always expanding coverage and tweaking the script's logic, so general feedback and suggestions to expand coverage to other unreliable sources are always welcomed.

Do note that this is not a script to be mindlessly used, and several caveats apply. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.

- Headbomb {t · c · p · b}

This is a one time notice and can't be unsubscribed from. Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:01, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Draft:Premiership of Abiy Ahmed

Hi, I've recently started Draft:Premiership of Abiy Ahmed, and I want to invite volunteer editors to this draft for help. The help might be grammar or typo errors. Regards The Supermind (talk) 11:33, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Content dispute at Tigray Defense Forces

There is a content dispute at the Tigray Defense Forces article that would benefit from input from other interested editors. Efekadu (talk) 20:11, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Improving genocide drafted article

Hello. I have been improving the Draft:Amhara genocide for a while and thought i would ask feedbacks before submitting it for a review. I would appreciate it. Thank you Petra0922 (talk) 21:17, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Feedback before submission

Hello. I am looking for feedback before submitting this Draft:Amhara genocide specially from those who are familiar to the topic. I would appreciate it. Thank you Petra0922 (talk) 13:51, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Massacre

Recent massacre has been nominated in the news. Bokoharamwatch (talk) 04:34, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

The massacre last weekend was quite serious. What can this WP tell us about any similar massacres? Bokoharamwatch (talk) 04:40, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

About registration

How can I register here? ILYM22 (talk) 06:06, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Orthodox Tewahedo § Propose disambiguation page

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Orthodox Tewahedo § Propose disambiguation page. (I thought I'd mentioned this here before, but don't see it on this talk page nor its archives.) Gyrofrog (talk) 16:24, 11 August 2022 (UTC)