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Economy of Africa

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An outgrowth of recent efforts to unbias our fair 'pedia, and a sexy effort by SimonP and ChrisG. This is a particular milestone since there are no other continents with "Economy of" articles to use as a guideline (see Economy of Europe and Economy of Australia if you must). --+sj+ 23:13, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • Yes, I know the nomination was clobbered [1], but this was just recently nominated and there are objections that have not been addressed at all. Specifically the sentence in the intro "Improving Africa's economy as it emerges from the aftereffects of colonialism and it struggles with democracy, welfare and quality of life is one of the most important issues facing the modern world." Even though many may agree with that, it is an unnacceptable POV for a featured article. It needs to be re written so it is more factual. - Taxman 23:49, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)
    • Well I NPOV'd that, hopefully someone can fix it so it flows better. - Taxman 19:51, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)
  • Support. Tuf-Kat 23:51, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)
  • support. Pnd 11:33, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Ah - I thought this was nominated recently, but I couldn't see it in the achive of promoted articles or of rejected ones... This was overwritten by another section (that old chestnut again). What it said was:

[that was me, by the way -- ALoan (Talk) 00:00, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)]

A thorough, well-written, all-around excellent article on an interesting and important topic. —No-One Jones (m) 00:43, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • Strong support. Fredrik | talk 08:46, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Absolute support. Best article of the year. Ambi 08:50, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Support. Filiocht 09:05, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)
  • Support - Xed 09:33, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Support - Simon has already implemented my suggested changes. ✏ Sverdrup 10:05, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Important and excellent. ChrisG 11:31, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The information is good, but the article is sorely in need of an editor. I may lend a hand if I have time. Someone correctly pointed out on the talk page that African_gdp_growth.png is almost illegible to anyone with red–green colour blindness. The burgundy and the dark olive green in particular will look almost the same to about 8% of males. I suggest changing either the reds or the greens to blues. Incidentally, the first map on the page, the one done entirely in greens, is very easy to read, irrespective of colour blindness. Shorne 12:08, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    What kind of editing do you think it needs? —No-One Jones (m) 12:16, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Just now I edited the introductory paragraph. Check the revision history for my changes. I can also point out the bizarre sentence "Africa's economy is more reliant on agriculture than that of any other continent with a majority of Africans still working the soil", which, for want of a comma, means something rather different from what was intended. I'll support this nomination once the English is cleaned up. Shorne 12:24, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • I've done a fair bit of copyediting and linkage. How does it look now? —No-One Jones (m) 13:34, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
        • I've done some more editing myself. More could be done, but I'll withdraw the objection. I have another one, however, about one of the maps. See above. Shorne 19:28, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Wow... Definite support, this is an excellent piece of work! Zerbey 14:06, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Object. Great material. I see at least two issues: 1.) The sentence in the intro "Improving Africa's economy as it emerges from a period of colonialism and struggles with democracy, welfare and quality of life is one of the most important issues facing the modern world.", while many may agree with, is an unnacceptable POV for a wikipedia article. It either needs to be cited to a source that said it, or turned into a factual statement, not a value judgement. 2.) The Geography section needs some work. The second paragraph has redundant sentences in it. I would have fixed that except for the problem is not only geographic it is political. It is the fact that the interior countries are landlocked that cause the problem, not the geography alone. The end of the third paragraph is a POV mess. That is one explanation, but is not neccessarily correct. Wikipedia can't state things like that as fact without citation. That is all the farther I got, but I assume similar issues happen later in the article. So unfortunately object for now. - Taxman 15:47, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)
  • Strong support. Simon A. 20:59, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Support. This is mostly my article, and seeing as I made it my entry in Danny's contest I am quite pleased with it. Many thanks to everyone who has since edited and improved it. I am aware the article is not perfect. I am concerned that it gives short shrift to many subjects, but I think this is unavoidable with such a massive subject matter. I would also prefer more numbers and statistics, but accurate numbers are very difficult to find. I would also like to have the colour blind be able to read the maps, but I do not know much about how best this can be done. - SimonP 03:25, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)
  • Oppose, for lack of certain informations. The history section has several problems, no information before tenth century and a very limited informations on slavery. "This region became quite prosperous as Swahili traders exported ivory and slaves to a trade that spanned the entire Indian Ocean region." is the only sentence to mention slavery at all and this make it look like only Swahili was involved or that it had only a small effect in Africa. The agriculture section lacks informations on cattles which is very important in the central Africa. The Disease section has informations on AIDS and malaria but not on any other disease that have been controlled like small pox. Half of the Language issues section is about education and there is no independent section on it. I cannot figure out why the picture "Tamale in linguistically diverse Ghana" is a meaningful one. The only linguistic thing about the picture is a "TOYOTA" on the back of a truck. Something like a picture of a ballot with multiple languages on it, like the one you see in an Indian election, would be better. Revth 03:57, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • I would love to implement the above suggestions, but the article is already longer that is officially allowed. At this point adding anything substantial would entail cutting elsewhere, so I personally think more detailed information is better suited to subpages like economic history of Africa, or agriculture in Africa. - SimonP 09:02, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)
      • Then what the article needs is to be written more in Wikipedia:Summary style. The article should cover all of the most important facets of the subject, but not in too much detail, and the sections that are too long need to be summarized to make room for other topics that need coverage. The detailed coverage then gets moved to the subarticle or the main article on the topic. - Taxman 23:40, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)
        • If someone had written these additional articles then summary style would make sense. But they haven't been written and so this is a unfair suggestion, what makes this article excellent is it successfully describes the key issues in one article.  :ChrisG 18:22, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
          • No, no, you're missing the concept. In summary style this article wouldn't depend on the main articles on each subtopic, just what is summarized in this article. That is the only way to cover everything properly, with every single important topic covered and none so long that you have to leave out important stuff to fit in the size limit. Anything too long needs to be moved out and summarized, but primarily to improve this article, not specifically to improve the subarticle. - Taxman 02:58, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)
        • No I'm not missing the concept. From my perspective, the article is covers the subject matter in a comprehensive manner. In dealing with the important facets it obviously cannot cover every detail. If you use this article in its present state to create a main article with child articles, you will replace one great article with four or five average ones.  :ChrisG 10:24, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Agree with Revth. This is a good article, but to be a good featured, it needs sub-articles. With no mention of Axumite Kingdom (just to name one historical empire), the history section is definetly incomplete. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 00:52, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • But that would involve placing far too much detail into this article. It's unfair to object to this one because another article (Economic history of Africa doesn't yet exist. Ambi 04:37, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
        • Some topics need long articles to be good, or division into subarticles. Economy of a continent is a very ambitious project. While the work done on the article so far is amazing and would be many times enough for some other featured articles (like the recently featured infinite monkey theorem, it is not yet enough for Economy of Africa. And ATM this article is already 40k long, it needs to be split into smaller sections anyway. I recommend Warsaw Uprising as an example on how a long article was split into subarticles. I will expand the history section a little with my knowledge, but the section about early history (before Europeans) needs serious work and my objections still stand. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 12:21, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
          • I expanded the history but it is still far from complete. Considering this is an article about economy I think that is enough, for now. Therefore I withdraw my objectons and for the moment I will abstain here and look at further developments. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 19:17, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
        • But the "main article" for the section is blank. This implies there's more information, and is at the very least, misleading. 219.95.164.146 15:02, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
          • Removed link to non-existent article :ChrisG 18:22, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Sentences about slavery was added, so now a minor object. Revth 02:19, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Support. Great article. I think Revth's concerns can be addressed in seperate articles, ie: History of the Economy of Africa, or something like that, etc. func(talk) 21:01, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Support unequivocally. Lisiate 23:12, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Support. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:05, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Have you guys really read the whole article? I have seen no attempt made at addressing some of the above objections. - Taxman 15:55, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)
      • Are you going to set a test? Just because you (or indeed anyone else) have objections does not mean that I should have objections. I think it can be featured as it stands. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:14, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
        • I don't know what that phrase means, just wondering how you could support if you had read it all. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, no matter how much it differs from my own. So I was simply asking. - Taxman 19:51, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)
  • Support. Have read the whole article (after it won Danny's contesT), and I believe it can be featured as is. Minor improvements would include a bit more NPOV as mentioned by taxman, but that can be argued about -- Chris 73 Talk 14:13, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)
  • Object, still. I've had a go at fixing some of the POV, but I saw too many more that I can't fix soon. There are many unattributed statements that are so authoritatively worded that they are a POV problem. There is still some flawed and unattributed economic analysis in the geopolitical section. Many one sentence paragraghs throughout. I'm not saying its not great material, but it has some ways to go before being featured quality. Since I am in the minority objecting, I will see what I can do further to solve these issues. - Taxman 19:51, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)

There are 3 outstanding objections to this article - that the map could be illegible to someone with red-green blindness; that there aren't enough sub-articles, and that there are too many unattributed statements. The first objection is, well, pretty trivial (how many people does it apply to?); the second objection is invalid because it not intrinsic to this article. Really, only Taxman's objection strikes me as weighty. →Raul654 21:34, Nov 7, 2004 (UTC)

  • I think the first has been addressed by adding a special link to a monochrome map. The second is extrinsic. Should the third override the otherwise wide support? -- ALoan (Talk) 01:01, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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