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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 194.157.16.89 (talk) at 12:34, 27 May 2020 (Etymology). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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though some sources claim that the Amazon River is longer.[3]

"commonly regarded as the longest river in the world, [2] though some sources claim that the Amazon River is longer.[3]"

The SOME SOURCES that claim the Amazon is longer includes THE WIKI PAGE "list of rivers by length" So is that page wrong or is it this one? They both can not be correct!--ArnoldHimmler (talk) 23:36, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You make a good point. In the last year, someone has changed the Amazon to the longest river on the list of rivers page. It will be a major effort, involving the cooperation of several editors, to settle the dispute. I simply do not have the time to do it now. Perhaps in July. Unschool 04:33, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If sources differ on this matter, it's something we should report; this is per WP:Verifiability. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:42, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The thing is, the matter is inherently unverifiable. There is a division among geographers with this. I personally think that the List of Rivers should list the Nile as the longest, as there are more sources making that claim (also, one might note that the sources pushing the Amazon as longest are from Brazil), but without some way of establishing consensus, there is going to be ongoing conflict. And I simply do not have the time to invest in establishing that consensus. Unschool 01:22, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well, yeah, I agree that WP:Undue should also be taken into account. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 12:18, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Nile is a river.

One editor (ZH8000) seems to have an obsession with editing out the description of geographical features such that the reader is left guessing as to what it is. In this case the word 'river' has been removed from 'Nile' at every instance so that any reader who does not know that the Nile is a river (and we have to assume that they exist) is left guessing. In fact in his version of the article, the reader never gets to discover directly that the river Nile is in fact a river except for a mention in the lede of the article or by detective work from the article text.

This is an encyclopaedia whose function is to inform and educate. That the Nile is a river is what the article should be telling the reader. Mentioning it in the lede only is unacceptable because

(a) The lede is meant to be a summary of the article, and if it isn't mentioned in the article body, by definition, it cannot be summarised in the lede.
(b) Not everyone reads all the words in an article.
(c) Incoming links can lead to sub-sections of the article where the fact that the Nile is a river is never mentioned. (This link is an example.)

I would also argue that describing it as [The] "Nile River" (the current position) is incorrect as 'River' is not part of its name and it should not be capitalised. Describing it as "river Nile" or "Nile river" would be more correct. I note that the article is entitled 'Nile' (without a river) and thus follows the naming convention because there is no other Nile requiring disambiguation. However WP:MOS#Geographical items says that, "Places should generally be referred to consistently by the same name as in the title of their article", which would on the face of it preclude 'river' from the text (and appeared to be the justification for removing all the rivers). But as explained above, that is just ridiculous and cannot possibly be the intent. I believe that the intent is that the article text should stick to the name 'river Nile' or 'Nile river' and not a totally different name (such as 'Iteru', the Ancient Egyptian name).

I am not about to change all the rivers to lower case R's without a discussion here first. DocFergus (talk) 14:00, 15 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The applicable policy here is WP:NCRIVER. -- ZH8000 (talk) 18:03, 15 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@ZH8000: I am aware that you have been told on more than one occasion that WP:NCRIVER is totally irrelevant here. To reiterate: WP:NCRIVER is only relevant to the title of an article (and that is how I read it as well). It has zero relevance to the text of the article. I regard your continued attempts to remove the adjective 'river' from describing any river in question as highly WP:DISRUPTIVE (See also: WP:NOTGETTINGIT) and bordering on WP:VANDALISM. I have also observed that you are also disruptively editing around other geographical features, such as valleys. DocFergus (talk) 15:53, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
So, why then you wrote "Nile river" on the article's first line – intentionally without bolding "river" – not as a proper noun with a capitalized R, but then changed every occurance of "Nile" with "Nile River" as it would be a proper noun?! More than contradictorily, I would say. Probably, because you know it would be wrong and attract disagreement by others. -- ZH8000 (talk) 13:55, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
And yes, WP:TITLE and WP:NCRIVER define the article's naming convention for rivers, and MOS:ARTCON defines its consequently consistent usage within an article!! -- ZH8000 (talk) 14:19, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@ZH8000:. Wrong again. WP:ARTCON requires the usage to be consistent throughout the text of the article. It does not require that usage to be consistent with the title. What you did was to remove virtually every reference from the article that the Nile was a river which is nothing short of absurd. I set out my views on the non capitalised 'river' above. DocFergus (talk) 17:18, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think ZH8000 has a point here. The title of this page is "Nile", not "Nile River" nor "Nile river", and we can assume this is for a good reason. So, regardless of any guidelines, common sense suggests we use that name without repeating ad nauseam the term "river", given the subject has been unambiguously defined and introduced on the top (unlike other pages merely mentioning it; like Africa). Zach (Talk) 13:45, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Zach I think the introduction of the article should begin with the text "The Nile is a river in Africa...." and every other reference to the Nile should just refer to the "Nile", not "Nile River" or "Nile river". The reason being, the first section anyone reads in an article is usualy the intro, and when reading other sections first, people know to look at the intro if they don't know what the article is talking about.SpidersMilk, Drink Spider Milk, it tastes good. (talk) 17:53, 22 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. But I would suggest keeping the Arabic name in the text (in accordance with MOS:FORLANG): "The Nile (Arabic: النيل) is a major river in Africa...". In case there are incoming links to sub-sections, I would also suggest subtly clarifying the text where necessary. But currently I'm not aware of any such links. Zach (Talk, No thanks, I'll stick to cow milk) 13:02, 23 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
No you can't do that. Mentioning that it is a river in the lede and not mentioning it anywhere else because the reader is supposed to have gathered the fact from the lede doesn't always work. Links from other articles do not always take the reader to the start of the article. For example if reader follows a link from an article to White Nile, he doesn't get to find out that the White Nile is a river until the penultimate sentence in the last paragraph. Doing the same thing for Blue Nile, he never gets to find out at all. He is left to deduce it from the context of the section. (Yes, I know that White Nile and Blue Nile have their own articles. I was just illustrating a point).
This is an encyclopaedia, whose raison d'être is to inform and educate. It should not require the reader to have to figure out what an article is talking about for himself. And your assumption about there being no incoming links to sections of the article is incorrect - there are.
Also: many readers skip read over the parts of articles that don't tell him what he does not wish to know. DocFergus (talk) 16:44, 24 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have examples of incoming links (to sub-sections) from other pages? I fully understand your point of view but I'm struggling to understand the difference between this page and other articles/topics. Should for instance Dhaka, Karnataka or Canada follow the same standard? Currently they don't (i.e. "Dhaka" and not "Dhaka city") and they are pretty much the norm on Wikipedia, unless I'm seriously mistaken. Zach (Talk) 15:10, 25 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
In the case of all three of your examples, each section of the article fairly quickly tells the reader what sort of geographical feature the subject is or has wording that makes it obvious. That was not the case with this article after ZH8000 removed all the word river's. Or are you talking about the title of the article because that is covered by the manual of style. In the case of Dhaka, for example, the article is called 'Dhaka' and not 'Dhaka City' or 'Dhaka (city)' because there is no other Dhaka to disambiguate it from. My personal view is that the title should be more complete, but the manual of style has consensus on its side, so my opinion is precisely that - my opinion.
I found a few incoming links to sections. I am not going to the trouble again, but Yellow Nile links to Nile#Yellow Nile via a redirect (but at least, in this instance, we are told it is a former tributary and what it was a former tributary of). But as I said, you cannot guarantee that no one will create a link in the future and there are always people who will click on a section from the contents and miss out the rest of the article. DocFergus (talk) 12:21, 30 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the example. Just to be clear: I do not mind having some clarifications in the article (let's say at least every other sub-section) for those who arrive in the middle of the page. But I think the last version edited by ZH8000 ([1]) is still clear while less cluttered. For instance, the word "river" appears 70 (!) times within the body of the article, not to mention the words "water", "source", "course", "basin", "tributary" etc. at virtually every paragraph. I would say that the wording makes the subject pretty darn obvious, in the same way as it does for Rhine, Danube or Euphrates (rivers this time but not featured articles). Zach (Talk) 15:22, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have a problem with that version either. DocFergus (talk) 17:11, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Good! (I thought you had a problem with the current version). I made a couple adjustments. Let me know if there is any problem. Zach (Talk) 13:29, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Length value

As the current value for the length (6853 km) comes from an unpublished study[1] and seems to result from an edit without comment by a novice user (Special:Permalink/571184771), I propose to change it either back to the Encyclopedia Britannica value (6650 km[2]) or to the longest currently (peer-reviewed) published value (7088 km[3]), with an additional note like this: [n 1]

References

  1. ^ The length of the Nile is usually said to be "about" 6,650 km[2], but reported values lie anywhere between 5,499 km and 7,088 km[3]. The length measurements of many rivers are only approximations and differ from each other because there are many factors that determine the calculated river length, such as the the position of the geographical source and the mouth, the scale of measurement, and the length measuring techniques (see also List of rivers by length).[3][4]

A decision for either one is difficult, the Britannica value seems to be one that is generally accepted and a simple internet search for nile "6650 km" shows its impact, on the other hand we do not know where it comes from and who measured it. The Liu et al. value seems to be measured with scientific care but has not yet gained much attention.

--WEGC1 (talk) 14:45, 28 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I just did several hours worth of study searching scholar.google.com for articles and citations of Nile river lengths. The conclusion is that, believe it or not, the Liu et al. paper is the only peer-reviewed paper about Nile length measurement I could find. Looks like geographers do not publish their results in journals as many other scientific branches do. But if not there, where do they? I could not find out. What I can say though is, just as the paper describes it, there are many different values cited, one of them the 6650 km value of the Encyclopedia Britannica, but also 6695 km which seems to be an older value used by the National Geographic, these two values are cited quite often. BTW, the current edition of the National Geographic Atlas of the World[5], which I happen to own, states a length of 7081 km for the Nile and 6679 km for the Amazon. Two values that are not cited at all. People just don't use books anymore. --WEGC1 (talk) 21:11, 30 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
To come to a conclusion: I would love to introduce the Liu et al. value of 7088 km as the "true" length of the Nile, because it is the best source available. It is very well documented, reflects upon the whole problem of the existence of lots of length values without source, and it is done with the most modern mapping tools available. But I do not dare, at least without a proper discussion. So since the current value is not acceptable because of the above mentioned reasons, I will change it back to the "about 6650 km" stated in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. But I invite all fellow Wikipedians to discuss the possible introduction of 7088 km as the accepted length of the Nile. --WEGC1 (talk) 21:24, 30 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ "How Long Is the Amazon River?". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2018-12-24.
  2. ^ a b "Nile River". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 29 April 2015. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ a b c Liu, Shaochuang; Lu, P; Liu, D; Jin, P; Wang, W (2009-03-01). "Pinpointing the sources and measuring the lengths of the principal rivers of the world". Int. J. Digital Earth. 2: 80–87. doi:10.1080/17538940902746082.
  4. ^ "Where Does the Amazon River Begin?". National Geographic News. 2014-02-15. Retrieved 2018-12-25.
  5. ^ Society (U.S.), National Geographic (2014). Atlas of the World. National Geographic Books. ISBN 9781426213540.

Hi, WEGC1. The best source available (as you put it), it's about turning on your brain. The length of the Nile from lake Victoria to the sea is appr. 3,450 miles - this has been measured with the highest accuracy. The length of the upper Nile, which begins in Rwanda, including the length of lake Victoria , is almost 700 miles. From here, the length of the Nile is almost 4,150 miles and it is 6,650 km. Why did the Chinese write that the length of the Nile is 450 km longer? Where did he get this 450 km and where is the evidence? Find this Chinaman and ask him. 91.188.184.68 (talk) 11:51, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you could say the same for all other values floating around in the different books. How have the 6650 km been measured, is there any source on this? At least the Chinese have documented the locations of the river sources and the methods they used. I don't think that this paper is very good, so I admit that "the best source available" is an overstatement, but at least it's a scientific paper wheres all the other info cited here come only from books without mentioning the source of their information. Maybe you have other sources, could you please cite them? --WEGC1 (talk) 12:10, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
6650 km (or more precisely, 6671 km) is a measurement of the 1950s. The fact is that the length of the Nile from lake Victoria to the sea - 3473 miles - was measured a very long time ago, already in the Britannica of 1911 there is this. In the 50s, the upper Nile was measured and summed with the main Nile, and so it turned out to be 6671 km. Then a large reservoir was built on the Nile and the length decreased slightly. So now scientists are rounding up to 6650 km. As for the farthest source from which the Nile was measured: it is the source of the Rukarara river East of lake Kivu. As for the Chinese: he does not prove his claims, he does not show what method he chose, he does not explain why in this case the previous length measurements (for example, 6671 km) are incorrect. The scientist must do this. The Chinese research is completely unfounded. 91.188.184.68 (talk) 12:36, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Page views

--WEGC1 (talk) 18:28, 3 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

bruh — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:569:7D70:D800:226:BBFF:FE1B:2A1D (talk) 00:22, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Environmental Conditions of the Nile?

I find it strange that this article includes no real discussion about the environment of the Nile. No section dedicated to pollution, water quality, etc.? Maybe I missed something but I am just not seeing it. I also checked the article on the Amazon to see if it included anything like that and while there was at least a discussion of flora and fauna of the Amazon, unlike the Nile, I also see no discussion of the environmental situation. Are there separate articles for this because if so, I think that is a big mistake as most people are not going to know what to search for. I did find water politics of the Nile but I am having a really hard time understanding why it wouldn't be a in a comprehensive article. At the very least there should be something linking to that other article. I mean it is one of the largest rivers on the planet and to not have easy access to environmental information just doesn't seem well thought out.

I agree. I was disappointed to find no information on flora and fauna of the Nile, and am still not sure where to find this. I would also like to see more about climate and the environment of the Nile. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.4.202.159 (talk) 08:21, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Fish

Anyone know what kind of fish live in the Nile? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 08:16, 11 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Etymology

In Tamil language Nir means water; and because this word has root in africa; Nile could be another pronunciation for water; this is not quoted from somewhere. Thanks Amir Arab 194.157.16.89 (talk) 12:33, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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