Talk:South Africa

Important missing articles

Although I have indicated elsewhere Wikipedia:Requested_articles/Business_and_economics#Economics, the backlog for requested articles on other sections of Wikipedia is so astronomical that I think it would be better if I address this concern here. We are missing articles on important topics relating to finance and economics in South Africa. I cannot profess expertise in any of these fields and therefore appeal to other contributors to see if they can start the following articles:

• Foreign trade of South Africa - import/export; particularly exports related to the mining industry
• Banking in South Africa
• Taxation in South Africa: I am working on this page, hope to have it looking presentable soon.--Discott (talk) 16:13, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Articles pertaining to regional economies:

• Economy of Gauteng
• Economy of the Western Cape: created the page, so far so good.--Discott (talk) 16:13, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
• Economy of Johannesburg
• Economy of Cape Town

Also, since employment and job creation is such a perennial topic of discussion in South African politics I thought creating an article Jobs creating during South Africa presidential terms would merit an article of its own. Please go to my talk page if there is anything you would like me to do. --User:DiscipleOfKnowledge (talk) 13:34, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Deane.roger, 14 April 2011

Under the Science and Technology section, please replace $20 billion with $1.5 billion. Perhaps the mistake came about as it was an estimate in Rands. [source: www.skatelescope.org]

Deane.roger (talk) 15:50, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

 Done — Bility (talk) 17:26, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

BRICS Membership

Something must be said about South Africa's recent inclusion in BRICS. Done --User:DiscipleOfKnowledge (talk) 13:51, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I think you should spell BRICS out in full, 'cos nobody probably knows what it means. Meanwhile, I've added BRICS material at foreign and military relations section. Small problem with refs which I can't figure out & would be obliged if someone could fix on my behalf pse. Thanks. Communikat (talk) 22:05, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Why read only?

How come the article is now 'read only'? Unable to edit. Communikat (talk) 08:44, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

The article is semi-protected to reduce persistent vandalism, but can still be edited - see Wikipedia:Protection Policy and Wikipedia:Rough guide to semi-protection Greenman (talk) 09:29, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Nah, problem was that my new username had to exist for at least four days before system allowed access to semi-protect article. Now okay. Except that I can't get refs to come right in BRICS material newly added at foreign and military relations section. Can someone pse fix? Thanks. Communikat (talk) 22:02, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

"copyright violation" undone

Administrator Nick-D, who has never worked on this article, stalked and hounded me here, claiming copyright violation as his "reason" for deleting my recent edits in which I cited reliable UN and SA sources. I have undone his deletions. For his edification, works of the United Nations that are not offered for sale, such as the documents I have cited, are in the public domain. I would further add that works of the South African Government Communications and Information Service, such as the other documents I cited, are inherently in the public domain since they are a source of public information. (See here re "inherently"). Communikat (talk) 02:23, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Both websites are explicitly marked as being under copyright. Nick-D (talk) 02:26, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

maybe you're right about the UN, but not about RSA. You could just as well use your own words; it's really not that difficult. If you insist on the UN-stuff ad verbatim, the article needs a footnote-template at the bottom (<find the correct one) to attribute the source and state that it is in the public domain. What's your pleasure? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 02:30, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

The UNHCR's website is marked as being under copyright at the bottom of its front page: [1] and the HTML version of the South African country page: [2] so it's probably not in the public domain. Nick-D (talk) 02:34, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

oh, it's the High Commissioner... yeah, that's copyrighted. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 02:38, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Communicat, why have you re-added the copyvio from the UNHCR's website? This material isn't public domain. It also doesn't support the claim that's attributed to it (that this competition is the main cause of violence). Did you forget to re-word this? Nick-D (talk) 11:58, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Somebody's "rewording" of text has left a garble in text between refs 152 & 153. Pse fix, whoever did it, probably Edward321. Meanwhile, on the question of UN works that are not for sale, I refer you all again to this re public domain. The copyright notices you're refering to pertain IMO to the website itself, its logo and so on, not the text contents of the site. In any event, since there's now a sudden rush of interest in this long neglected article, I'll leave it in your capable hands; you can do with it whatever takes your fancy, including garbling the text if you like. Thanks for your interest. Communikat (talk) 12:14, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Addressing article bloat

South Africa source is 136KB at the time that I'm writing this, which is far too long per WP:SIZERULE. Current or recent events frequently get added, as well as users' personal specific points of interest. Chopping out sections, or moving information into sub articles will always be met with disagreement, so I wanted to get the ball rolling on nominating areas that are too long or suffer from WP:RECENTISM. Remember, this is the root article giving people an overview of the country. Here are some thoughts to kick things off, discussion is very welcome.

• Economy section devotes a very large paragraph citing numerous stats about income disparity, which could be summarized.
• Economy section has a long paragraph about immigrants.
• Electricity crisis has its own level 3 heading and multiple paragraphs. The amount of text devoted to the electricity crisis is longer than the dismantling of apartheid.
• Demographics is massive, no subheadings.
• Demographics has 3 paragraphs solely on the population, immigration and emigration trends of European South Africans.
• Demographics again deals with illegal immigration and asylum seekers.
• Literature has 3 individuals, each with their own paragraph devoted entirely to them.
• Social problems has yet another long paragraph on illegal immigration, this time from the angle of the 2008 xenophobic attacks.

Hopefully we can pare off sections of this article into more specialized articles. --HiltonLange (talk) 18:04, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Good suggestions; well thought out and succinctly presented. Has my support. Useful to have someone here who's actually familiar with the subject matter. Communikat (talk) 12:45, 7 July 2011 (UTC)