User talk:Babakathy/Archive 7

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Happy New Year

Compliments of 2013! Almost forgot the tradition going on for some years now. Part (talk) 02:37, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm good man - thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Part (talk • contribs) 13:03, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Geneva Conference

My labelling both ZANU and ZAPU as "communist" was perhaps an oversimplification, but both parties were influenced politically by overseas communists; ZANU's influences were from Chinese Maoism, while ZAPU's came from more classical Soviet Marxism–Leninism. While perhaps neither went so far as to be called fully "communist", per se, I don't think it is really inaccurate to say in the article that both were influenced by communist politics, both before and after 1980? After all, during the Chimurenga, apart from the training, materiel support and so on, both ZANU and ZAPU cadres often cited communist writers as influences, and ZAPU in particular used to use a lot communist symbolism (hammers and sickles, etc; unless I am much mistaken ZANU used the communist red star). And both used the title "comrade"; indeed, I remember that this term was still in political use circa 2008. I expect it still is now? Anyway, let's have a look at some source material.

ZANU-PF's unity agreement, made in 1987, prefixes Mugabe's name with the title "comrade", and articles 5 and 6 describe the party's intention "to establish a socialist society in Zimbabwe on the guidance of Marxist-Leninist principles ... a one-party state". According to Daniel Gray and David Walker, in The A–Z of Marxism (p. 339), "ZANU-PF advocated Marxism-Leninism throughout its battle for liberation and into the formative years of its governing of the young Zimbabwe. Perhaps uniquely, despite this promotion of Marxism-Leninism, it strenuously denied being communist, and yet still modelled its party on the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Owing to a crippling economic downturn, by 1991 it had dropped its early Marxist rhetoric entirely, embracing free market economics with zest". Assa Okoth seems to take a similar line, in his History of Africa 1915–1995, saying on p. 138 that the "nationalists in exile tended to brandish Marxist-Leninist or Maoist ideas according to the origins of their military supplies; in their exile bases they became increasingly politicised. But they were not communists. Marxist sentiments became steadily stronger among the guerrillas, particularly those in ZANLA, but not among the political leadership as a whole. The Zimbabwean war never became a revolutionary socialist war", he concludes.

So from this I see clearly that my original wording of "communist", as you pointed out, was incorrect. But I still feel some kind of comment about all this should be included. Perhaps, as I suggested above, that they were influenced or Marxism–Leninism, or communism, or something else along these lines? I would be interested to hear your thoughts and any suggestions you might have on this.

Thanks again for your comments and for correcting my mistake. I look forward to hearing from you and to doing more work together. I hope you are doing well in all regards. Cheers, —Cliftonian (talk) 12:24, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

My main concern was with describing ZANU as only communist, whereas the black nationalist nature of the struggle is probably more notable and certainly more cited. Perhaps to bring in Walker or Okoth's work into the background section, to make clear (i) the support for communist policies expressed by ZANU at the time in question and (ii) the general influence. Another excellent source is None but ourselves: Masses vs media in the making of Zimbabwe as Julie Frederikse reproduces much of her source material. The language (comrade, politbureau) is still in use today but devoid of ideological content (not that that is relevant to the page we're discussing). Babakathy (talk) 15:55, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

We only need a very light reference here (it's not directly relevant to this Conference), so I've reworded to

"The two most prominent black nationalist parties in Rhodesia were the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU)—a predominantly Shona movement, influenced by Chinese Maoism—and the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), which was Marxist–Leninist, and mostly Ndebele. ZANU and its military wing, the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA), received considerable backing in training, materiel and finances from the People's Republic of China and its allies, while the Warsaw Pact gave similar support to ZAPU and its Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA)."

I've added Okoth as a reference to firm this up. I hope this is all right so far as you see? Thanks again —Cliftonian (talk) 18:02, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Support 100% Babakathy (talk) 05:57, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Time constraints on GZim page

Just to let you know that free time I might have had is going to be majorly sucked up by my somewhat recklessly volunteering to do a complete rewrite of Ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, which is currently the worst article I have read on WP in a very long time. This in response to a recently lodged RfC by an embattled editor. I will however continue to stay active on the GZim page, but just won't have time to do much research of my own. Regards, Johncoz (talk) 08:05, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Appreciate the heads up, thanks. Good luck with that. Babakathy (talk) 08:14, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

40 km

Hallo. Just to note that you live about 40 km from me. Regards Part (talk) 06:13, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Who'd have thought? And I think I was largely in Netherlands when we started corresponding... Babakathy (talk) 05:49, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks

Hi David. Thank you for awarding me the Biography Barnstar and for supporting my requested page move for the CCM article. Much appreciated. Ali Fazal (talk) 11:48, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Love history & culture? Get involved in WikiProject World Digital Library!

World Digital Library Wikipedia Partnership - We need you!

Hi Babakathy! I'm the Wikipedian In Residence at the World Digital Library, a project of the Library of Congress and UNESCO. I'm recruiting Wikipedians who are passionate about history & culture to participate in improving Wikipedia using the WDL's vast free online resources. Participants can earn our awesome WDL barnstar and help to disseminate free knowledge from over 100 libraries in 7 different languages. Multilingual editing encouraged!!! But being multilingual is not a necessity to make this project a success. Please sign up to participate here. Thanks for editing Wikipedia and I look forward to working with you! SarahStierch (talk) 22:51, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Vulcanodon beds

Hello! I noticed your very useful work on the Batoka Formation article. While working on the Vulcanodon article, I got one question, perhaps you are able to help: Is the term "Vulcanodon beds" a synonym of the term "Batoka Formation", or is it a subunit of the latter or something like that? Thank you, --Jens Lallensack (talk) 10:04, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi. The latter, "Vulcanodon beds" is a non-stratigraphic term for the sedimentary horizon within the Batoka Fmn in which the fossils were found. Babakathy (talk) 11:34, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Great, thank you! --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:04, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Victoria Falls (Zambezi River) link

Hi Babakathy, this link is not to a single specific place at a set of coordinates. The Google Earth placemarks line out the entire Zambezi River from spring to estuary, including the Zambezi River passage of the Victoria Falls. That said, I agree, I think it's relevant in the Zambezi River and not in Victoria Falls article. TomKjeldsen (talk) 14:31, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Thing is, gearthhacks is the type of site (like openstreetmap) that almost any article in Wikipedia and certainly every river, road or other linear feature could end up linked to a sub-page on. That's not appropriate. Please take a look at the guidelines on external links, especially points 1, 11, 12, 15. Babakathy (talk) 13:54, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Well thats your point of view, I see absolutely no problem with guidelines in relation to this link. This was not added to the article to promote anything. And it's not a repeat of anything. It is additional information, which can not be incorporated inline in article. I know that this file contribute lots of objective geographical new information (since I made it my self) and if you may doubt the quality, the identical file is also a moderated well recommended file at Google Earth Community › Earth - Moderator Selected › Nature and Science (Moderated) - Anyway, just tried to enhance this article, have now dropped it... TomKjeldsen (talk) 14:31, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

If there is some specific info that can be reliably sourced for the link, it is better to put the info in the article and insert a citation/reference, not an external link. But the issue is that there are many such user-developed projects out there, and it does not make sense to have a link to all of them. Babakathy (talk) 05:46, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Discussion moved to WP:ELN

This file and info is by no means personal and is completely international... TomKjeldsen (talk) 14:06, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Looking back, I want to remove this post, for my part, since I see it all so useless, unproductive. Will let it be here for some days then delete, if possible TomKjeldsen (talk 14:23, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

And you may have in future a hard work hard to find areas as like the source of the Zambezi River or to get an overview of the entire river only from wikipedia alone. Good luck. TomKjeldsen (talk) 14:34, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not saying the file and info are of no use, the point is there is policy at wikipedia against referencing or linking self-published or user-created content, see WP:SPS and WP:ELNO. There is a general feeling that googleearthhacks fits that description - see discussion here

I will archive this thread if there's no further discussion - please don't delete it from here yourself deleting comments from user talk pages should be done by the user whose talk page it is. Babakathy (talk) 05:34, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Obvious I have no chance of convincing wikipedia / you that my humble link could contribute anything to Wikipedia. Fine, no problem. I had no intention to promote any files or info. You (and maybe wikipedia) may have missed a point. As said, I only wanted to offer additional fact information. I would prefer that this entire conversation is removed, since I find this so irrelevant for the future... TomKjeldsen (talk

Have to add, Babakathy, that I originally saw this as a PM, but see now this is a kind of public chat... please consider to remove this from your "talk" TomKjeldsen (talk

Next time hit "email this user" :)

Will archive once you've seen this. Babakathy (talk) 13:05, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

July 2013

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Zimbabwe African People's Union may have broken the syntax by modifying 2 "[]"s. If you have, don't worry, just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

• The '''Zimbabwe African People's Union''' is a Zimbabwe]]an political party. It was a militant organisation and political party that fought for the national
• of 2009 which was supposed to elect new leadership took place a month later that scheduled, on the [16 May 2009.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/zapu7.19828.html |title=ZAPU

Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 13:21, 31 July 2013 (UTC)