Talk:South African Statutes and other Legislation

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I've started getting info about South African legislation onto Wikipedia (and hopfully will in future include other African legislation. But I'n new to Wikipedia, and I see a list I put up is regarded as unverifyable, a loose collection of info, and needing fixing up.

So I put up an article on sources of South African legislation, and linked it to that list. Although the lis of legislation is for 2005, often it is really difficult to hunt down South African legislation. However, the list at least for 2005 can largely be verified by going to various South African government sites eg http://www.info.gov.za/documents/acts/index.htm, but these sites are quite out of date often and there is really no way you can believe what you see on these sites at first glance. [eg The wrong version of Act 26 of 2005 was published!] Any advise on verification, making the lists compliant with Wikipedia's high standards, linking it in so it is not just a loose collections of info, etc?

[edit] hope this helps

i saw a post from you about this article in the New Contributors Help board (or whatever it's called here) and i took a look at the site because i was intrigued by the topic, had been reading the newbie help threads and wanted to see an example, and i guess too i thought maybe i could help (though i'm only a couple of days old at this even now).

given what you said the admin advisors had said about the article and what Lost said in the help line in response to you, what i saw when i got to the article didn't really surprise me. it really pretty much is just a list (though a very important one!), with no text helping to describe why the items in the list are important. that said, i did try to help.

as for content, i went by what i know of policy here in the States. legislation affects other legislation, it mandates how various aspects of federal policy play out in people's lives, etc. i think you will have a nice article if you can add to each Act what it changes in South Africa (what it makes possible, what it prohibits, what it purports to change in the way federal and/or state governments and citizens will have to operate because of its passage) and maybe something about prompted the legislative statute. i do believe this would address the concerns that have been raised regarding your article, though they may still have issue with verifiability.

personally, i think it would also seem a little more professional if you didn't list for each Act both its year and its number, twice! i was going to edit that myself but decided that maybe they refer to their laws in such a manner.

finally, i must say that i still don't know how you figured out how to line your columns up, good job! and i cannot at all tell you why the formatting that i finally ended up with worked, but happily, it seems to.

also, you'll notice that i created a link to South African Constitution, which is already an article.

good luck! WeaselADAPT 11:58, 17 September 2006 (UTC)