User talk:Zaian

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Archive
Archives
  1. December 2005 - July 2006
  2. July 2006 - May 2007, including the JBAK files

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[edit] Your AIV report

Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. When using certain templates on talk pages, as you did to User talk:124.185.152.162, don't forget to substitute with text by adding subst: to the template tag. For example, use {{subst:uw-test1}} instead of {{uw-test1}}. This reduces server load and prevents accidental blanking of the template. Thank you. Khukri 08:04, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Apartheid infobox

Thank you. I take the point on too many edit summaries. I am presently in compulsive-edit rehab. As long as requests for edit summaries are not an excuse for "contributor hounds" to easily find one's edits and change them for POV reasons; substitute pejoratives for neutral terms; rewrite sentences in grammatically incorrect 2nd language English; and introduce nuances that are factually incorrect, I am happy to insert edit summaries where necessary. Zaian, if you placed your comment for NPOV reasons and are not a confederate of "contributor hounds" then I apologise for making more work for you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Suidafrikaan (talk • contribs) 12:16, 27 May 2007

You could either assume good faith or judge me on my edits; either way I don't think you'll find I'm hounding you! There are few enough editors on SA topics; I'd hate to scare someone away if they're doing a decent job.Zaian 10:20, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
lol. Thank you for the assurance. I didn't think you were. Perhaps others that have made similar comments should do some soul searching.Suidafrikaan 10:37, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
I find the Apartheid infobox a bit intrusive and too sketchy to do justice to such a complicated subject. Would a suitable category not suffice?Gregorydavid 20:02, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
It's rather simplistic at the moment. Hero/villain categorisations like "people for" and "people against" are probably not the best we can come up with for an encyclopedia; however, Wikipedia has a lot of quality articles on apartheid, and an infobox that brings them together seems like a reasonable idea. Zaian 06:40, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that is why I am contributing to it. Can you make it Hide and View ?Gregorydavid 06:43, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I suppose so, but I don't know how. Zaian 06:44, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Buthelezi

I'm not at all sure why you are opposed to the label "Supporters of apartheid". He was a proponent of Kwazulu as a bantustan. His forces took part in Third Force atrocities before the 1994 elections. Perhaps the compromise position is to categorize him both as an anti-apartheid activist and as a supporter, as I have done with FW de Klerk. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Suidafrikaan (talk • contribs) 21:42, 27 May 2007

I'm opposed to simplistic and POV categorisations. In Buthelezi's case, it's not something simple which you can put a "pro" or "anti" label on. I'm no apologist for the IFP, and I accept your points, but Buthelezi's refusal to accept "independence" for the KwaZulu homeland was a major factor in the failure grand apartheid. Zaian 06:34, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPA?

Now this? 12:34, 30 May 2007 Person's talk page was in my watchlist from a previous unrelated discussion. I think it would qualify as a personal attack, perhaps I should follow: WP:NPA#Recurring attacks? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Deon Steyn (talk • contribs) 12:52, 30 May 2007

Definitely an unpleasant taste. It's up to you if you want to do anything about it, but I would suggest not to. He would almost certainly argue that he was talking generally, not specifically. Zaian 11:45, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
No, the entire episode has already consumed enough time and energy of all parties :-) Thanks. --Deon Steyn 12:17, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikibreak

Goodbye!

I've decided to take an indefinite Wikibreak, after contributing to Wikipedia for exactly 18 months and making 4678 edits.

I would like to devote the time instead to:

all of which deserve more attention than this encyclopedia!

Things I am pleased about from my time as a Wikipedia editor:

  • Generally staying cool when the editing gets hot.
  • Starting, and bringing up to a reasonable standard, far too many articles to remember or list, including many related to History of South Africa in the apartheid era.
  • Writing several Did You Know articles including Brownsea Island Scout camp and Mafeking Cadet Corps (I used to edit quite a lot of Scouting articles, but gave it up because others were doing a better job and I didn't want to mix Scouting with my editing of political topics).
  • Receiving a few barnstars from other friendly editors.
  • Identifying that User:Zayd, who is almost certainly Zayd Ayob, son of Ismail Ayob, one of Nelson Mandela's lawyers, had somewhat incoherently and anonymously vandalised the page of George Bizos, one of his other lawyers, during a highly-publicised dispute in the courts. (He denied it, of course, but the evidence is there for all to see.)
  • Getting JBAK, a very prolific teenage British right-wing editor, banned from Wikipedia after he made several racist death threats, and then getting his various sockpuppets banned again after he claimed to have reformed but repeatedly proved to be unsuited to the job of editing.
  • Keeping my personal details out of the equation.
  • Doing a significant cleanup of the Nelson Mandela article, which is hopefully going to reach Good article status soon because of that work.
  • Tracking the scandal of John Perlman's resignation from the SABC.
  • Re-categorising the pages in Category:Towns in South Africa into subcategories for the nine provinces. That one was a really boring, thankless project, but someone had to do it. Fortunately, it's the only one I would class as boring and thankless.

That's all; goodbye and thanks! Zaian 07:03, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Young Mandela.jpg

Hello Zian, I have put back Image:Young Mandela.jpg to Nelson Mandela. I understand why you removed it, I saw the GA comments in the talk page. The fair-use rationale I have given the image should now be good enough even for GA. --Ezeu 21:36, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Apartheid

Hi there. I reviewed some of the discussion in the archived talk. Consensus can change. Where can we re-open a discussion on Apartheid. In particular, I would like to see it developed into an article on Apartheid and its different uses and applications that links to other articles. This would replace for example Allegations of apartheid, a ridiculously titled and content poor article. Your suggestions? Thoughts? Tiamat 21:21, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I'm aware of the controversy surrounding the Allegations of Israeli apartheid article. Redirecting Apartheid to History of South Africa in the Apartheid era has however, has merely shifted the debate over the meaning of apartheid to the ineptly titled Allegations of apartheid. (There is also currently an ArbComm on the whole affair; see: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Allegations of apartheid/Workshop. Like it or not, there are plenty of reliable sources indicating that the use of the word "apartheid" is not restricted to South Africa. (Indeed, Separate development does not appear to much different from Hafrada.) In any case, thanks for directing me to the appropriate talk page. Enjoy your wiki break. Tiamat 21:54, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikiback

In June I decided to take an indefinite Wikibreak. At the time I was thinking of a complete wikibreak, but it hasn't quite turned out that way; I still pop in and edit occasionally, so it's now more like a long term go-slow. Zaian 21:04, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Apartheid

No one responded to the inquiry on the Talk page for several days. Anyway, I've looked at the history and it's over whether the article should be named "apartheid" or not. This move isn't to that title, it's just to a more succinct version of the "History of South Africa in the apartheid era" title which is really quite long for a wikipedia title. As the change has been done (and not without asking for input first) let's see if there's any serious objection before reversing it. Reggie Perrin (talk)

[edit] Orphaned non-free media (Image:Bronzewolf.gif)

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[edit] African Scouting

We've been filling in and then coloring the emblems for many of the Girl Guide associations, but we still have gaps, can you think of sources? Thanks, Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 09:38, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at User:Kintetsubuffalo/workshop/ScoutProjectthanks for all the ones that have been added recently. Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 07:11, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] South Africa under apartheid

As a previous contributor the discussion, please have a look at Talk:South Africa under apartheid. We need to build consensus on how to split it up, or otherwise shorten it, and your input would be appreciated. 9Nak (talk) 10:34, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Duplicate Image:ZimbabweScoutLogo.jpg

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[edit] Chartlon Heston image

No I have not met her. Permission was granted to use this image in the public domain. Teatreez (talk) 11:32, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Thankyou for the help. Teatreez (talk) 15:48, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nelson Mandela WP:INDIA Tagging

Thanks for reverting the {{WP India}} tag to Nelson Mandela [1]. The reason for the Auto tagging by TinucherianBot is that the article is within an India related category of Category:Bharat Ratna recipients. Hope you dont mind our small mistakes. With such massive tagging, mistakes do happen. If you happen notice any other such errors , Kindly let me know so that we take care of it in future. Sorry for the incovieanance -- TinuCherian (Wanna Talk?) - 13:48, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

No problem at all! Regards, Zaian (talk) 13:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)