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History of South Africa

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Self-nom. This article failed the last time it was nominated due to concerns over its length and image copyright status. The length issue I believe is a non-starter, as while the article is around 60k, that is only 20k per millenium of South African history. The image copyright issue has been fixed by my creation of an image tag that describes the law under which the images have been used. Apart from that, I think this article is definitely one of the best we have here on Wikipedia, and incredibly thorough while being concisise for the amount of history it covers. The old discussion can be found here. Thanks! Páll 03:05, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • Comment, the article is great, but the images a remain a problem since a non-commercial licence is not compatible with the GFDL. Also I think that the html links in test should be references clearly using a footnote template--nixie 11:32, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Yes, of course non-commerical licence immages are not compatible with GFDL, that's why they are seperate licenses. All of the text on wikipedia is released under GFDL, however the images may be released under different licenses. Páll 13:02, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes, but all images need to have a commercial license because non-commercial licenses are being disallowed as announced by Jimbo Wales. It was in the Signpost a few weeks back. - Mgm|(talk) 15:40, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object - same reasons as before in the failed nom. No effort has been made to address those. Especially telling is that the ==Apartheid== section, instead of being a summary of the Apartheid article, is in fact almost exactly the same size. Also, as is, having almost half the article on that aspect of South Africa's history unbalances the whole article. In addition, there are overly romantic heading titles like ===Stalked by a shadow===, ===Winds of change===, and ===Into the future===. There are also no inline cites except in the last section of prose. --mav 17:38, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. My understanding is that the 32k length limit for articles is just a rough guideline, not a firm limit. The article is long because it's on a big, important subject, and and because people put a lot of work into it. I don't see anything in the article that looks like filler. The discussion of the Boer War, for example, is long because it tries to present an accurate NPOV picture of a controversial topic. I understand the concern over licensing for the photos, but this is for only a relatively small number of the photos covering recent times, and the plain truth is that they add immeasurably to the article. I find the subheadings like "Winds of change" to be refreshing. Too much of the writing on wikipedia is awkward, formal, and boring. This article is a nice change from that. --Bcrowell 20:00, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • All featured articles need to stay tightly on topic and not go into unnecessary detail on subtopics (leaving more detailed descriptions of sub-topics to other articles). The Apartheid section of this article does not follow that FA criteria and its length, relative to the length of the other parts of South Africa’s history, is more than is necessary to summarize that part of South Africa’s history. Nobody here has mentioned the 32KB limit and nobody is complaining about the length of the Boer War section. --mav 15:56, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • I see. So are you just complaining about the length of the apartheid section? I'd assumed we were talking about the total length of the article, and just using the apartheid and Boer War parts as specific examples. I disagree that the length of the apartheid section is longer than it should be in relation to the rest of the article; it's about 1/3 of the article (not half), and I think that's about right. It's true that it's comparable to the length of the apartheid article, and not only that but it's much better written, and includes a lot of excellent photos. To me, reading the apartheid article and reading the apartheid section of the history article is like night and day; the section in the history article is much better in every way, and I don't think the people who did such a good job on the history article should be penalized because the apartheid article has never been brought up to the same level of quality. --Bcrowell 17:35, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • The history of South Africa was not written down until the late 16th century, and even then was only written down to cover the small area that is now known as Cape Town, therefore the beginning of the article is short because the amount of known information about the subject is short. The apartheid section is detailed because it covers perhaps the most relevant subject to South African history as well as the current situation in the country. Why don't you mention which details and subjects you find to be extraneous and worth moving to the apartheid article, which has no real history of apartheid and instead focuses on the law (and is also at the moment in the middle of a huge edit war which would make "offshoring" imprudent as it could flare the edit war further). Remember one of the Wikipedia maxums, "If you feel a change is needed, feel free to make it yourself"! Páll 18:54, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • I'll make those changes this weekend. That means somebody else will need to work on adding those inline cites and verifying or removing the images listed below. The other things are not that important. --mav 02:10, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
        • I've worked on the images, as described below in my reply to Carnildo.--Bcrowell 16:43, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Object agree with mav. Why can't the history be summarised and chunks of detail moved to dedicated articles for each top level section? It would be easier to read just gist of South Africa's history if it is made shorter. I also don't see the significance of the map of SAF in the lead.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 18:04, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. A history of a country should be long. Appartheid section is long but then it should be - after all it is the most (in)famous part of the country's history. Of course I wouldn't object if other sections were expanded, but the current 63kb is impressive and tells me the article is fairly comprehensive, especially with that many subarticles. All considered, another great FA by our resident SA specialist, Páll. What's next on your list 'to FA'? :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:28, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • So size alone tells you this is comprehensive? That's absurd. --mav 02:05, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • Where did I write that it's the only indicator I use? It's an important 'first impression' indicator, but of course one has to read the article to be more certain. Of course getting a PhD in the related area would help as well, but we have to draw a line somewhere...:p --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:06, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The copyright status of some images is unclear or unacceptable. In particular:
    • South African copyright reserves images for 50 years if taken by the government, and the Architects of Apartheid image was definitely taken before 1955, in fact it must have been taken sometime around 1945-46 by the people who are in the photo. I have seen the Sharpeville Massacre, Soweto Riots, and South African Miners images in so many places that I would have a hard time believeing they are anything but fair or free use. They are in EVERY text book on South African history in South Africa. Páll 20:13, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • Copyright doesn't work that way. Just because everyone and their dog uses an image doesn't mean it's out of copyright, it could just mean that there's widespread copyright infringement going on. And fair use isn't a type of copyright license. It's a defense allowing use in what would otherwise be an infringing situation. Fair use must be considered on a case-by-case basis: there's no such thing as a blanket "fair use" decision.
      • If Image:Architects of apartheid.jpg is really more than 50 years old, and if South African law says that images that old are no longer copyrighted, and if the law applies, then the proper tag for it is {{PD}}
      • I've researched the copyright status of the Soweto riots photo, and added some notes to its description page, Image:Soweto_Riots.jpg. The copyright has now gone back to Sam Nzima, the photographer, and he has made efforts to collect royalties. I think it should be in the article because it's such an important, powerful, and well known image in the history of South Africa, but I'm afraid it can only be used under fair use.--Bcrowell 21:10, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
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