User talk:Deborahjay/Pages for review

Welcome, ZU WP editors! Each entry here is an existing page for review and possible treatment.
Thank you for visiting and for your help! -- Deborahjay (talk)

Koko i-atikli

Koko i-atikli: page created by one-time, unregistered user. One line of text. Possibly spurious content. -- Deborahjay (talk) 06:58, 20 uNcwaba 2017 (UTC)

Deborahjay, I think you may delete this article. The writer says something about Xhosa, but even with the Xhosa I know, it absolutely makes no sense at all. About the title; Koko - I don't know what this means, i-atikli - possibly stands for article. It was possibly written by someone who was just testing if they could write something on Wikipedia. Fiso.dlamini (talk) 07:47, 20 uNcwaba 2017 (UTC)

Fiso.dlamini, I completely agree with your assessment: "support Article for deletion". I will investigate - and if necessary, create - the process of Article for deletion here in the ZU WP. For now it will wait, and I suggest this be the place for our pending actions on identified problematic pages. (When we have a ZU WP maintenance WikiProject, I'll move this page there.) -- Deborahjay (talk) 07:56, 20 uNcwaba 2017 (UTC)

Talk:Koko i-atikli

Talk:Koko i-atikli - This Talk page is a prototype for articles being added to this "Pages for review" process by us, the [proto] ZU WP WikiProject collaborating editors. At this point in our process, I suggest we try writing in ZU with minimal EN translation. (However, my own Edit summaries will always be in English.) The original en:zu machine-translated text of that Talk page requires review by a native ZU speaker. Kindly make any necessary corrections and I'll study them. -- Deborahjay (talk) 08:22, 20 uNcwaba 2017 (UTC)

Page and Category for Asia (the continent)

Spelling and format discrepancy in existing names. See page I-Eshiya and Category:IAshiya. To fix these, what is the correct spelling for the proper noun, the name of the continent? Note that the corrections are not regular text edits; they require Move and Redirect actions which you'll observe in this process. -- Deborahjay (talk) 09:31, 20 uNcwaba 2017 (UTC)

The Zulu language hasn't been attended to over the years. As a result, people have been adding new words from other languages as they see fit, which causes lack of uniformity in the language. That is exactly what the team I am assembling will be doing.

With regards to I-Eshia and IAshia as you asked; they both mean the same thing. IsiZulu is a very special language. Special in such a way that it is very easy to twist and turn the words anytime when you talk. You can change and even remove some vowels when you pronounce, yet the word would still retain its meaning. But a written Zulu is a completely different story, especially for filing and digital purposes. As it is IsiZulu has not fully adapted for the digital age, where just about anyone - not just the professional writers can write to the publicsphere. If the Zulu language was an infrastructure, I would say that it was left to decay.

Now, most difficulty comes with the introduction of the new words from the western world - esp. English - to daily use. Let's use a name like Asia as an example, some would choose to write it the way they think it sounds when pronounced in Zulu, hence I-Ashiya', IAshiya (These are wrong because we wouldn't pronounce A as an E)', while Eshiya is more like it because in Zulu, Asia sounds as if it begins with an E. But since most people are so used to English, they would try and begin it with an A.

One of my team members suggested this morning that we should leave names as they are. I think she is correct, because language is for communication anyway, and if someone ends up not understanding the word just because we tried too much to Zulufy it, we will have missed the whole point of communicating the information. Plus, I believe that if you know enough English to end you on Wikipedia you know enough to read Asia and other foreign names. For that reason I'm with my team member in that we should not change the names.

Fiso.dlamini (talk) 16:32, 20 uNcwaba 2017 (UTC)

Your explanation is an introduction for me, and it supports my impressions from my 3-1/2 weeks (!) here at ZU WP. The one rule I want to maintain is that the name of a page (article) and the Category to which it belongs, are identical - including style: hyphen, space, capitalization. Is there a well-accepted gazetteer (dictionary or encyclopedia of place names) we can use? Are there authorities you can consult?

Conceptual statement: The ZU WP has immense potential for reaching and helping many people. With our expanding skills, knowledge, understanding, vision and commitment - we can solve the editing problems and make the information optimally accessible. Fiso.dlamini, you and are already earning each other's trust and respect by our collaborative work. I believe we can build a team and communicate with care for our mutual goals. Some processes take longer than others - and they're worth the investment of time and careful decision-making. "So far, so good!" -- Deborahjay (talk) 17:00, 20 uNcwaba 2017 (UTC)

Solution for multiple spellings: The page or Category is created with the academically preferred spelling (see above re: gazetteer) and that spelling is used in the text. Then a special "REDIRECT" page or Category is created for each popular alternative spelling - so when a user searches that alternative, it will automatically open the page or Category of interest. -- Deborahjay (talk) 17:04, 20 uNcwaba 2017 (UTC)

Nelson Mandela / UNelson Mandela

These two pages on the same topic require careful editing and manual merge of their content!

• Nelson Mandela: created in 2010, numerous edits until 2015. Text has four chronological sections, many pictures
• UNelson Mandela: created in 2016 by one editor, translated from en:Nelson Mandela (long!)

I have added an explanation to the pages Talk:Nelson Mandela and Talk:UNelson Mandela, pointing to this page and section for editors' discussion. -- Deborahjay (talk) 07:55, 22 uNcwaba 2017 (UTC)
Edited to add: At the top of both those pages, I added "Bona elinye ikhasi:" and a link to the other page. -- Deborahjay (talk) 08:04, 22 uNcwaba 2017 (UTC)

Mncube

Is Mncube a page about a notable topic, or someone's personal content? Should this page be deleted? -- Deborahjay (talk) 17:14, 11 uLwezi 2017 (UTC)

Suggested pages for the zuwiki

See the following projects and lists from the enwiki:

• w:Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/The Africa Destubathon - Oct/Nov 2016