Talk:West African mythology

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 16 August 2021 and 10 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): VikingVeteran. Peer reviewers: Elen Benfelen.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 04:50, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Sparse

Is there more to this section?

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected by Theleekycauldron (talk) 05:09, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that Yumboes are fairy like creatures from West African mythology? Source: Gray, Louis H. (Louis Herbert); Moore, George Foot; MacCulloch, J. A. (John Arnott) (1916). The Mythology of all races ... Duke University Libraries. Boston, Marshall Jones Company.
  • ALT1: ... that the little creatures called Yumboes from West African mythology closely resembles fairies? Source: Allardice, Pamela (1991). Myths, Gods & Fantasy. ABC-CLIO. p. 227. ISBN 978-0874366600.

5x expanded by Emmanuel okon269 (talk). Self-nominated at 12:25, 19 November 2021 (UTC).

• Hello! I will attempt to begin this review shortly. Please note it is my second review here at DYK (and on Wikipedia in general). As a result, I am likely more open to reaching "again" as a conclusion than a more experienced reviewer. Thanks in advance for your understanding! Canadianerk (talk) 14:03, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy compliance:

• Adequate sourcing: - Facts in the article isn't properly cited inline, per rule 3b: "Each fact in the hook must be supported in the article by at least one inline citation to a reliable source, appearing no later than the end of the sentence(s) offering that fact." The end of the paragraph isn't sufficient, you can fix this with ref name fairly easily. I do have concerns about the source, which I'll address below.
• Neutral:
• Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

• Cited: - Was able to verify the Myths, Gods & Fantasy source, but it doesn't perfectly fit with either hook as written, nor how things are written in the article. The passage for Yumboes on page 227 only stated "African mythology", not specifically West African, nor Senegal. The closest it lists to a location is "Pap Mountains", which is too vague, with google searches for the term returning results for paps in Scotland and Ireland. The source also identifies them as fairies, not fairy-like/closely resembling fairies. It presented a description that is arguably fairy-like, but it required interpretation, it isn't directly stated in this source. This would be alright if all this info was stated in the first source, and we could just strip this source out and move on. But, you don't cite a specific page number - which means I've been unable to verify the information. I went into the book, and attempted to find the relevant passage, but using the search function - no results came up for "Yumboes", "Bakhna", "Rakhna" or "Bakhna Rakhna" - perhaps the book used a slightly different name? So, can you please provide the page number, so I can verify the hook? I would hunt for it myself, but the book is ~600 pages, so a page number, or even a specific search term which will work, would be very helpful.
• Interesting:

QPQ: None required.

Overall: Hey Emmanuel okon269, initial review complete - hope this makes sense. Feel free to ask questions, and let me know once the issue(s) are resolved. Thanks, Canadianerk (talk) 18:03, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

@Canadianerk and Emmanuel okon269: eighteen days have passed; this should be closed if there is no response in another three or so. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 23:14, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Theleekycauldron Appreciate the help, I'm aware it should be closed if there's no response after a reasonable length of waiting - my intention was to send a reminder - but my memory is a bit fuzzy on the recommended timeline. Could you point me to the specific page which states that specification? Canadianerk (talk) 01:42, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

@Canadianerk: I'm not aware of any hard timeline; it's usually just down to the reviewer and/or bystanders trying to push things along. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 05:47, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

TheLeekycauldron gotcha, thanks! To make it concrete, I'll give Emmanuel okon269 until 00:01 UTC, January 3rd, to indicate any interest in continuing this nomination, to give some flexibility given the New Year celebrations. Going forward, to ensure you/anyone else doesn't need to check in, I think my general policy will be to give nominators notice at around 10 days, and close at ~21. A shame for this one, the issues were fairly minor save for my trouble verifying the source. Thank you, Canadianerk (talk) 06:09, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

The guidelines suggest that nominators should be pinged a week after a nomination, particularly if a QPQ is required and they haven't provided one. There's no mention about general unresponsiveness, though I supposed a ping/talk page message after one week then waiting another week for a response could be an appropriate action. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 15:17, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

• Unfortunately there has been no response from the nominator (who hasn't edited since December 26 and has not responded to any of the talk page messages or pings). The deadline given above has passed and so the nomination is now marked for closure. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 05:27, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Religion or folklore myth?

Is this article about West African religion/spiritual belief system or some folklore myth/legend? Reading this article tells me that it is mainly about legends/folklore rather than West African religion/spiritual belief. What I've seen here are mainly legends which has nothing to do with the core spiritual principles and beliefs of West Africans. Therefore, it appears to me that the editor did not seem to understand the difference. As such, I think the title of this article should be changed from West African religion to West African myths or West African legends in order to reflect the content of this article. 2A00:23EE:2680:4926:343B:B59B:1AEC:8011 (talk) 04:15, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Agreed! This article is a mess! Surprisingly, West Africa religion redirects here. The only thing that contains links to the actual spiritual beliefs of the people are found in the See also section. In my view, I would probably call this West African fairytales than religion/spirituality/legend or myth. As you can see, this is not West African religions/spirituality (see: See also for that). I also object to calling it legend, because legends by definition has a bit of true history and over exaggerated history. Myth is a matter of belief but could be sacred and part of a group of people's worldview. To differentiate it from the cosmogony or creation narrative/myth of the various West African people, I would not call it myth either, but fairytale like the Lockness Monster.Tamsier (talk) 01:31, 18 April 2024 (UTC)