Wikipedia talk:School and university projects/Polytechnic of Namibia

Article ideas

If you're interested in Namibian history, you might want to pick up one of the red links in the Navigation box below. For all of these leaders you find information on the web sites of Dr Klaus Dierks (Google for "Klaus Dierks" and the name of the leader). --Pgallert (talk) 14:52, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

• User:Namiba/My wish list Contains many yet-to-be-written articles.
• Government of Namibia also has plenty of redlinks.

--Pgallert (talk) 17:53, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I have question about leaders in Namibian history. Was Hendrik Witbooi jr took the seat from Hendrik Samuel Witbooi to rule the Damara people and who contriduted much to the history of Namibia?[[user:salom h idhogela|salomhidhogela]] (talk) 10:14, 15 September 2011

I'm not sure I understand your question. --Pgallert (talk) 14:05, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Did you know - Acacia reficiens main page

A fact from a student-created article, Acacia reficiens is on today's main page. Pseudofusulina (talk) 22:06, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Phantastic, thanks for submitting and polishing this. --Pgallert (talk) 15:15, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Misplaced article

Some students are mistakenly placing their whole articles here. Collapsing.

Extended content

The verbal attacks between the youth minister and leader of the ruling party’s youth wing has escalated – with both parties firing off heated insults yesterday. Author: WINDHOEK - ELLANIE SMIT The Minister of Youth, National Service, Sport and Culture, Kazenambo Kazenambo, has singled out Swapo Party Youth League (SPYL) Secretary Dr Elijah Ngurare as the man behind alleged attempts to fire him. Ngurare in response again called Kazenambo “a chicken on drugs” and said he would not even waste time on responding to any of the minister’s allegations. The two men have unleashed a tirade of public spats in recent weeks and revelations in a local daily yesterday that the SPYL will formally request President Hifikepunye Pohamba to fire Kazenambo, has added weight to the already strained relationship between the two Swapo politicians. Kazenambo told Namibian Sun upon inquiry yesterday that the SPYL has put a target on him, further alleging that his nemesis Ngurare was at the forefront of lobbying all the wing’s regional structures to rally behind plans to get him fired. It was reported yesterday that a letter is currently being drafted by the SPYL and will have input from all the 13 regions on why Kazenambo should vacate his position. Kazenambo has attracted criticism from various SPYL regional structures, such as Kavango and Erongo, who called on the Swapo leadership to intervene in the recent verbal spat between Kazenambo and Ngurare. Ngurare drew the wrath of Kazenambo after he criticised the performance of the youth ministry and its supposed laxity in addressing challenges facing the country’s young people. Kazenambo hit back in a rather strong vulgar tone, calling Ngurare a penniless political ghost whose background is shady. The minister vowed to dig deep in his own pockets to investigate the origins of the SPYL secretary. Responding to reports that a wheel was in motion to flush him out of the Government system, an irate Kazenambo said: “The Swapo Youth League has never been as divided as it is under this man (Ngurare). I may go and there are those who are celebrating me going, but the division will not stop. I am not the problem. SPYL has gone down under his leadership.” A fortnight ago, after some senior Swapo leaders met at State House for an unknown early evening business, talk spread like wildfire that the meeting had discussed the dismissal of Kazenambo. The rumour was quashed by many Swapo and Government leaders that Namibian Sun spoke to at the time, but the SPYL has now seemingly revived the process to send Kazenambo into political wilderness. The minister yesterday said the SPYL wants to prescribe to Pohamba what to do. “Come what may, I will not become a political orphan in this country,” he said. “I will not be reduced to a secondary citizen.” He added: “Why is this ministry being singled out? And why Kazenambo? They have placed a target on certain ministers that they do not like and I am priority number one.” He said he is submitting reports and briefing Pohamba about the activities of his ministry and challenged the SPYL to produce records of its achievement under Ngurare. “He is the one who is mobilising the youth in the regions to cover his dark past. Ngurare is undermining the peace and stability of this country, accused Kazenambo.” Kazenambo has been caught in many controversies in recent years – verbally attacking journalists, calling for the legalisation of prostitution and calling for a non-Omuwambo person to succeed Pohamba as president. But the unapologetic minister said: “I have never said anything in my life that I regret. I do not have regrets about my past or about my future. I am proud about myself and who I am - the role I have played. I do not regret anything. “ Approached for comment, Ngurare said: “When one is behaving like a chicken on drugs there is no time to waste on that.” click to enlargeCHOPPING BLOCK: Minister of Youth, National Service, Sport and Culture, Kazenambo Kazenambo, has accused Swapo Party Youth League (SPYL) Secretary Dr Elijah Ngurare of driving a campaign to have him fi red from Cabinet. © FILE Omukwiyugwemanya senior secondary school It is located in the northern part of Namibia.Situated in Oniipa constituancy, Oshikoto region.It is under Oshigambo circuit in Omukwiyugwemanya educational cluster. It has grades from 8 to 12 Omukwiyugwemanya has one principle, 35 teachers and 876 leaners.The school has got enought classes including a library, computer laboratory and Science laboratory. The passing rate of the school is avarege, the passing rate for grade 10 2011 was 50 percent.The subjects taken at the school include Mathematics, Biology and Physical science. — Preceding unsigned comment added by OAmwaanyena (talk • contribs) 18:25, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Common mistakes noted by a reviewer, and suggestions to fix

Greetings, I have reviewed several dozen of the Poly Namibia articles thus far, and wanted to note some common mistakes which can be easily avoided. Overall, I've seen several Poly articles that were ready to publish, some that need some minor tweaks, and a few folks who completely missed the idea and submitted debate/argument articles, or "comparisons between my favourite thing" blog/journal posts instead.

Here are some general points of advice which if applied can bring the "not too bad for a start" articles up to "ready to publish".

• Misplacing your draft: not to poke fun, but multiple reviewers have noted a trend of Poly students having no idea where to start their draft, so this should be corrected. If, for example, your username is "JoeSmith", your intended article is "Jazz in Namibia", where your URL in your browser says http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JoeSmith, add the /article name to the end to say http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JoeSmith/Jazz in Namibia. Wiki will show a little red message saying "no such article, want to start one?" and you click that to start. Your userpage "User:Joe smith" is not a drafting space. It's a place to post a little info about yourself, maybe mention you're on the Poly project, put up a few banners, etc. Don't make it your personal Facebook page or anything, but anything personal but related to your article work is fine. Your "User talk:JoeSmith" is to communicate with you, so only use that to receive and reply to messages, not draft articles.

Of the Poly articles I've reviewed thus far, 85% are improperly placed on the Userpage, 5% are improperly placed on the User Talk page, and 5% are correctly placed in a drafting space of the user.

• Writing a "lead" (introduction): A lot of y'all's articles start with a heading, which we don't do on Wiki. Before the headings and all that start, you have a "lead" which establishes the basic who-what-why-when-where of your topic. Too many of your leads assume the reader knows Namibia and you personally, but you need to write them so even a perfect stranger chancing on your page understand your topic from the very beginning. See WP:Lead for guidance.

• Understanding footnotes: Maybe 10% of you are perfect on this, about 80% are partway there but missing some important parts. Each time you write a fact in an article, you want to prove it by offering a link to a reputable source or information (newspaper, book, government site, etc). If I say "Apples are red", right after that phrase I should type <ref>Bob Thompson. ''[http://books.google.com/appleguide1234576 Guide to Apples and Colours''. Acme Press, Cairo, 1934</ref>. This tells the reader "if I need to be sure apples really are red, I can go to this book and make sure it's true." If the book/article/whatever exists online, include a link to it. If it's a GoogleBooks reference, you can use http://reftag.appspot.com to automatically convert it to a footnote.

A lot of y'all are mistakenly forming footnotes, and lumping them all at the bottom of the page. You have the format right, but you aren't seeing how to place them right after the fact they prove.

A good portion of you are doing great at choosing WP:Reliable sources for footnotes. Some good newspaper articles, government sites (though watch for gov't bias!) etc. However, y'all are really underutilising Books.Google.com. It's a great resource, all kinds of info, and can be converted to footnotes automatically. Try using that too!

• Infoboxes: If you're writing about a specific person, school, book, etc., there's probably a WP:Infobox that will hold the basic statistics in a tidy little box on the margin for readers. A great way to find out about infoboxes is to find a good article about a topic similar to yours, and see what box they used. In general, it's always a good idea to find a well-developed article (something very famous where you're sure a lot of people have worked on it over time and improved it). If you're writing about a tribe, check out Zulu people for a good example; if you're writing about a military leader, see Napoleon Bonaparte.

• Choosing topics: About 75% of folks have chosen decent topics, such as a particular village, event (lots of murders apparently), local food, etc. Or a standardised "X topic in Country" such as "Alcohol laws in Namibia", "Domestic violence in Namibia", etc. The place where I'm seeing mistakes is arbitrary topics like "Top 3 fastest sedan cars", "My favorite musicians", etc. And also a few folks writing on topics that we obviously already have; clearly we already have Eiffel Tower, Grand Canyon, etc. so we don't need a brand new article covering that topic. Also, if your article argues a point ("Namibia should reform its parliamentary system", "Namibia should crack down on violence against women"), then that is not an encyclopedia article, but an editorial, and can't be published on Wikipedia.

As a general rule, if you have a specific thing (person, place, etc) unique to Namibia, and there's no article about it, that's probably good provided you have sources. If you have a universal topic applied to Namibia, like Dance in Namibia, Poverty in Namibia, GLBT rights in Namibia, make sure there's already a precedent for such an "X in Country" topic. If there is, and there's no equivalent for Namibia but is for USA, Japan, Thailand, etc. then congratulations, you've found a great topic gap for Namibia! Beware though of having too specific of a topic. If there's not already Tobacco in Namibia, then probably Tobacco in Caprivi is a little too specific, so maybe Tobacco in Namibia should be addressed first before narrower regional sub-sets are addressed.

These are just some initial examples of things to improve. I'll also encourage you to the Teahouse if you need to talk to a volunteer mentor. I'd also encourage you, if someone visits your page and gives advice, or posts a question or comment on your talkpage, or answers your question on a help forum, be courteous and thank them. It's important to let them now you value their help, otherwise people get discouraged because they don't know if it makes a difference. It's very easy to communicate on Wikipedia, so make sure to ask, thank, explain, etc. as much as needed.

Learning a new skill is always tough, but a lot of you are doing better and better, so keep it up! MatthewVanitas (talk) 22:31, 12 October 2012 (UTC)