User talk:Landroving Linguist

Hello

Great to see you contributing! I hope you like it here at Wikipedia; we could really use the help of some experts on the Agaw languages and other Ethiopia-related pages. There is a WikiProject on Ethiopia, by the way. You can find the page here. Its purpose is to coordinate the expansion of Ethiopia-related articles, though we could use more contributors (as a result, progress is slow). Anyway, welcome! — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 13:51, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Inijbara

Hi, I don't mean to dampen your enthusiasm (& I thank you for contributing the picture of Injibara), but Injibara isn't large enough to be included in the template of the list of Ethiopian cities, so I remobved it. Right now the unwritten rule is that the settlement needs to be at least 20,000, & seeing just how many cities are listed in that template, that number might need to be raised. If you have any questions about this -- or anything else related to Ethipia, Wikipedia, or even life in general, feel free to contact me. -- llywrch 21:16, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

• I agree that you want to free the list of Ethiopian cities from local interest clutter. Still I think that Injibara belongs on that list, for the following reasons:

1. It is politically important. It is not only the capital of Banja Woreda, but also of Awi Zone, and as such on the same level as (for example) Debre Marqos.
2. It is bigger than 20,000 inhabitants. Unfortunately, the Central Statistics Data don't show this, for whatever reason. It is a fast growing city with at least 20,000 inhabitants. My estimate goes more towards 30,000 inhabitants, but I admit that I have no written source to prove this... --Landroving Linguist 10:03, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

You make some good points. Right now, the list is based on published population stats (which I admit may be soon outdated; I have a sense that the CSA is in the process of a national census, but likewise I admit that I have no proof of this), but if I had a pubished, official (or even semi-official) list of Zonal capitals I'd probably use that & a population criteria: the definition of a town (albeit a Western one) includes much more than just the number of inhabitants. -- llywrch 20:44, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: Woreda Capital

You wrote:

Thanks for copy-editing my stuff - I know it needs it. However, I feel a little uneasy when you consistently call the place of a wereda administration a capital. Even for a zonal administration it sounds a bit pompous. I would agree to call a regional administrative center a capital, but for lower levels I am looking for a better term, which explains my wordiness in some of the entries.

I'll admit that I'm not entirely happy with the use of the word "capital" -- even though some of the authors of the various Oromia Regional economic surveys use that word. For example, if a woreda is the equivalent of a county in the US, then we should talk about "seats", not "capitals". However, my intention is to keep the terminology consistent out of consideration for non-native English speakers: having had the experience of struggling with outdated school-German while in Germany, I know just how important keeping the language as simple and predictable as possible. That is why I force these entries into a banally repetiively -- if not stereotypical -- format, so to make it easier on the person reading the article with (for example) an Amharic-English dictionary, who may be looking up each word in the article. A person outside the English-speaking world can be very educated yet still need help understanding English, especially if she/he doesn't use it every day. (I'm certain that if I had to speak or write German in the next fifteen minutes on any topic, I'd fail spectacularly.)

So while I'm willing to accept a better choice (maybe "administrative center", if that is not too imposing?), I'd prefer that we find as broad of a consensus as possible then change every instance of "capital" to the new term. -- llywrch 20:44, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Good point. Let's stick to capitals then. And that will also be a guideline for me while wording other Ethiopia related entries: Keep it simple! -- Landroving Linguist 08:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: Benishangul-Gumaz

Actually, I was responsible for the "Benishangul-Shamuz" error -- I added it back in the days when I knew far less than I do now about Ethiopia, & was often confused. Unfortunately, I don't always go back & check my work, so I'm sure many more of my errors can be found in Wikipedia. :-( I fixed it, but don't be shy: if you find a mistake like that, feel free to jump in. (Just make sure you have a good explanation.) llywrch 22:44, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Please help-Amharic language request

Hello! The Wikipedia:Graphic Lab is working on artwork related to Ethiopia, and we need some help to get the proper Amharic language text into the artwork. Please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Graphic_Lab/Images_to_improve#Ethiopia_Scout_Association and see if you can help! Thanking you in advance, Chris 07:27, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Re: Ethiopian towns & cities

About Injibara...well, you caught me in the middle of a category re-organization. Or creation. With the last dozen settlement articles I've created, I've become more & more uncomfortable calling the tiny communities "cities" when they are little more than overgrown villages at best. So my plan right now, while I'm creating the rest of these entries, is to label any settlement with a population over 50,000 as a "city" (especially if it provides urban services like a bank, post office, college, etc.), those with a population over 1,000 (or is the administrative center of a woreda or Zone) as a "town", & the rest will be labelled villages. By which time the new Ethiopian census ought to be published, & I can start all over again. :-/

The only reason I have not changed the categories of Manbuk or Mankush is that I haven't gotten to them yet. And I'm not picking on Injibara: the reason I haven't made some of the other "cities" into "towns" yet (like Alamata or Humera) is because of that (IMHO) stupid "Cities of Ethiopia" template, which also needs to be pared down to about 20 entries before I can change the categories of any more.

I expected some upset folks about these changes, but I honestly thought I'd hear from one of the few Afars with an account on the Internet (there have been at least one -- who made some quite useful contribution to articles on Afar history & culture) who would complain, "Why did you make Diche Oto and Gewane towns when other Ethiopian settlements of the same size are still called cities?" I'm just trying to avoid making anyone think I'm targeting his or her people for unfair treatment, when the real cause is just a lack of time on my part.

Anyway, I apologize for any insult you may have felt. Feel free to "promote" Injibara, or "demote" Manbuk & Mankush -- or both. I just wanted a few entries from every Region for the time being until I get far enough along in labelling new settlements or communities that I feel its time I should go back & fix the older articles. -- llywrch 21:19, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Re: Dengel Ber. I took the elevation from the Nordic Africa Institute, & the infobox of Lake Tana states its elevation as 1788; IMHO, 2 meters is sufficient to be dry. However, the text states the lake is 1840 meters; I'm not sure which is correct, but I do know the depth of the lake varies. I guess this is a situation where details should be left out until more research is done.

As for your question about the roads -- my intent was to add to what might be expected. But is what the expected means of access to a town or village in Ethiopia is -- that I don't know how to handle. Should an article on a settlement always state that a given town has a paved road, a rutted track suitable only for 4-wheel drive -- or only a footpath? If so, how would one find this information? I don't know the answer -- but I'm not so worried about the problem of original research on this topic. -- llywrch (talk) 23:14, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

No problem; I'm more interested in getting the details right than being right, so to speak. FWIW, I've felt our exchange has been a pleasant conversation -- at least in comparison with some I've had on Wikipedia. Lastly, from my research your GPS readings for elevation are about as accurate as the ones in the published sources; draw what conclusions you want from that observation. -- llywrch (talk) 16:40, 3 January 2008 (UTC)