Talk:Makhanda, South Africa/Archive 1

Archive 1

Schools

we presently have a list of traditionally "white" schools and have omitted all of the grossly underperforming "black" schools, further no reference to the discrepency has been made in the article. Its a touchy area and so on, but at least some reference is needed.

The list should be expanded. For example, the College of the Transfiguration, the only residential Anglican seminary in southern Africa, is omitted from the list. It serves students from the Republic of South Africa and surrounding countries. It is widely diverse, has men and women students, and although it is an Anglican institution, it welcomes students of other religious denominations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.231.198.85 (talk) 20:36, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Name changes?

Question about this - it says 'recently' - can a date be provided? Thanx chrisboote (talk) 15:35, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Intro paragraph

Right now, the introductory paragraph reads thusly:

Grahamstown (Afrikaans: Grahamstad) is a city in the Eastern Cape Province of the Republic of South Africa and is the seat of the Makana municipality. The population of greater Grahamstown, as of 2003, was 124,758.[1] The population of the surrounding areas, including the actual city was 41,799[2] of which 77.4% were black, 11.8% Coloured, 10% white, and 0.7% Asian. Since 1994, there has been a considerable influx of Black people from the former, and nearby, Ciskei homeland. The city proper has an overwhelming white majority, while the neighboring townships (geographically separate, but politically together) have Black or Coloured majorities.

This leaves me, an uninformed reader, very confused. What is population of the city proper? If the city is "politically together" with the townships, why are we calling it "the actual city" in the first place? How can the surrounding areas "include the actual city"? And anyway, do we want to plunge headfirst into racial demography in the very first paragraph of the article? I think someone more knowledgeable than me might want to rework this. 24.11.127.26 (talk) 20:17, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Make Sense??

Area: 3,333,344 km2 (1,287,011.3 sq mi), thats more than London, Tokyo, New York combines times like 50!! Is this vandalism??! --Bezuidenhout (talk) 06:30, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Chimney

"* Grahamstown has the "tallest toilet in the world" (housed in an abandoned chimney)." This could be added again if a reliable reference was included.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 20:25, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Demographics

Can we remove the section about demographics because it includes neighboring towns/cities and would be like showing the demographics for New York, but also including Jersey city and Philidelphia.--Bezuidenhout (talk) 15:31, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Why does the article start with a race count and mention of influx of black people since 1994?? Are these the most important things about Grahamstown? It sounds like it was written by a white person with these concerns. Or like an apartheid advert for the town, except that now we say the people 'identified themselves' as these races. 105.226.212.105 (talk) 21:01, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Avoiding Bias

This page has recently undergone quite a bit of an upgrade in terms of content. I am slightly concerned however that this may quickly become in effect an advert for Grahamstown rather than a Wiki article. Presently 3 statements concern me:

1) "It is fast becoming one of South Africa's most popular destinations." - Is this worth saying? If so is their evidence to support it

2) "The National Arts Festival is the largest Arts festival in Africa and sees some of the leading talent on the South African and international art scene arriving in Grahamstown for a celebration of culture and artistic expression." - Is there evidence of this (a reference or citation)

3)"It has grown into one of South Africa's most elite tertiary institutions with an excellent reputation for academic endaevour and excellence." - We all know that Rhodes University is the greatest thing since sliced cheese but it does not need to be shouted from the roof tops (the Library stairs and Fishpond will do) particularly not in an article about Grahamstown. It is inevitable that Grahamstown related articles will include references to Rhodes but overdoing it is a not neccessary. Even though it is true its a bit weaselled Paul Hjul 12:42, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Writing (rapidly) as a resident of Grahamstown in reply to points raised above: 1) I know of no evidence to support (1) above. Grahamstown does get a large number of tourists during the time of the National Arts Festival. However, it cannot compare to other tourist destinations in SA. In traditional holiday periods, the town is exceedingly quiet.

2) 'Tis true, 'tis true. I have struggled to find up-to-date and citable refs for this, but the organisers say so themselves http://www.nafest.co.za/about_history.htm. The government say so http://www.info.gov.za/aboutsa/artscult.htm#artsfest. Independant newpapers agree http://www.tonight.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3268773&fSectionId=422&fSetId=251. Sundry travel websites agree, and say it's second in the world after Edinburgh e.g. http://www.safrica.info/plan_trip/holiday/culture_heritage/music.htm.

3) I tend to agree. Halfsnail 08:52, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Resident of Ght: 1) I'm removing the offending section 2) Putting the references you provided into the article - thanks 3) Changing the offending section - like I said Rhodes doesn't need to be bragged about on Wiki

Some more NPOV stuff that I've removed: "Four years ago, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints also opened a small branch in Grahamstown. It started of with less than 10 members attending church every Sunday and is now quickly growing, with a membership of more than 100 persons." 12:42, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Whacked great Kamvalakhe (talk) 11:04, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

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Coloured Population

The population of the surrounding areas, including the actual city was 41,799[2] of which 77.4% were black, 11.8% Coloured, 10% white, and 0.7% Asian.

As a former resident of Grahamstown I can confirm that there are little to no Coloured people living in Grahamstown or the surrounding area - a few are students but they number in the 50's. I see the reference is the text 'Coega development corporation' (over 50 km away) - which links back to the article. How is that in any way correct?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.213.228.113 (talk) 07:04, 30 July 2010 (UTC) "I can confirm that there are little to no Coloured people living in Grahamstown or the surrounding area" THIS IS GROSSLY INCORRECT. There is an area as in all other South African cities and towns, designated by the previous apartheid government, for colored to live in. The numbers are fairly accurate on this Wiki page. Colored people have contributed to the economy of Grahamstown as in the rest of South Africa. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 154.114.16.26 (talk) 13:29, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

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Name change

I have reverted all of the edit warring and/or incompetent edits about the name change, none of which was supported by any references. AIUI the name change has only been proposed, not actually implemented yet. We need to discuss this and properly update the article in line with the actual proven facts and relevant WP policies and standards. Thanks Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 15:12, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

For the purposes of Wikipedia what the government says about the names of things has no relevance we use the principle of WP:COMMONNAME and see also WP:NAMECHANGES. It will take some time (hopefully forever) for Makhanda this to become the common name for this place. Wayne Jayes (talk) 06:50, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

It's not Makhanda Town

The new name is simply Makhanda, not Makhanda Town. The editor who introduced that also bolded every mention, instead of only the first. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:28, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

POV-pushers for both names have made quite a mess of the article: The beginning now exclusively refers to the town as "Makhanda" while the end exclussively uses "Grahamstown". That makes no sense whatsoever. Following Roger (Dodger67), I will change name usage as follows:

• All content referring to the present should use "Makhanda".
• All content referring to events before the name change should use the former name "Grahamstown".
• The lead should mention the former name in the first sentence, the infobox should mention it as "other name".

For comparison I checked Saint Petersburg; there the history section uses whatever name the city had at a time to refer to it (ie Petrograd for WWI-related events and Leningrad between that name change and the renaming back to Saint Petersburg). For Makhanda, formerly Grahamstown, usage in reliable sources has changed by now, for example Grocott's Mail, Cape Business News. Huon (talk) 02:46, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 3 April 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved per reliable sources presented by MarkH21. If an appeal succeeds it will be easy to move the article back again. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:49, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

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Grahamstown → Makhanda, Eastern Cape – A previous name change (immediately after the name change) was reverted with reference to WP:NAMECHANGE. Since then, reliable sources use the new name of Makhanda (e.g. News24, Mail & Guardian, Eyewitness News (South Africa), The Times (South Africa), Tufts University, Willamette University, iAfrica). The proposed target already exists as a redirect to the current page and Makhanda is a disambiguation page. — MarkH21 (talk) 06:32, 3 April 2019 (UTC) --Relisting.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:31, 11 April 2019 (UTC)--Relisting. B dash (talk) 05:47, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Iffy★Chat -- 12:19, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Oppose - the name change is being contested and appealed (in real life, not only on wikipedia), Wikipedia should wait until all the avenues of appeal have been exhausted and the name is finally changed (or not, as the case may be). Wayne Jayes (talk) 18:59, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Can you point out reliable coverage on an appeal? Most of the coverage I can find date to before the official change and refer to the official name change passing despite the petition gaining 300 objections or older pre-change reports on the same petition. — MarkH21 (talk) 21:25, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

• Would it make sense to wait a couple months to see how the situation emerges? --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 21:30, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
  • That would be fine if there was any doubt, but there’s no evidence from any reliable source of any appeal or chance that this name change will be overturned. On top of that, reliable sources have already been using the new name, so a move of this article is warranted. — MarkH21 (talk) 21:59, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Renaming and Wikipedia guidelines

WP:OFFICIAL and WP:COMMONNAME would indicate that the page was renamed too quickly, especially since, as the lede sentence points out, it is still commonly known as Grahamstown. Park3r (talk) 02:12, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Reliable sources since the name change routinely use "Makhanda". Unless "Grahamstown" is used by reliable sources significantly more frequently than "Makhanda" (which does not seem to be the case), then this is the appropriate article title per WP:NAMECHANGES. — MarkH₂₁^talk 19:34, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 14 January 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved to Makhanda, South Africa. There's no consensus that the name should be changed to Grahamstown, but per points made in the discussion it seems "South Africa" is a more compliant disambigutor than "Eastern Cape".  — Amakuru (talk) 12:21, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

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Makhanda, Eastern Cape → Grahamstown – Article was moved prematurely to the new name; reliable sources continue to use "Grahamstown" in preference to "Makhanda", making it the WP:COMMONNAME. This is demonstrated by ngrams, which shows Grahamstown being used many times more than Makhanda despite the former being primary while the latter is not, as well as in Google Scholar where since 2021 'Grahamstown "South Africa" -Makhanda' returns 1600 results, compared to 814 for 'Makhanda "South Africa"' - a review of the results suggests the vast majority of results for both are appropriate for use in this RM. Recent news results are inconclusive and show no clear preference either way. BilledMammal (talk) 16:00, 14 January 2022 (UTC)— Relisting. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 06:43, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

• Comment Should "Grahamstown" not find consensus, the preferred disambiguation is Makhanda, South Africa, per WP:PLACEDAB. 162 etc. (talk) 17:56, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support per the nomination. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:53, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support per nom. Clear common name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:28, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. ngrams is irrelevant, as it only goes to 2019. Google Scholar results are not correctly applied, as they include many results for entities such as "The Grahamstown High Court", the name of an entity. Media sources don't appear to be inconclusive, they are strongly skewed towards using Makhanda. Compare a News24 a Google search for Makhanda returning 25 pages of results, with one for Grahamstown (attempting to filter out the court results)] returning only 4 pages, most of which use something like "Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown)". Even if applying a similar search filtering Makhanda court results (which filters out valid results like "the Grahamstown High Court in Makhanda" returns 11 pages of results in the last year. For IOL, the results are 6 pages to 2, same as Daily Maverick. Even these results, heavily skewed towards Makhanda, include false positives for separate entities (Grahamstown Wi-Fi being the first hit on one). Greenman (talk) 03:47, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

• Regarding the Google Scholar results, I noted that I reviewed both sets and while there were some inappropriate articles in each (the prophet was a common one for Makhanda), the vast majority were appropriate - regarding your example of the Eastern Cape High Court, Grahamstown, there are only five articles that referred to it, and some of those also used "Grahamstown" in reference to the town. I would also add that I was careful to bias the results towards Makhanda; a number of sources are using dual names, such as this article, but they were all included in the Makhanda results.

Regarding the Google News results, when I searched on the 14th for the most recent month of results, I found six pages for '"Grahamstown" -"Makhanda"', and seven pages for "Makhanda". BilledMammal (talk) 05:42, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

This is an argument against renaming, no? More results for Makhanda, with many of the Grahamstown results being irrelevant. When I do the same search today, I get 4 pages for Grahamstown (a substantial portion of which seem to mention the Grahamstown High Court again), and eight for Makhanda. Greenman (talk) 14:25, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Depends how you weight news sources compared to scholarly sources - I prefer scholarly sources, as they tend to be more reliable. In this case, I would also weight news sources down further due to how much they are fluctuating - going from having no preference one week, to having a preference the next, suggests that we can't use them as a reliable method of determining what name is the common one. BilledMammal (talk) 14:54, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose per Greenman. YorkshireExpat (talk) 20:25, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose the official name of the city is Makhanda, and has been so for almost 4 years--RicardoNixon97 (talk) 10:42, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
  • Irrelevant. See WP:OFFICIALNAME. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:32, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:NAMECHANGES.--Ortizesp (talk) 16:49, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
• Neutral Britannica uses ‘Grahamstown’ as does Columbia. However The Times and The New York Times use ‘Makhanda’ whereas the official website uses both. Ale3353 (talk) 20:45, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

References

• Oppose: Our search for sources needs to account for the fact that the name change is from late 2018 and WP:NAMECHANGES gives extra weight to independent, reliable English-language sources ("reliable sources") written after the name change.
  A large proportion of the Google News and Google Scholar hits for "Grahamstown" are only for specific entities (e.g. "Bishop of Grahamstown", "Radio Grahamstown", "Grahamstown High Court", "Grahamstown Foundation", etc.) or historical use (e.g. NYT: After graduating from Rhodes University in Grahamstown (now Makhanda), South Africa [...] in 1954). This is particularly prominent in the Google Scholar results, where articles are often talking about historical events, historical data, or even a type of clay named after Grahamstown. It's difficult to get precise statistics while filtering out that kind of usage.
  My own search of major news sources since 2019 yields both local and international sources (including Agence France Presse and BBC Radio 4) that still seem to prefer Makhanda as they did in my search in 2019 (including News24, Mail & Guardian, Eyewitness News (South Africa), The Times (South Africa), Tufts University, Willamette University, iAfrica).
  Note: since others point towards ngrams and the two encyclopedia entries, it's worth noting that the ngrams data is only until 2019, the entry of the Encyclopaedia Britannica is from 2017, and the entry from The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia is from its 2012 edition. — MarkH₂₁^talk 00:23, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

  I would support a move to the preferred disambiguation Makhanda, South Africa as suggested by 162 etc. though. — MarkH₂₁^talk 00:27, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"Also known as"

@Desertambition: The town is also known as Grahamstown, as can be seen in the move request, which means it is inaccurate to describe it as "formerly known as". This is also consistent with articles such as Mumbai, which describe it as "also known as Bombay". BilledMammal (talk) 00:22, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

That is inconsistent with the vast majority of renamed South African cities. ie. Qonce, Bhisho, Chintsa, Ngcobo, Dutywa, Centane, Mthatha, Ntabankulu, KwaDukuza, etc. Reverting for consistency. Desertambition (talk) 01:22, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Then we should modify those articles as well, if those places are also referred to by their former official names. Accuracy is more important than (local) consistency. BilledMammal (talk) 02:12, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Modified Qonce; I do not know whether the former names for the others are still in use. BilledMammal (talk) 02:16, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

It effectively communicates that the town has been renamed in my view. When we use 'also' it seems like it is a short form name for the town or a common nickname. ie. "America" or "Britain".

It also seems disconcerting for you to start editing those pages when we have an active disagreement and discussion about the topic. Especially when I brought them up in good faith. Desertambition (talk) 04:47, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

As the name is still used, we cannot say that it is not, which we are doing by using "formerly". BilledMammal (talk) 04:54, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

You appear to have missed one of my points so I'll post it again here: "It also seems disconcerting for you to start editing those pages when we have an active disagreement and discussion about the topic. Especially when I brought them up in good faith."

Nowhere in the article does it say that the former name is not used. That is why it is featured prominently in the article. You seem to be ascribing that meaning to the word yourself. Desertambition (talk) 05:00, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

This is the wrong forum to make that point. If you want to make insinuations about my behaviour, please do so in the appropriate forums.

When you say "formerly known as" you are saying that the previous official name is not used. BilledMammal (talk) 05:10, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

I am not making insinuations about your behavior, I am saying that it is inappropriate to edit this page with something that we have a clear disagreement and active discussion about. That is not what "formerly" means and we are clearly never going to agree. I do not see an argument I could raise that would convince you and you have not convinced me. Desertambition (talk) 05:12, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Your repeated points was about other pages, not this one. But if you have an issue with my edits to this page while discussion is ongoing we can revert to the status quo which is this verison. BilledMammal (talk) 05:42, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

@Desertambition: Regarding your comment below, can you specify which part of RFC guidelines? It seems out of line with general talk page guidelines. BilledMammal (talk) 23:53, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

"If you have lots to say on the issue, give and sign a brief statement in the initial description and publish the page, then edit the page again and place additional comments below your first statement and timestamp."

Thanks for putting a timestamp there. Desertambition (talk) 00:01, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

That's if you have an extensive neutral statement, and does not apply to your own !vote. No problem; if you prefer to not have the unsigned template, you are allowed to replace it with your normal signature. BilledMammal (talk) 00:06, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

We are clearly just interpreting it differently. Is this really an issue worth arguing about? I personally don't think so. It changes nothing and makes the rfc more readable. Desertambition (talk) 00:09, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

The line you quoted is in a section "Statement should be neutral and brief". And the issue is that the only readability improvement is that readers might read your non-neutral !vote as part of the statement - which is an issue. BilledMammal (talk) 00:11, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

It is clearly designated as a Personal Position with a signature at the end... I also say "in my opinion". Desertambition (talk) 00:14, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

City of Saints

Trivia: The nickname "City of Saints" is incorrectly attributed to the number of religious institutions in the City. In Grahamstowns early days as the headquaters of the British military, a request was received from an outlying outpost for a vice-grip. Grahamstown replied, "Regret no vices in Grahamstown", the outpost then replied, "It must be the City of Saints."

The version that is stated in the article comes straight from a book. I am willing to email a scan of the relevant section to anyone who so desires. I would appreciate to know where the above quote comes from. 10:01, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Egazini, Battle of Grahamstown

This section requires references as it is very one sided 10:01, 11 May 2022 (UTC)