Commons talk:Wiki Loves Africa 2020/Theme

Eswatini

Hello, @Islahaddow, Anthere, Achim55, and Bachounda: , the "Wiki Loves Africa Project" is a great and beautiful idea and I hope that there will be sequels in the next years. However, I do have one criticism regarding the years 2019 and 2020. It's about the country Eswatini, which is still classified under "Swaziland" in your 2019 and 2020 competitions. It would be very nice if you would use the correct official country name in the future, as the English Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons usually do. Many website owners are still asleep or do not want to accept the new name. For example, the larger Wikipedia language versions with languages from European countries, in which an above-average proportion of the population lives with nationalistic and right-wing populist tendencies including xenophobia, which is typically reflected proportionately among Wikipedia authors. (Germany incl. Austria & Switzerland, Italy, Hungary, Netherlands, Denmark). With the help of their usually good networking, these authors control the articles on "Swaziland" and thus engage in chauvinistic othering, in which they indirectly, by fixing the obsolete country name "Swaziland", deny the country Eswatini and its inhabitants the right to freely determine their own name and to be recognized under international law. In this way they want to cement the anachronistic name "Swaziland" on the respective Wikipedia pages and thus also anchor it in the minds of the readers. Of course, this is not openly admitted, but one hides behind the straw man argument of the formalistic Wikipedia rule that the article name should correspond to the most frequently used names. Since Wikipedia is probably considered the leading medium in all countries and is always preferred on the first results page even in a Google search, this creates a "vicious circle". Instead of readers' knowledge gradually adapting to the new and current name "Eswatini", the now obsolete and false name remains stuck in the minds of the readers and thus remains the most frequently used name. This, in turn, serves the above-mentioned authors in future recurring discussions as a straw man argument to leave it at the anchronistic article name.

So it would be very advantageous if the ""Wiki Loves Africa Project"", which attracts users from all language versions, would be a small counterbalance to the above-mentioned machinations.--Bestoernesto (talk) 02:38, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Interesting feedback User:Bestoernesto. Indeed. Well, I am French. And I see that both English and French Wikipedia have renamed the article. I am not 100% sure we can easily fix for 2019 (I am in particular thinking of some external tools we are using). But for 2021... user:Romaine let's revisit ! But User:Islahaddow may have comments on this ? Anthere (talk)

User:Bestoernesto, thank you for pointing out this unintentional oversight to us. I live in South Africa and have to say that I had not heard of it at all (the King and eSwatini often feature in the news) and nobody from within the Africa-wide community has mentioned the issue. I know the impact that systemic bias has on cultures, and we would never support that and will do whatever we can to remedy this oversight. Where possible, where we once referred to Swaziland we will change the name to 'eSwatini (formally known as Swaziland)' in order for there to be no confusion at all. However, as User:Anthere has mentioned, in some cases we do not have any control over this. Thankyou for bringing that to our attention. Islahaddow (talk) 13:50, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

@ user:GuillaumeG and User:Ji-Elle... we could rename the category ( actually it was already done) update and then fix all categories in the images, but it would also require to update https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikiloves/africa. What do you think Guillaume ? Anthere (talk)

Hello Anthere. I have ask on Module talk:WL data if we can use the two names (Swaziland until 2017, Eswatini from 2019). GuillaumeG (talk) 19:27, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Now, now, now... user:Bestoernesto, I would have appreciated if you tell us before renaming the category. So user:GuillaumeG... I guess the wmflab tool needs to be fixed... ;) Anthere (talk)

Thank you user:GuillaumeG. Anthere (talk)

So... now... seriously, I am pissed of. So you renamed WORKING categories of a PROJECT, without asking, and without even talking to the people who run the project first. Without inquiring of what could be the potential impact of what you are doing. So now I see that working categories have been simply deleted https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_from_Wiki_Loves_Africa_2019_in_Swaziland. How reasonable is that ? So https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikiloves/africa is broken for 2019 and 2020. PLEASE DO NOT RENAME ANY FURTHER WORKING CATEGORIES without discussions first. Anthere (talk) 14:21, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Hello @Islahaddow, Anthere, Achim55, Bachounda, and GuillaumeG: , sorry, I'm so sorry I messed up. That was not my intention, but the idea for the moves wasn't mine originally. In fact, more than a year ago, several users in a discussion without objection decided to move most categories containing the word "Swaziland" and created this list. I first discovered the discussion with the list at the end of last year, and since then I have occasionally helped to work through the list. Several categories had already been moved, so I visited them for nothing. To prevent other users from the same, I have started marking cases that have already been completed. Anyway, among the many anachronistic category entries on this list I also found "Wiki Loves Africa in Swaziland" and "Images from Wiki Loves Africa 2019 in Swaziland". I myself then consequently only added "Images from Wiki Loves Africa 2020 in Swaziland". I did not get the idea that these list entries could be wrong. I just wondered why the picture contest continued to run for two more years with the obsolete name "Swaziland" and was not changed to "Eswatini" for a long time, although it was a very public event. Normally editing at Commons is more of a backstage job. But here under the eyes of the sponsors and supporting organizations I would have tried to appear with the current and official name "Eswatini". That would have surely made an additional good impression.--Bestoernesto (talk) 04:44, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

I understand. Well, the set-up of categories is set-up by Romaine and I guess he did not know about the name change. And no one told him. I did not know about it.

Done is done. Hopefully Module talk:WL data will be fixed soon. In the meanwhile... we will not have your country data in that tool reports. Anthere (talk) 17:22, 7 May 2020 (UTC)