# Talk:Sophiatown

There is some uncertainty about the current "Low importance" rating for this article. It appears that the SA Wikiproject by default rates articles about suburbs at "low", but I'm sure an argument can be made that this one is a special case that deserves a higher rating. The example of District Six , which is rated as "mid importance", is IMHO comparable. Both suburbs were/are hot topics in terms of aparheid history as well as being significant factors in the cultural life of the country. Thus I would support this article's rating to be changed to "Mid importance" to match that of District Six. Roger (talk) 09:00, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Roger that "Low Importance" is inappropriate. I would argue that the importance should be "High". I think that the impact of Sophiatown on Black consciousness by the largely the white population in South Africa is not understood. An article like Koos de la Rey is considered Hi importance, but his impact on South Africa is not commensurate with the impact that Sophiatown had on South African politics, arts, culture, etc. - and this is from an admirer of Gen. de La Rey and an Afrikaner. Another data point is the treatment of Sophiatown by SA History Online. It gets an huge amount of coverage compared with an entry in the same encyclopaedia like de la Rey. I think there needs to be some consistency in the treatment of topics like this. The University of Johannesburg also named their new student residence "Sophiatown", which I think reflects the social importance of Sophiatown. ShiningWolf (talk) 10:14, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
I agree with the proposal that the Sophiatown article be classified as of "High Importance". The events surrounding Sophiatown epitomise the approach adopted by the Apartheid government towards racial segregation and town planning, and illustrate an important episode of South African history. Moreover, the description of life in Sophiatown provides a valuable insight into multi-racial culture in South Africa before Apartheid. 147.110.55.155 (talk) 14:08, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm not so sure it should be "High". There are only a small number of High rated articles in the entire South African WikiProject and more specifically, when it comes to articles about places only the former Colonies, Boer Republics, former and current Provinces, and Metropolitan cities are rated High. There are no urban places smaller than a Metro rated as High. I'm basing my support for a "Mid" rating on the precedent of the long established article about District Six which arguably has a similar level of significance in the geography and history of the country - which, we must remember, is about far more than only Apartheid and it's effects. Arguments based on what other websites, publications and institutions do are of little value in terms of the WP:OTHERSTUFF guideline. Roger (talk) 14:37, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
This is an interesting debate.  I agree that no urban place smaller than a metro is "currently" rated as high importance. This is internally consistent to the treatment of urban places within the South African WikiProject. I dont think however it is consistent with the importance treatment of other topics. I think there should be urban places rated as "high" based on their impact.  The excellent article on Hendrik Pieter Nicolaas Muller is rated "High". The irony is that very few people know of him and outside of the borders of South Africa I think he is unknown  - but the importance of the article is "high". Based on this and the de la Rey argument I would then argue that certain urban places has a social and historical impact that should allow them to be classified as "high". This will make it consistent with other topics within the South African WikiProject. This should then hold for both Sophiatown as well as District 6. Analogous to this is the treatment of Harlem which has an "high" rating and is also an urban place, but outside the South African WikiProject. I think a "high" rating for both Sophiatown and District 6 will provide greater consistency within in South African WikiProject. ShiningWolf (talk) 15:59, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
I've just taken a peek, Hendrik Pieter Nicolaas Muller is rated "Mid" not "High" - by WikiProject Africa, not WikiProject South Africa (note that multiple countries are listed in the Project template). I don't think it is really all that useful to compare biographies to place articles - apples and oranges. Anyway I think we can afford to wait for more people to comment - the wider the discussion, the better the outcome and Wikipedia doesn't have a deadline. Roger (talk) 16:16, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I think this article is incomplete without a section properly covering the period when it was Triomf. Roger (talk) 19:38, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

 Done Added section. Irony that not much happened during the supposedly "Triomf" years. Area didn't live up to the name. ShiningWolf (talk) 09:53, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I have nominated the article to be reviewed for a good article quality rating. Roger (talk) 19:15, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

The leads not bad, but could probably do with some expansion. Some reviewers look for it to briefly mention most of the sections in the body. Generalized statements like it was the epicentre of politics, jazz and blues and it produced some of South Africa's most famous writers, musicians, politicians and artists probably need a bit more context. AIRcorn (talk) 02:16, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I have significantly rearranged some of the sections to better match Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities/Settlements: Article structure. In my opinion it also improves the flow of the article. Should you not agree, feel free to revert my edit. --NJR_ZA (talk) 17:41, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I like it! BTW Does this edit now disqualify you from doing the GA review? Roger (talk) 17:54, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't think it will disqualify me as I did not contribute content. Not sure I am a good candidate to do a GA review anyway; my knowledge on the subject is limited and culture (which must form a large part of any Sophiatown article) is not really my cup of tea. --NJR_ZA (talk) 18:14, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Lead needs expanding; otherwise it's pretty good. Aaroncrick  TALK 09:33, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Sophiatown/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: 12george1 (talk · contribs) 21:39, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
The grammar in the article is very good and I would immediately pass if it the GA was based solely on that. However, there are several unsourced statements and some reference errors. The following are quotation appearing throughout the article of where I located an error (press Ctrl F to find these quotations):

"Because of these and other reasons most of the whites had moved out by 1920, leaving behind a vibrant multi-racial community. By the late 1940s Sophiatown had a population of nearly 54 000 Black Africans, 3 000 Coloureds, 1 500 Indians and 686 Chinese." - Two issues here. First, why is there a space between the numbers, rather than a comma (i.e. 54 000 --> 54,000)? Second, there is no citation here.
"2 000 policemen, armed with handguns, rifles" - See previous comment
"Over the next eight years Sophiatown was flattened and removed from the maps of Johannesburg." - [Citation needed]
" In the last 1 000 years, Iron Age" - See first comment again
"King Kong was South Africa's first blockbuster theatrical success, touring the country for a year with Miriam Makeba and the Manhattan Brothers' Nathan Mdledle in the lead roles. The musical later went to London's West End for two years." - [Citation needed]
"Current remnants of Freedom Square may be found beneath a school playing field alongside the Christ the King Church." - [Citation needed]
Why does references #1, #23, #24, #26, #32 and #36 have no accessdate?
Reference #10 is a deadlink. Either search through the WayBack Machine or Web Citation, or remove the link and find a replacement url. In addition, two urls in the External links section are also dead; I would suggest that you simply remove them.
Why is there no publication date for reference #37? The date for that reference is September 8, 2004.


### Response
Digit grouping: The comma is not the standard thousands separator in South Africa, (we tend to think of it as being specifically American) so per WP:ENGVAR this is not an issue. See Decimal mark#Digit grouping. I will change the normal spaces to thin spaces, but I first need to find out how to do it in wikimarkup. Done
The remaining issues are all about citations which will be attended to ASAP.
Thanks for doing the review. Roger (talk) 07:04, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
All missing references have been fixed.
The references without access dates are either books or journals, with the exception of 1 which is generated from the South African Metadata template. See Template:Metadata South Africa
All deadlinks have been removed.
Access and publication dates for the last reference have been fixed. It is not 37 anymore as I added a reference.
From my side also thanks for doing the review ShiningWolf (talk) 12:28, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
Good job on fixing/addressing my issues. Therefore, I will now pass this article, which will upgrade it to GA.--12george1 (talk) 20:59, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

This article seems to suffer a bit from whatever the opposite of WP:RECENT is... almost the entire text talks about the era prior to the forced resettlement, even down to notable residents (most of whom are possibly not residents any more?) In addition to a bit more info about the period when it was called "Triomf" it would be nice to know what is going on now. What is the demographic structure like? Have any blacks moved back in post-Apartheid? Or is it still just "poor Afrikaners" as the Triomf section suggests? Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 00:37, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Would it be worthwhile having a link/reference to the novel in the article, seeing as it uses Sophiatown (and the period of the forced removals) as its setting and explores the gang culture already discussed in the Crime and Gangsterism section? Might also be of interest for people looking for information about the film to read about Sophiatown, despite its more contemporary setting.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.113.85.118 (talk) 23:29, 3 December 2014 (UTC) 

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