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)[reply]

v t e Captains of the Orlam
Orlam Afrikaner ǀAixaǀaen	Oude Ram Afrikaner (before 1760) Klaas Afrikaner (1760–around 1800) Jager Afrikaner (around 1800–1823) Jonker Afrikaner (1823–1861) Christian Afrikaner (1861–1863) Jan Jonker Afrikaner (1863–1889) Hendrina Afrikaner (2004–2011) Eduard Afrikaner (2016-)
Berseba Orlam ǀHaiǀkhauan	Dirk Isaak (before 1850) Paul Goliath (1850–1869) Jakobus Isaak (1873–1892) Diederik Goliath (1894–c. 1900) Johannes Christian Goliath (c. 1900–1925) Andries Goliath (1925–1933) Diederik Ruben Goliath (1933–1938) David Vries (1938–1956) Edward Isaak, Jr. (1938–1959) David Christian Goliath (1959–1970s)1 Diederik Isaak (1959–1970s)2 Stephanus Goliath (1976–2010)1 Thomas Karools (2010–2010)1 Johannes Fleermys (?–?)2 Johannes Isaak (2011–)2,3 1of the faction supporting SWAPO; 2of the faction supporting DTA; 3leader of the reunified group;
Bethanie Orlam ǃAman	Kobus Frederiks (1804–1824) Jan Frederiks (1824–1846) Joseph Frederiks I (1825–1842) David Christian Frederiks (1842–1880) Joseph Frederiks II (1880–1893) Paul Frederiks (1893–1906)4 Cornelius Frederiks (1893–1906)5 Eduard Frederiks (1916–1922) Joseph Frederiks III (1922–1938) Simon Frederiks (1938–1977) David Frederiks (1977–) 4of the faction supporting the German Empire; 5of the faction opposing German Empire;;
Khauas Nama Kaiǀkhauan	Amraal Lambert (until 1864) Andreas Lambert (1864–1894) Eduard Lambert (1894–1896)
Witbooi Orlam ǀKhowesin	Kido Witbooi (1805–1875) Moses Witbooi (1875–1888) Hendrik Witbooi (1888–1905) Isaak Witbooi (1905–1928) David Witbooi (1928–1955) Hendrik Samuel Witbooi (1955–1978) Hendrik Witbooi, Jr. (1978–2009) Christian Rooi (2009–)6 6acting

• 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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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

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

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)[reply]