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Almu

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch peer review
I regret to say that I found nothing in the script's output that was useful. Either what was written were already known to me, or was completely inapplicable to the article. -- llywrch (talk) 18:56, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This peer review discussion has been closed.
First, I know this needs a picture & an infobox, & probably could stand a lot more detail; however, I doubt those will be forthcoming unless there is a famine, epidemic or an armed clash there. (And I find a verifiable source for its longitude & latitude -- something I'm still working on.) What I'm specifically looking for is input on the figures I've taken from the 1994 national census: my goal is to provide the most useful or defining statistics from this document for every town it covers, & this article includes far more than for the average Rambot-created entry. So if I can get it right for Almu at the beginning, I may not need to redo it as I begin to create articles for (or in some cases, add material to) the other 750-odd towns in this country. Thanks -- llywrch (talk) 16:45, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Finetooth comments: This is an interesting and worthwhile project. I agree that it's important to create a good working model on which to base the subsequent articles. The stats that you've already presented are revealing. Stats about age groups would be interesting if available. How many children? How many adults? Some idea of life expectancy would be apparent through these age-group stats as well. Below are some other suggestions:

(Llywrch responds point-by point. I may need to refactor this if we have an extended conversation, & the resulting text becomes hard to read.)
  • For what it's worth, I tried finding the coordinates for Almu by using the GEOnet names server]. I used the text-based server. It has Asosa but not Almu. I ran along Route 5 with Google Earth, but Almu did not appear.
  • Thought: Some small towns internationally have article titles that include the state, province, district, or country name. "Almu, Ethiopia" might be better than plain "Almu".
  • Suggestion: Use labor force instead of labor pool because the former can be linked to remove doubt about whether this is a general economic term or simply one specific to Ethiopia.
    • Good suggestion.
  • "Details about the housing in Almu provide a sense of the quality of the life of its inhabitants." - I don't think you need to explain this. I would understand that from the data itself.
    • I meant this as simply a transition/topic sentence. If it's too distracting, I'll take it out.
  • "Of the 598 housing units in the town, 481 were permanent and 105 improvised (defined by the CSA as a "makeshift shelter or structure built of waste materials") with an average of 3.2 persons per house; 476 sheltered one household, 104 seven sheltered two and 18 three or more households." - This sentence is too complex. Suggestion: "Of the 598 housing units in the town, 481 were permanent and 105 were improvised (defined by the CSA as a 'makeshift shelter or structure built with waste materials'), with an average of 3.2 persons per unit. Of the total units, 476 sheltered 1 household; 104 sheltered 2 households, and 18 sheltered 3 or more." The last sentence uses all digits per the MOSNUM recommendation that units not be spelled out and digitized in the same sentence. You will need to cite the CSA source page that supports the directly quoted definition.
    • I had collected all of the citations at the end of the paragraph. I'll reconsider that.
  • The totals don't match. 481 + 105 = 586 not 598.
    • Hmm. IIRC, the difference was "not reported". In many of the figures I dropped small fractions for simplicity sake.
  • The toilet, lighting, and water totals also show minor discrepancies. These might be transcription errors but are more likely in the CSA source documents. If so, you should include a footnote explaining this.
    • Thanks for noticing. I transcribed all of the figures from the original tiffs embedded in a pdf file, so there's two places for the errors to creep in. I'll doublecheck the source & my math.
  • "birr". It should be converted to US$ with the conversion date noted.
  • Region and Zone should be explained.
  • Suggestion: Add the location of Almu in terms of its distance (kilometres and miles) from the regional capital, Asosa, and the direction (north, south, east, west) of that distance. Add the location, giving the same kind of detail, in relation to Addis Ababa. If Almu is near an important highway or a political boundary such as the border with Sudan, that would be good to mention.
  • Thought: If you can find the coordinates, you can use Google Earth to find the elevation.

Nit-picks

  • "the Amhara 1457" - Don't forget the comma separators in big numbers.
  • "1800 of the inhabitants" - It should be spelled out as "Eighteen hundred". The Manual of Style advises against starting sentences with digits.
  • The citations all need urls, publishers, and access dates.
    • Are you talking about note 3 here? It's the same document that is cited in note 2 -- with the URL provided as an external link.
      • If they exactly the same, you can combine them with the "ref=name" trick. If not exactly the same, each needs the data. I didn't look at the source. If it's huge, you might add specific page numbers to the refs. They might differ in that way. Finetooth (talk) 01:34, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I hope you find these suggestions helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 21:31, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Dr pda: Nice to see someone countering systemic bias. Here are some suggestions for improvement

(Llywrch responds point-by point. I may need to refactor this if we have an extended conversation, & the resulting text becomes hard to read.)
  • Even if you can't find the coordinates, you could perhaps just have a map showing the location of the Pawe Special Woreda within Ethiopia.
  • I too have tried to find the location of Almu, without much success (see next bullet). This book (WorldCat entry) deals with the Pawe resettlement scheme. It's snippet view only on Google books, but even this shows that (a) it has some maps (b) it mentions Almu, including a weekly market. This mailing list post from 2000 is from a guy who claims to have "GPS'ed the most accurate map in the world of a tiny little area of Africa, Pawe Special Woreda". It probably wouldn't qualify as a reliable source, but if you were able to get hold of it, it would at least tell you where the place is! If you're really serious about trying to find the coordinates, you could try buying a map from the Ethiopian Mapping Authority.
  • Actually I have just found a map which does show Almu, right at the end of this thesis. It's hand drawn only. I wonder if the strip in the middle of this satellite image from Google maps is the airport shown on the hand drawn map?
Wow. Every time I think I've scraped the bottom of the barrel in my research, something new & important like this pops up. Page 63 of that thesis explains the history of not only Almu, but of the other 3 towns & Pawe special woreda in better detail than I ever hoped for!
  • Another map I found is this one from the UN, which raises another issue—the only town it shows in Pawe Woreda is Pawe, which is not one of the "three largest towns" according to our articles, Almu. Ketema and Felege Selam. The thesis linked above says on p63 that there were previously six towns but some of them merged. It lists the 6 former towns as Almu, Dangur, Pawe (Father Beles), Addis Alem (L7), Felege Selam (L4) and L14, and gives the three current towns as Almu, Addis Alem and Felege Selam. The 1994 census refers to Almu town, Mender 4 (Felege Selam) town and Mender 7 (Ketena 2) town. There is possibly some issue with the naming of Ketema/Addis Alem. Google reveals that there is an agricultural research centre in Addis Alem (this report gives its coordinates (11 19'N 36 24'E)). There is also a Pawi Hospital (photo) in "semi-urban Pawe town" (coordinates 11.263N 36.395E according to the WHO). I guess what I'm saying is maybe the sentence in the article "Almu is the largest of three towns in Pawe Special Woreda" might need checking, to see if (a) there are still only three towns (b) Almu is still the largest. Some of the data from the 2007 census has been released, but not at the town level yet. Incidentally if the 2007 data are going to come out soon maybe it would be an idea to wait?
The reason I'm excited about the 1994 Census Reports is that it is the most detailed information on Ethiopia that is easily available. The 1997 census will be available in a year or two -- but there will be a limited number of copies which will be difficult to obtain -- or access. My belief is that 13-year-old data is better than none at all.
  • Regarding the choice of data I think you've chosen relevant data, though possibly it would be of interest to include the data about building materials and radio/television/telephone.
The section about building materials details walls, roof, ceiling & floor. At the moment I don't have a good idea of how to present them -- although your interest encourages me to think of one.
  • The problem with presenting this sort of data is that after a while people just see a bunch of figures and skip over it. I think your transition sentences help in this regard, though I'm not 100% sure about the wording. Possibly some of the numbers could be omitted, e.g. I think the percentages alone for the ethnicity are fine without the raw numbers. Perhaps also the other data could be put into some sort of context as you do with the rent; not necessarily quantitative statements, as that would contribute to the figure overload, but indicating whether, e.g., the number of homes with electricity is typical/above average/below average for the region (or country or rural/urban population, whatever would make the most sense). I wonder if any of the data would be suited to graphical presentation.
  • I would be inclined to use individual refs for each of the tables quoted, just to make it easier on people who might want to look it up. In that case you would just quote the full bibliographic information for the source once, in a references section.
  • Regarding photos, Google shows a number of Aid Agencies, Missions, NGOs, Volunteer Service Abroad type agencies who are working in the general area. Some even have blogs, or post photos on flickr. If you get in touch with them they may be willing to take/post photos. They would probably be keen to improve awareness of the situation in the area they are working in, and improving the wikipedia article would help with that!
I haven't thought that man steps ahead yet.
  • Minor points—you say the rent is below average for the Zone, but I thought Pawe was a Special Woreda precisely because it wasn't in a zone. Also, the link to the 2005 survey is dead
Yes, you're right. That's one reason why a peer review can be invaluable. As for the link... The CSA has been re-arranging their website over the last 6-12 months, & I missed that. Now I have 600-odd links to fix.

Hope you find these comments useful. Dr pda (talk) 23:50, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Most definitely. Thanks for your input, Dr pda. -- llywrch (talk) 05:38, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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