Talk:Congo

unsectioned conversations that need section headers to get recognized by bots

Many ethnic groups (eg. Bakongo and Lingala speaking people) live in both in both countries. See also Kongo Empire. Soukous music originated in towns in both Congos. When referring to both of them, the term "The Congos" is often used. Sometimes when "Congolese" is mentioned, it refers to both countries, or only one of them. So when Congolese is disambiguated to Democratic Republic of the Congo, it could be misleading. Maybe this could be explained on this page. --Ezeu 09:08, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

 Done 3y5m after. There are and will be two Congo-states, so we cannot solve it here om Wikipedia. Full stop. Three years on, I disamiguated once more :-). I used: pointing to the two countries, introduced [[Congo (country)|Congo]] for all undecided country-issues. Could also mean both countries (and don't forget Angola Cabinda). Made an extra redirectpage for this one link. Now there are 80 links there. This is as far as we can go now. In three years, it'll be allright then. :-) -DePiep (talk) 21:22, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

revert and dab style

The dab manual of style does not call for links other than to articles being disambiguated. My edits to move this page toward those style guidelines were reverted without edit summary or comment. I have changed the page back to reflect my changes. Please discuss here before further reversions related to this issue. Tedernst 09:46, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, obviously it isn't a pure dab. Only the bottom part is. Why didn't you remove the map too? Surely the manual of style doesn't provide for maps in dabs. Varizer 09:51, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

It's quite obviously not so obvious that this page should be anything other than a pure dab. If it needs to be something else, that fact needs to be made clear and not simply assumed. The vast majority of dab pages are pure dab pages. What is the reason that this page should not be one? Obviously the map is quite helpful in disambiguating these two countries, so it can stay. Please state your case why the extra wikilinks should stay. Opinions from others also welcome, obviously.Tedernst 17:49, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

If not here, then where will we properly disambgiguate Congo? It is not easy to disambgiguate Congo, if anything, we need to expand and elaborate even more on this page. "Dab manual of style" is a recommendation, not a rule. / Ezeu 00:29, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're saying Ezeu. Doesn't the dab manual of style provide for what's needed to disambiguate articles? Varizer is saying more text is needed. I'm asking him/her to state a case for that. Is there a case? If so, what is it? I totally agree that the intent of the page is to disambiguate Congo. This is the place, for sure. Tedernst 00:41, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

As a charter member of the WikiProject disambiguation I suggest the rules were intended to be flexible. When an English-language user searches for Congo, s/he might not be sure which country they're looking for, and the map and the descriptive text are useful for that. It could be condensed, but there's no reason to try to narrow it down too much. I suggest, however, moving Congo river to the top of the "may also" list since that's the most likely alternative meaning. —Wahoofive (talk) 23:13, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

However, it must be decided whether this is a pure dab page or not a dab page at all: partial dab-pages are strongly discouraged. Enough information must be provided to allow the user to make a fairly swift and accurate choice. The map, as far as I see, would be very useful here (manuals of style are meant only for the average case). The text before the first header, though, can be considerably condensed. A discussion of usage and history is not necessary (and harmful); only enough for the knowledgeable reader to distinguish between them: however it may not be wise to remove so much that little difference is evident apart from their constitutional names. After editing a dab page, take a look at it and ask, does this make things easier for the reader? This dab page should be able to fit onto one screen. Neonumbers 05:17, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I trimmed most of the "extraneous" text about the two countries, because it already exists in the individual articles. I've also decided to be bold and stop indenting another step with my comment :-) As for the map, I agree that it should stay. It is unusual to have graphics on a dab page, but in this case, it works for the purpose, which is to help the reader quickly figure out which country they were thinking about. In this case, a slavish obedience to the rules would be the Wrong Thing to do. --RoySmith 18:13, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I like RoySmith's version. The recent reversion, which deletes the disambig tag, gives too much information. My only suggestion is that Roy's version indicate that DRC was once called Zaire. --BrianSmithson 18:26, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

While I support the disambiguation project, and RoySmith's efforts, I think in this case the longer text is appropriate. In my opinion Varizer's version is good, and serves the purpose very well, and has for over a year; I don't believe this is or should be a "pure" disambiguation page, because many people who type "Congo" are going to be looking for exactly what's here: the proper current and historical names used in the region.

I do think the disamb tag should be reinstated because of the other usages on this page. On the other hand, while I understand your frustration, Varizer, please refrain from language like "fascists" (in your edit summary). My two cents. — Catherine\^talk 19:07, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Then the article part and the disambiguated part must be put on different pages. I'm sure, if necessary, a suitable name could be found for the article part.

I do not think this is such an exceptional case as to merit a semi-disambiguation page - I don't think any case does. A decision must be made as to whether this is a disambiguation page or not — I am personally inclined to see this as a dab page but I will leave that decision to others.

If it is decided that this is a dab page, then a version more trimmed than RoySmith's version - yes, even less text than that - should follow; otherwise the dab template must be removed. Remember that a disambiguation page is not intended to provide any knowledge information at all, only what needs to be there to disambiguate.

That's what I think, anyway. Neonumbers 09:24, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

How about leaving the extended text here at Congo, with the remaining list moved to Congo (disambiguation)? — Catherine\^talk 21:10, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

This dab page looks good now. I have added Belgian Congo, French Congo and Middle Congo as well. French Congo could probably be merged with Middle Congo (several other pages linked on this dab page could probably be merged as well), but since they are currently separate articles, they should (in my opinion) be dab-ed here. / Ezeu 21:45, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I emphasise again that whether or not this is a dab page must be decided and followed; if necessary this page must be split in two.

Catherine, that works fine by me; I don't claim to be an expert on what "Congo" does, doesn't or is more or less likely to mean. Congo could, arguably, for all I know, be made into an article that outlines a combined history while there was only one Congo — if there ever was a time, which I have no idea about! As long as it's not a semi-dab page :-) Neonumbers 06:20, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Congo (disambiguation) created

Okay, I've been bold and created Congo (disambiguation), and tidied up as I thought best, including moving interlanguage links to the dab page, since they all seemed to be dabs themselves. Let's collaborate till we all agree on what belongs where. Once that's settled, perhaps we can work together on tidying up Special:Whatlinkshere/Congo. Fair enough? — Catherine\^talk 19:46, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Catherine, well done. / Ezeu 00:08, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I was at school and my teacher asked us this question "Which two countries comprise the Congo?" I asked my dad (who was in the army for 21 years and has been to the Congo)there is NOT two countries that comprise the Congo.I figured out that some teachers that thing they know everything are wrong!There is NOT two countries that comprise the Congo!! Lacey **TigerEyes** October,30 2007 9:55 PM

Nomenclature: Congo Region and Middle Africa

Today I created the article Congo (region) mainly because I felt that it was missing from Template:Regions of the world. Only afterwards did I discover that Congo already exists, but that this article seems to restrict itself to dealing solely with the two Congos, and not the wider, vaguer subregion. What is the preferred option now: should Congo me merged with Congo (region) and redirect to Congo (disambiguation) instead? Please have your say here. Thanks.

And a related issue: I would argue that the UN designation Middle Africa - which currently redirects to Central Africa - is the least ambiguous name for the region, as listed at Template:Africa, just like Southern Africa is used to effectively disambiguate from South Africa. Please respond here. Thanks! // Big Adamsky • BA's talk page 10:42, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

What in the world is N-I-G-G-E-R

I found a passage in the Congo (ROC) section in this article, that looks like vandalism. Can someone else see that, or alternatively, explain the whole N.E.G.R.O business? Thanks. Themalau 13:07, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Searched three main pages.

 Done Cannot be found anymore. Presume solved/vandalism. -DePiep (talk) 00:33, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Zaire from 1999-2005?

According to Zaire article "Zaire (spelled Zaïre in French) was the name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between October 27, 1971, and May 17, 1997." 204.19.245.112 06:33, 13 February 2007 (UTC) Wisebuddy

Propose deletion of this page and redirect to Congo (disambiguation)

Although I can see that there was a theoretical reason for retaining this overview as well as the disambig page, in practice I don't think it adds anything to the functions already covered by the disambig page. It's really just a list of articles, and the disambig plus the articles themselves provide all you need. Furthermore is a user is looking for the music 'Congo' or 'Congo' the movie and they just type in 'Congo', they have to go through two pages before they hit it. Rexparry sydney 12:03, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• I agree. Merge them. The two pages were split from a single page mostly because someone invoked MOSDAB and stripped the article from useful information. To circumvent the MOSDAB pedantry, a separate page, Congo (disambiguation), was created to be the dab page and Congo was kept without the {{disambig}} tag see discussion here. I do not know if MOSDAB has changed substantially since then, but as it is now, it does not prohibit us from having an informative dab page, and does actually specifically mention this page as an example where images can be acceptable in a dab page. --Ezeu 14:54, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

• No complaints, so merged. --Ezeu 03:14, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Where is clothing

There is no clothing section and kids need to know this for progects —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Atrain 1008 (talk • contribs) 19:12, 11 April 2007 (UTC).

Kids need to go to the library. --Ezeu 20:29, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

   Nonsense. While the role of the accompanying Dab page is to help users navigate to pages they could reasonably hope to find at "Congo", any info on Congo-typical clothing that could appear in a library is more than likely to be suitable for a WP article like Clothing of tropical Africa, or a section tropical Africa#Cultural patterns, and to the extent that styles are national rather than trans-nationally regional, articles or sections specific to countries.
   (However, the accompanying Dab page should not link to those articles or sections, since users seeking an article that could reasonably be titled "Congo" would be obstructed by entries for articles far too specialized for that title. List of Congo topics, List of African topics, or something similar might do so.)
--Jerzy•t 23:24, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Image inclusion and explanations.

For what it's worth, I'm a fan of MoS:DAB and have stripped down many wordy disambiguation pages, but this is a case where more detail is clearly warranted. The problem is that simply saying "Congo-Brazzaville" doesn't mean a whole lot to most people and isn't specific as to which Congo it is if you don't know what Brazzaville or Kinshasa are. The image and brief history helps clarify which Congo you'd like to see... which is the whole point of disambiguation pages. SnowFire 14:55, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree that the image is appropriate in this case. I also did some other major changes:

• Merged in all information from Congo, Kongo and Kongō to this one page
• Substantially reorganized the sections
• Did away with the Table of Contents, to make room for the picture

If anyone disagrees with my changes, feel free to tweak or discuss. This is obviously a very confusing topic.  :/ --Elonka 22:15, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

(followup) I have also redirected Congos to link to here. It was basically a repeat of the information on the disambiguation page, and not much was linking to it. If someone can think of a compelling reason that it should still be its own article though, we can easily re-establish it.
--Elonka 21:02, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

   Good call, IMO.
--Jerzy•t 02:18, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

   A colleague has tagged for Dab CU and summarized "+cleanup, rm pic and partial matches" -- with the part after the comma apparently expressing just their concerns (since their edit was limited to modifying the tag). My take is as follows:

1. Elonka is right and the recent colleague wrong re "rm pic": This is exactly the kind of situation for which MoSDab provides an exception permitting graphics that do aid disambiguation. (For example, the user may have watched a video that included an outline map of the country, e.g. in locating a route or location within it, or in an interior shot of someone's office. The outline of the country is also by far the most memorable distinction for most users.)
2. WP:PTM is clear that the "partial matches" get removed.
3. Someone's intervening restoration of the ToC was certainly needed, for an 8-section, multi-screen page like this.
4. If i end up handling this Dab-CU without further input via this talk page, i will partially reverse the first of Elonka's two page merges: initial-C titles are apparently hardly ever used for the Japan-related titles, so users seeking those should not have to face the clutter of Africa-related ones. Dabs are for speedy navigation, and See-also entries on Congo and Kongo (each lk'g to the other page) will not slow down users who need to switch to the other page as much as do the relatively frequent need to read a large fraction of the entries. (And BTW bypassing "again" an entry that directly corresponds to one already bypassed -- before following the See-also lk to the other Dab -- is far less time-consuming than is bypassing an additional entry on a page where the same user achieves disambiguation before even being presented with the choice of following the See-also lk to the other Dab page.)
5. A few minutes' look at one window onto Elonka's reorganization leaves me feeling i'm likely to be satisfied with at least their broad outline.

--Jerzy•t 02:18, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Many incoming links from a country Congo

The page is tagged now with "many incoming links". Just to help any researcher-editor: most of the ambiguous links come from articles meaning a country Congo, but difficult to determine which country. Also the mening Congo-region (or Congo-basin) is used very often this way. These links mainly come here via the redirection-page "Congo (country)", so as to specify the ambiguity (we want to keep that redirect). Your faithful dab-researcher here in April 2009, -DePiep (talk) 18:47, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

For a 32-year period beginning in 1965, there was only one nation using "Congo" or "Republic of the Congo" in its name. Even now, 14 years after Zaire changed its name to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it seems a pretty safe bet that when one uses "the Congo" to refer specifically to one of these 2 countries, they are thinking of the geographcially smaller, more westerly of the two, the one with its capital at Brazzaville. Similarly, if one is thinking of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the former Zaire, with its capital at Kinshasa), they would say the full name of the country, or in some way make it clear which one is meant. For example, FIFA recognizes the country names as "Congo" and "Congo DR". So, I propose changing the redirect page at Congo (country) so that it points to Republic of the Congo instead of to this disambiguation page. That article already has a hatnote pointing out the similarly named country. Thoughts? LarryJeff (talk) 16:03, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Another example, Google Maps labels the 2 countries "Congo" and "Democratic Republic of the Congo". LarryJeff (talk) 18:00, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Tomorrow I'll have more time to react (hey, that's nearing two years after my post here ;-) But I remember my arguments). In general: "a pretty safe bet" won't do to declare that an editor meant "Congo-Brazzaville""when writing "Congo". No. It depends on the source, and the source may be unclear (C-Brazzaville, C-Kinshasa, C-region, C-basin?: any area in the Congo (disambiguation)-places could be meant). Congo (country) may include Angola's Cabinda. The sources can be very old: missionaries, history books, botanic researchers, and unconclusive. Just take a look at some 5 or 10 (at random) "Congo countries" from the list: most aren't and won't be clear about the place "Congo". I must say: on every wikipage related to "Congo" a lot is happening (that is good). So I might be outdated. -DePiep (talk) 20:02, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

(updated 6h later on for readibility & more), -DePiep (talk) 23:38, 26 July 2011 (UTC))

I agree with you there are cases where we just can't be sure what the intended reference is. However, in those cases, I don't think the Congo (country) link should be used; instead change those to point directly to the disambig page (with a "dn" tag) so hopefully someone with knowledge of the subject will notice and correct it. Then Congo (country) can be redirected to the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville) article. LarryJeff (talk) 14:47, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't mind getting rid of the "Congo (country)" intermediate redirect (although it was created to maintain the information we are talking about: this is why redirects are kept!). But I do object to concluding that in such situation "Congo Brazzaville" is intended. Exactly for not knowing which country, it has that redirect (or should redirect to Congo for disambiguation). Again, it can only be determined through the source, not by someones guessing. (See the editsummary of my edits when I linked to that redirect: "country undecided" here, look for April 10.) -DePiep (talk) 17:23, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I've been distracted with other things and have ignored this for a couple of months. Anyway, I think we are for the most part in agreement on the idea, if not the execution. As I stated in my previous post, I agree with you there are cases where we cannot determine which nation is intended in the context of an article (it could even be both of them rather than just one). I do not think that every ambiguous link to "Congo" should be pointed to the article on the "Brazzaville" Republic. (But, now that I go back and read my original comment, I certainly see why you got that idea.) I just thought it was unnecessary effort to pipe those links to a redirect that goes to the same dab page where the link would have gone if it were unpiped.LarryJeff (talk) 19:04, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Map TOC and geographic: switch

Could the location (on the page) be switched: geo-map with two Congo's top, and the TOC (with pagedetails) below? -DePiep (talk) 20:13, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Congo (area) should be merged into the similar but much older and more comprehensive dab page at Congo. As it stands, "Congo (area)" is largely duplicating a part of "Congo", and whilst it is claimed to be a stub, it is in fact just a dab page, without a clear justification for a separate article. Green Giant (talk) 23:48, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I think that Congo means many things. Congo, as an area, is more than administrative countries, it can be seen as a region not only due to the basin of Congo river. I think that it must be maintained. Even being a stub. A disambiguation page is a simple page to help redirect users to specific articles who share the same name, not for developing contents. I think that this "disambig" page must be cleared in order to improve the article about the region, transfering information at the specific article from "disambig" page. --Bestiasonica (talk) 23:19, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Oppose - This is not a particularly good article, but it is an article nonetheless, not a disambiguation page. Articles should not link to disambiguation pages. Links to Congo would normally be disambiguated to one of the two country articles, but in many cases the context refers to the area as a whole - those would disambiguate to here. If this is merged into Congo then all of those links (approx 100) will need to be disambiguated again, but this time there would be nowhere appropriate for them to point. Bazonka (talk) 18:17, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose Different subjects. Congo (area) is about the region called "Congo"; Congo is a disambiguation page and points to many different things called "Congo". I've cleaned up the religion article so it doesn't emulate a disambig. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 13:05, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
• Strong oppose - Congo (area) is not a disambiguation page, but the beginnings of, hopefully, a much larger and expanded article about what is a historic Congolese living space and homeland. The division of present-day Congo states has more to do with colonialism conflicts and the way they dictated the division of the Congolese mainland and its populations in between themselves. That is the "Congos" we know today are conveniences between the French, the Belgian, the Portuguese and others.... So the present Congos are temporary political arrangements dictated by world politics, whereas The Congo as pertaining to the notion of a "Congolese homeland" or "living space" is totally something else. That's what we meant when creating Congo (area). I considered first Congo (homeland), but that would have been perceived as non-neutral and dogmatic. So Congo (area) as an article works admirably. It is my experience, that Congolese when they leave their countries and come to live in the Americas, or Europe or Asia, they no longer attach to this or that Congo state or region we know presently, but rather generally identify themselves as coming from Congo (meaning Congo area) and that they are Congolese, not Congolese of this state or that state etc. So this is a very valid page. So when an individual, say artist A or scientist B or community C identify themselves as "Congolese" without any specification, the best link would be to "Congo (area)" without the need to link it to a specific Congo state of present. Agreed that Congo (area) needs a good deal of improvement, it is still a good beginning and now many articles are linking to it. The disambiguation page just won't do for that purpose. Eventually it is very feasible that one Congo homeland will emerge on a great portion of the "historical Congolese living space" once they realize that they are of one origin after all and that divisions between them as Congolese was just some colonialist scheme of "divide and rule". By the way, when we talk about a Congolese diaspora or presence, we are talking about Congo (area). Many Congolese American or Congolese French associations do not have clear affiliation to any one Congolese state, and may have members from various Congos. When a Congolese artist is performing, you will see all Congolese coming to attend a concert of a "Congolese" without any additional constraining tag.... What unites them in the same association is their longing for their Congolese origins, the Congo (area) of ours. Disambiguation page Congo (please refer to it as it stands today) is an altogether something else and it would be shame if we lose Congo (area) page in favour of a disambiguation Congo page. Both should stay in their own rights. werldwayd (talk) 12:12, 16 February 2014 (UTC) werldwayd (talk) 23:26, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Addressing some concerns by other colleagues, I have now considerably expanded Congo (area) as I originally said I intended to do when I established the page. Please refer to the page and feel free to make more improvements wherever needed. werldwayd (talk) 00:34, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Order

@Fyrael: There seems to be contradicting MOS-guidelines here.

• MOS:DABNAME says names should "be added below the main disambiguation list"
• MOS:DABGROUPING says "entries which do not fit neatly into any section should be placed in an "Other uses" section or subsection, at the bottom of the page or section (but above any "See also" section)".

Logically, the words "other uses" indicated nothing above applies. Having people listed below such a section is locally wrong. Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 21:37, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

My take is that the surname/given name sections are kind of a special consideration because they technically shouldn't be included at all, as they're partial title matches. But at some point the decision was made to include them anyway, just underneath all the entries that might commonly be known by just the disambiguated term alone. This ordering is definitely supported by those on the disambiguation project. I wish I could find the example template we have going... -- Fyrael (talk) 21:55, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

That does not seem to be reflected in the Manual of Style... Given that these two are in contradiction of each other, and (a) logic is that "Other = not suitable in any other section above"; and (b) MOS:DABGROUPING specifically says it should be above the See also section, while MOS:DABNAME only says after the main list, I would argue that my edit is correct. Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 10:25, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

My version doesn't conflict with anything in (b) and for (a), again, these are technically partial title matches that are being given special consideration in order to appear on the page at all. But looking through the DAB project talk there's been a few lengthy discussions over the topic, with some favoring my position, some yours, some wanting the names actually in See also, and others not wishing to include them on the page except by way of an anthroponymy link. The "example template" I was talking about earlier is at Wikipedia:Organizing disambiguation pages by subject area and actually advocates for that last position, which I didn't think was the case. At any rate, it's not super important and I won't revert if you want to move it again, but please leave the title of the section as is. It shouldn't be called just People. -- Fyrael (talk) 04:02, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Regarding the header title, that was my bad. I simply undid your edit (and then copy+pasted it to where I wanted) in order to ping you when doing the edit, and missed that you had changed it from "People". I'm not gonna revert you right now, since I don't really mind one way or another, just wanted to hash out why our opinions differed on the MoS. Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 10:06, 4 May 2020 (UTC)