Why is the African forum the least popular? (beautiful, visiting, vacation)

[todd00]

That rooftop pool is nice. I was looking at some city photos of Nairobi, quite a bit of construction and projects being planned. I do think a sticky photo thread might be nice on this forum.

[jerseygal4u]

Originally Posted by Trimac20

I'm sure there are some AA's who are...there was that whole 'back to Africa' movement. Of course it's hardly evidence there's a widespread interest in Africa. I bet many would struggle to find Africa on the map, let alone name for than a handful of African countries.

Methinks someone needs to stop posting stupid generalizations.
You are in Australia,so how would you know most wouldn't be able to name more than a handful of countries in Africa?
How would you know that they are grateful their ancestors were brought over as slaves?
Who would be proud that their ancestors were brought like cattle here,then prevented from living the American fully up until 1965?

Time to get off the computer and get a life.
Please,for your own sakes.

[DBIF]

there is unfortunatly a real lack of quality and usefulness in the africa forum posts. many threads range from begninly ignorant to borderline offensive. there aren't enough local contributors and informative posts.

[todd00]

Originally Posted by DBIF

a real lack of quality and usefulness.

threads range from begninly ignorant to borderline offensive.

One could say the same thing about many of the forums.

[JoulesMSU]

Yup, basically most people don't know anything about Africa. They either just avoid this forum, or they come here and ask really stupid questions about it. Neither of which lends itself to making this a place that ANYONE wants to post at regularly.

[Joy74]

Originally Posted by Trimac20

Really, most African Americans have no more connection/interest to Africa today than non-Africans. Dare I say, deep down I'm sure they're thankful their ancestors were brought as slaves, since even a poor black in America has a better quality of life than someone living in Sub-Saharan Africa.

I'm a traveller. I have ancestral roots in Asia but I'm no more or less interested in it than say Europe. I think of myself as an Earthling and identify with the human race and all it's diverse tribes. Africa is where we all supposedly came from so we should all have an interest in it.

Dare I say, that you are profoundly misinformed.

[green_mariner]

Really, most African Americans have no more connection/interest to Africa today than non-Africans. Dare I say, deep down I'm sure they're thankful their ancestors were brought as slaves, since even a poor black in America has a better quality of life than someone living in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Can you prove any of this for a fact?

[HomeIsWhere...]

Originally Posted by Antonio84

OK, its not always the least popular. As of late, this forum has 3,276 posts which makes it the second least popular, only the Videography forum has it worst and the Aviation forum is slightly above the African forum (3,559).

Why do you guys think this forum is not as popular as (most of) the other ones?

Do you think it will get better, remain the same, or get worst?

What should be done to improve the ranking of the African forum?

easy questions to answer, however, many replies do speak to the essence of some of the problems we face concerning the Afican forum.

Let's start at the beginning...with a question.

How many countries are there in Africa continent?

Answer:

There are 54 countries in Africa. South Africa, Mali, Rwanda, Tunsania, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Chad, C.A.R, Lesotho, Swaziland, Burundi, Uganda, Ghana, Kenya, Egypt, Morocco, Senegal, Gabon, Cape Verde, Madagascar, Ethopia, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRK), Congo Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Western Spanish Sahara (WSS), Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Nambia, Somali, Eritrea, Djibouti, Gambia, South Sudan, Sudan, Gambia, Niger, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Mauritius, Seychelles, Cameroon, Cote D'ivoire, Sao Tome' & Principe, Algeria, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea-Bissau, WOW THATS ALOT!

How many countries are there in Africa continent

Although nobody has yet to bring this to the forefront and to be quite honest I personally do not have any knowledge whatsoever of Africa in the 21st century. I hesitate to guess that very few Westerners would have a bare minimum working knowledge of Africa because if they had any, we (here on the c-d forums) would have been better enlightened by now as opposed to some of the nonsensical and ignorant (e.g., due to true ignorance as opposed to a blatant disrespect concerning the continent of Africa) queries which have appeared in this forum.

That being said...below are just some of the interesting facts I discovered while looking for Africa. I too wish there were more knowledgeable people to share their experiences and insights concerning Africa and its countries with us here. I sincerely do wish that were the case as we would all be that much more the wiser fot it!

Next: Languages of Africa

There are over 2100 and by some counts over 3000 languages spoken natively in Africa in several major language families:

• Afroasiatic (Hamito-Semitic) spread throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahel
• Nilo-Saharan is centered on Sudan and Chad (disputed validity)
• Niger–Congo (Bantu) covers West, Central, and Southeast Africa
• Khoe is concentrated in the deserts of Namibia and Botswana
• Austronesian on Madagascar.
• Indo-European on the southern tip of the continent.

There are several other small families and language isolates, as well as obscure languages that have yet to be classified. In addition, Africa has a wide variety of sign languages, many of which are language isolates.
Several African languages are whistled or drummed to communicate over long distances.
About a hundred of the languages of Africa are widely used for inter-ethnic communication. Arabic, Berber, Igbo, Somali, Swahili, Hausa, Amharic, Oromo, and Yoruba are spoken by tens of millions of people. If clusters of up to a hundred similar languages are counted together, twelve are spoken by 75 percent, and fifteen by 85 percent, of Africans as a first or additional language.
The high linguistic diversity of many African countries (Nigeria alone has over 500 languages, one of the greatest concentrations of linguistic diversity in the world) has made language policy a vital issue in the post-colonial era. In recent years, African countries have become increasingly aware of the value of their linguistic inheritance. Language policies being developed nowadays are mostly aimed at multilingualism. For example, all African languages are considered official languages of the African Union (AU). 2006 was declared by the African Union as the "Year of African Languages".[5] However, although many mid-sized languages are used on the radio, in newspapers, and in primary-school education, and some of the larger ones are considered national languages, only a few are official at the national level.

Languages of Africa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Next: Religion in Africa

Religion in Africa is multifaceted and has been a major influence on art, culture and philosophy. The continent's various populations and individuals are mostly adherents of Christianity or Islam. Others practice traditional and folk religions. In the countryside, religious beliefs are also often characterized by syncretism with local traditions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Africa

Survey Finds Africa Is Most Religious Part Of World

Survey Finds Africa Is Most Religious Part Of World

Next: 51 Random Facts about Africa

6) While Africa makes up about 16% of the world’s population, fully one quarter of the world’s languages are spoken only in Africa.

12)Lake Victoria is the largest lake in Africa and the second-largest freshwater lake in the world, covering an area of 26,830 square miles (69,490 square kilometers).

14) Africa contains the world’s largest desert, the Sahara, which makes up an area greater in size than the entire continental U.S.

17) Four of the five fastest land animals reside in Africa: the cheetah, the wildebeest, the lion, and the Thomson’s gazelle. All of these animals can run at speeds above 50 miles per hour, with the cheetah reaching a top speed of about 70 miles per hour.

20) The deserts of Tunisia housed the original Star Wars movie sets for the film's planet Tatooine. More than 30 years after the premier of the first movie in the series, the sets are still very well preserved and visitors to Tunisia can even stay in Luke Skywalker’s home.

51 Random Facts about Africa

Next: Conflicts in Africa -Global Isues

There have been over 9 million refugees and internally displaced people from conflicts in Africa. Hundreds and thousands of people have been slaughtered from a number of conflicts and civil wars. If this scale of destruction and fighting was in Europe, then people would be calling it World War III with the entire world rushing to report, provide aid, mediate and otherwise try to diffuse the situation. This article explores why Africa has been largely ignored and what some of the root causes of the problems are.

Conflicts in Africa

Next: Interesting and brief introduction to Africa

http://www.k12opened.com/ebooks/ss/e...phy/index.html

[todd00]

Honestly, if you look at the other sections of the world forum they are not any better as far as content. Ignorant, foolish and just plain rude posts are often the norm across the board on c/d. So this is not just a case of one forum of poor quality.

I read several of the African newspapers most days, I had thought of posting some topical item that is going on in one of the countries but felt the responses would be few and possibly not even be of much interest to some. I do know of at least one other forum that has a fair number of people from the continent contributing. Most of the threads have to do with posting photos of cities and sometimes rural areas, often these photos are not theirs but come from Flickr. Sometimes they post stuff on new construction in the cities, they sometimes have off topic sections where sports, women, nightlife and so on is discussed. There are not a large number of regulars there either. The quality of the threads are better due to the fact there are many nice photos to look at. The general discussions are often of little depth. If one had a question, you could probably get an answer from someone that had either lived much time in the area or lives there now. But like here, the quality of the answer will vary with the poster.

Sometime ago I found an interesting list of little known facts about South Africa. I did enjoy reading them and learning something new, but is that an appropriate topic for this forum, well maybe, I don't really know what peoples expectations are of this forum. Perhaps that should be defined first. If people have helpful suggestions, fine, but to just criticize without offering anything else is not of much use at all. Courtesy and respect is something we should all adhere to.

[Tiger Beer]

Originally Posted by todd00

Honestly, if you look at the other sections of the world forum they are not any better as far as content.

I don't really know what peoples expectations are of this forum. Perhaps that should be defined first. If people have helpful suggestions, fine, but to just criticize without offering anything else is not of much use at all. Courtesy and respect is something we should all adhere to.

Agree about what are the expectations here. The forum seems fine to me.

It's better than the Americas or World forum which seem to have that regular anti-America theme, as opposed to what they should be about - i.e. any part of the world except the u.s.