Talk:Oyo Empire

Older comments

Heavens, what a shockingly poorly written edit by 80.43.2.64. No structure, full of spelling and grammar mistakes and of doubtful quality and accuracy. --Domberlic 02:43, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Oyor.jpg

Image:Oyor.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot 23:40, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I give you OYO!

Found a nice map of the Oyo Empire on a website. The good people there gave me permission to add it to the wiki commons. License and everything should be straight. You are all welcome :)Scott Free 22:17, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much. But I can't seem to find the year this is. Do you know about when Oyo extended as depicted in the map? Picaroon (t) 01:07, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

The date isn't clear, but it is supposed to be the Oyo Empire at its full extent not counting tributary kingdoms like Dahomey. This period in time would be the 18th century. That's when Oyo was most powerful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4shizzal (talk • contribs) 12:44, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

sources

Hi there 4shizzal, Great work you did and thanks for taking so much care for properly documenting your sources, it really enhances credibility and can allow subsequent editing to be more targeted. I just have one small issue, most of your info re Oyo come from the same 11 pages of Stride and Ifeka. However, it is clear to me that all they did was copy from books of Robin Law. It is he who did the original research on the Oyo's and from whom everyone copies. It would have therefore been better to use directly Law's work, especially the seminal "The Oyo Empire c.1600-c.1836". This leads at times to imprecisions, for instance.

You say: "Until the early 19th century, the eldest son of the alaafin was debarred from succession to keep impatient heir-apparents from threatening their fathers.[73]During this period, the first born son filled the powerful position of Aremo, but at the alaafin's death, the son too had to die.[74] " This is not fully correct, in the earlier periods, it was the more often the case than not that the oldest son succeeded his father. This led sometimes to the oldest son hastening the death of his father, only AFTER which they instituted the rule that the first-born had to die with the father.

"The two councils which checked the alafain had a tendency to select a weak alaafin after the reign of a strong one to keep the office from becoming too powerful.[76]" Which two councils are you talking about here? It was the Oyo mesi that appointed the alaafin (as you say further on in your text; the Ogboni had no role in it), and this alternating between stronger and weaker rulers was definitely not the rule (as you also refer to later in your text). It all depended on the power relations at that moment between Oyomesi and Alaafin. Sometimes, a Bashorun could force many a weak Alaafins one after the other. On the other hand, there were periods of strong royal reign in which the Oyomesi was more subdued.

"Alaafins could not legally be deposed, but they could be compelled to commit suicide " This practice, to which you refer a couple of times, most probably just developed later, and was not there in the earlier periods of the Oyo empire.

Anyway, I did not read over the whole entry and do not have my sources with me now (most of all the book of Law), but in general, when you write about any of the pre-colonial states, I would try to go to the one or two authors that are truly a specialist in that field, and not to one of those books that give an overview of all the people and just summarize what others say. Domberlic 14:42, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi and thanx for the compliments. Yes the book does mention Robin Law as its source. I just cited Stride and Ifeka cuz that's what I had in my possession (my African library's getting IMMENSE, lol). i'm cool with ur changes. And thank u for hollerin at me. I'm by no means an expert on Oyo, but I figured it was a shame that I not touch up the page with so much info at my disposal. Take care and keep up the good work. Scott Free 13:08, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Scott, I agree that the bolstering of the references was good, but would you consider perhaps reducing the amount of footnotes a tad? It's a bit hard on the reader when the editor cites after almost every single sentence. For example, when referencing a single page from a source for a section, and when there are no direct quotes, you could just as well just cite that page at the end of the paragraph with just one footnote.

Also, consider splitting the reference section into "Notes" and "Works cited/Sources/Bibliography". That way you can simply write the notes in shorthand as, say, "Smith, p. 99" or "Stride & Ifeka p. 300". The details of the titles need then be specified in full detail only once in the section below the notes.

Peter ^Isotalo 17:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Will do. Someone already put me on to that more enlightened way of doing the footnotes. still don't see how it really affects readability tho. but i always welcome constructive criticism such as thisScott Free (talk) 22:46, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

There are different schools of thought on this and no clear consensus. I feel that repetition of extremely basic references, like that to a single page, every other sentence is simply unnecessary verifiability padding. It makes footnotes look like verifiability talismans rather than useful research tools. If anything, it's not going to make it more likely that anyone will actually check a specific reference. It also tends to lead to a rather pointless reference inflation where the factual accuracy of an article is measured simply by simply tallying the number of footnote instead of judging how appropriately or economically they've been applied.

Peter ^Isotalo 09:59, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I dig. Most of my sources (specifically the "oversourcing" I guess) are done to keep people from putting those needs verifiable tags on the page. People will find one item they aren't sure about, and, instead of giving the benefit of the doubt since there are at least like 12 foot notes on the page, mark the page and not even say what they have issue with. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4shizzal (talk • contribs) 14:48, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I know what you mean. I deal with those requests by reverting them and pointing to the existing references. Anyone who is simply counting footnotes and has no real knowledge about the topic or counter-arguments might get annoyed and throw a bunch of policy citation at you, but will usually give up after politely being asked to elaborate on the criticism of fact statements.

I respect those who simply don't want to spend time arguing policy citations for the umpteenth time and simply grant any random request for a footnote, but personally I don't believe that general ignorance combined with zeal is a particularly good argument for increasing the number of footnotes. Letting footnotes breed out of control generally result only in more footnotes, not more accurate or neutral articles.

Peter ^Isotalo 16:27, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello! I started grouping the footnotes, but it is rather intricating. Please can somebody remove the unnecessary footnotes first. One reference to the same book per paragraph should be enough. Kind regards, — Tirkfl^talk 12:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Oyo empire

Who move the capital of Oyo to agodoyo 102.89.2.112 (talk) 06:37, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Civic

Identify the principle of separation of powers in the ancient oyo empire 102.89.34.146 (talk) 11:54, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Opening section

This segment (in the article’s first paragraph) seems a bit grand / advertise-y / non-encyclopaedic, no? — “ and rose through the outstanding organizational and administrative skills of the Yoruba people “. — Asdfjrjjj (talk) 19:42, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Pre colonial

Four organs of the Oyo empire 41.190.3.42 (talk) 21:34, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Fake map and fairytale disguised as history

As the title says, the map in this article is fake and the story is a fairytale. This article should be listed as a popular myth, not as history. Wikipedia is bring used by yoruba supremacists to rewrite history. Wikipedia needs to take African history more seriously and stop allowing extremists use Wikipedia to propagate their ethnocentric agenda. 2A04:CEC0:F076:1548:0:30:4DCC:8D01 (talk) 12:20, 5 November 2024 (UTC)