Talk:German East Africa

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Is this a valid travel topic?[edit]

Are there any actual remnants of the German colonial period that remain in this part of Afirca and are open to tourists? If the answer to that question is no, then I would posit that the answer to the question in the subject header of this message is also no. This is a travel guide, not a historical reference. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 16:57, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

w:East African Campaign (World War I) has some useful information. I would think there are battle sites worth visiting, along with Lake Tanganyika. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 17:06, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
MV Liemba was built for the Imperial German Navy before WW I, is still sailing & is a tourist attraction. I do not know if there are other interesting remnants. Pashley (talk) 02:27, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

VFD discussion[edit]

German East Africa[edit]

Are there any actual remnants of the German colonial period that remain in this part of Africa and are open to tourists? If the answer to that question is no, then I would posit that this is not a valid travel topic. Wikivoyage is not a historical reference. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 16:58, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(Pashley's a she) --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 17:44, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Not as far as I know :-) Pashley (talk) 18:43, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oh dear, perhaps you want to check again? Seriously though, egg on my face, and sorry to SelfieCity. I was convinced, for some reason. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 21:20, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Great, still I wonder if it would make sense to expand the scope of the article to cover at least other parts of Africa that were under German control, perhaps also the German islands in Oceania (Papua New Guinea, Nauru, something else?), Qingdao and what more is there? --ϒpsilon (talk) 17:57, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps another options would be to move the German East Africa article to “German Empire”. Is there a pre war Germany article yet? --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 18:00, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently not. So that would be another option. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 18:01, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I created it as an extra region to fix a red link in MV Liemba. I think it should remain as an extra region, see no reason to expand it & do not know of any tourist sites that might be mentioned. I don't think it works as a travel topic because there are no monuments or ruins to visit. If someone wants to write a German Empire article & turn this into a redirect to a section of that, fine. Otherwise, leave it. Pashley (talk) 18:50, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I just saw the article was short and assumed that it should be expanded. I can undo back to its extraregion days if you like. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 19:04, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, extraregions can just sit as empty shells if they serve another purpose, so maybe we should leave it alone. The (pre World War I) German Empire could still work as a travel topic, though, and should, I think, include remnants of German influence in places such as Danzig, Königsberg, Breslau, Kattowitz, Strasburg etc... ethno-culturally they may have been mostly 'cleansed', but that fine Prussian architecture still stands (four out of five of those cities bluelink too, impressive). --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 21:30, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Resoultion: Kept

Extraregion?[edit]

Like Tibetan Empire, this is not currently a political entity. Shouldn’t this therefore be a travel topic? --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 12:28, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. this should be a travel topic. even have a look at the first thread on this page. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:31, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No. It is obviously a region & quite clearly not a travel topic, at least not in the original sense of that term which was created for things that apply in many destinations like begging or bargaining.
It irritates me some that this was previously discussed at some length & we reached the conclusion that it should be kept as an extraregion, but now people are raising the issue again for no reason that is clear to me. Pashley (talk) 13:03, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see the travel value in this. There are no points of interest listed. And while it may be a historical region, it would be offensive to refer to these countries "German East Africa" today. They fought for their independence from Britain and Belgium, so it isn't appropriate to use this as any type of a region name in the 21st century. I don't think this article belongs in a travel guide. Ground Zero (talk) 13:58, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If there are no destinations (I thought there may be historic sites) then I would support deleting this article. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 14:28, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the others. It's either a travel topic or nothing. It's not a current-day region. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:46, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There's a Vfd discussion going on now which I have commented on, but I'll re-iterate my view here that the article should be moved to German Empire and expanded to cover all parts of the empire outside modern-day Germany in which you can experience the legacy of German rule. The dog2 (talk) 22:01, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
German Empire would cover the home country much more than any colonies. Is that what you're suggesting? Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:35, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I don't think we need to cover Germany itself in the German Empire article except for sites specifically connected to the empire, like maybe a memorial dedicated to some colonists or something. After all, the Germany article is for that. But we can cover all former German colonies in that article, as well the parts of neighbouring European countries that were part of Germany prior to World War I. The dog2 (talk) 22:44, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's illogical. The First Reich was above all a German empire, not a colonial one - that was secondary. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:52, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
So what do you suggest then? I was thinking of something along the lines of what we have for the Russian Empire and Austro-Hungarian Empire articles. The dog2 (talk) 23:28, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'd note that the Russian Empire article doesn't exclude core cities of Russia (of course), but my problem with those articles is that they don't specify particular highlights of the imperial periods sufficiently. The previously featured Ottoman Empire article is a better model, though even that article could probably stand to provide a few specifics in more listings. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:34, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The Russian Empire and Austro-Hungarian Empire articles provide little useful travel information. They provides lists of countries and cities, which you'd find mentioned in the corresponding Wikipedia articles. They are bad models to follow. I hope we don't waste time writing and editing more articles like those ones.
@The dog2: you know that your writings about history and politics have been controversial and taken up the time of other editors because of your insertion of personal opinions and falsehoods (which I assume were unintentional). Why do you want to find more opportunities to create more work for others when you have acknowledged that you can't contribute much about points of interest related to the German Empire? Ground Zero (talk) 03:22, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Since when have I ever written political propaganda on Wikivoyage? I don't recall ever writing pro-Trump or pro-Bernie messages in our articles. And as far as I know, I've always respected the consensus when it goes against me. And this is a collaborative project, so even if I can't contribute to all aspects of the German Empire's history, I'm sure other editors can jump in and contribute as well. I don't know why you have such a strong personal grudge against me, but let's put it this way. I think historical travel is a worthy topic to cover, and you don't, and I hope we can just agree to disagree on this point. The dog2 (talk) 03:39, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I do not "bear a grudge against you". I am repeating the concerns raised by various editors on your talk page dating back to 2013 regarding factual inaccuracies, excessive detail in historical sections, and injecting controversial opinions into articles. Do you think that all of these editors gear a grudge against, or that maybe you are exhibiting a pattern of behavior that is problematic? Ground Zero (talk) 04:03, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how a travel topic about a historical empire that no longer exists can be politically charged. At the very least we should be able to agree on what the facts are, so I don't know why you had to bring up the issue of political controversies since they are completely irrelevant to this discussion.
Anyway, for me, even if all there's left is surviving German colonial buildings, but there is otherwise no museum on German military conquests, that also constitutes a travel destination related to the German Empire. In the example of Qingdao, if we create the German Empire article, we can try to focus on the travel aspects of it by saying that you can see German colonial buildings there, and that it is home to a still-operational brewery that was founded by Germans during the colonial period. Perhaps you think that such a description is not persuasive enough to convince you to visit, but perhaps for others reading the article it will be. The dog2 (talk) 05:13, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe start with a draft in userspace, if you know the topic, Superdog. If you can write a travel-focused article about the German Empire, we can move it to mainspace. Writing a good historical travel topic would be valuable to the community as an example.
I agree with the central idea of GZ’s concerns about travel topics that list destinations, but if they list recommendations of historic districts and buildings, or even cities, there is potential within those articles. Therefore, I think those could be better, and I think there’s plenty of room for local contributors to improve them. Hopefully this will happen one day to outlines like Nubia and Khmer Empire. I can’t go as far as to oppose travel topics with Understand and Destinations sections if they contain information that a traveler would find useful. When cities were built, where examples of a certain architectural style are located, and what city’s restaurants present the best version of a regional cuisine all seem like types of information that could be found on WP, but when presented here in the traveller’s perspective, benefit the traveller. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 10:38, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@The dog2: "I don't see how a travel topic about a historical empire that no longer exists can be politically charged."
This is exactly why I am concerned about you writing another history article. The history of Germany in the 20th century is extremely fraught and controversial. How can you not be aware of this?
"At the very least we should be able to agree on what the facts are, so I don't know why you had to bring up the issue of political controversies since they are completely irrelevant to this discussion."
Historians don't agree on the facts, so how can a small group of amateur travel writers? And has been pointed out on your talk page, you are not very careful in your research, which leads to factual errors. And you have a history of making controversial assertions in writing about history and politics. Your history of edits in Wikivoyage, as discussed at length on your talk page, is entirely relevant to this discussion. Ground Zero (talk) 12:29, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Shouldn't this be a travel topic like other historical empires (colonial or otherwise) we have articles for? Also, why do we have an article for just German East Africa, when the German Empire also set up colonies in southern and western Africa, China and Oceania? And according to the map here there are even more places around the world where there may be some German colonial sites to visit. --Ypsilon (talk) 14:59, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Unless we find someone willing and able to write about sites associated with the German Empire, we will end up with another article that is just one person's (or a few people's) personal essay about the German Empire. Writing a weak imitation of Wikipedia's article (which is properly cited and crowd-sourced) is a waste of time, and does not serve the traveller. I'm all in favour of a travel article -- that's what we are here for -- but if we are not going to get that, we should just delete this article which doesn't belong in a travel guide. Ground Zero (talk) 15:55, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Have a look at the history section of the American colonialism article. Admittedly, the article could be improved by having more descriptions on historical sites connected to American colonial rule in the destinations list, and I've already written what I know. But I was the main person who wrote the history section, and I think it's as concise as it can be, and avoids finger pointing or getting into political controversies. The dog2 (talk) 16:56, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've identified my concerns with that article, as have other contributors, on its talk page. If no-one adds relevant points of interest to it by December, I will nominate it for deletion on the basis that it is not a travel article. Wikivoyage is not a history blog, as I've said before, and no-one seems to disagree with that statement.
Instead of just "writing what you know", i.e., unreferenced stuff about history that you kind of remember, and then expecting other people to add travel content, you could actually research relevant points of interest about American colonialism on the internet, and add them to that article. That's what the rest of us are doing since nobody is travelling right now.
Citing that article as an example of what you could do with a German Empire article is more evidence that we should not have a German Empire article until there is someone willing and able to write a travel article about the German Empire. Ground Zero (talk) 17:26, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

VfD again[edit]

German East Africa[edit]

This was nominated for VFD and kept three years ago, but since then a discussion at Talk:Tibetan Empire has somewhat altered precedent. Tibetan Empire and German East Africa were both extraregion articles for regions that currently don't exist.

Consensus is leaning toward re-designating Tibetan Empire as a travel topic, but there's not consensus to make a similar change to German East Africa. However, there is sentiment that calling it an extraregion is not appropriate as there is no current "German East Africa." Therefore per wiaa, this is not a travel article as all the information contained is encyclopedic. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 14:36, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Wow, there really is zero travel content on that page. Either delete, or strip back to a very basic soft redirect, with about the same information as a disambiguation page, pointing to Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanganyika. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 14:42, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nomination. We should avoid trying to be Wikihistory. Ground Zero (talk) 15:18, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I think we should perhaps rename this article to German Empire, and expand the scope to include the other German colonies such as Namibia, Samoa, Qingdao, Cameroon and so on. If we do that, then there will for sure be enough travel content to justify an article. I know there is still a German-speaking community in Namibia, and there are surviving German colonial towns you can visit. And in the case of Qingdao, it is still known for its beer, which is a legacy of German colonial rule, and also has many German colonial buildings that have been preserved. Also, such an article will allow us to cover former German territories in Europe such as Kaliningrad, Gdańsk and Strasbourg, which are now part of Russia, Poland and France respectively, but still have visible German heritage that you can explore. The dog2 (talk) 20:20, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mind that idea, but if we do that, we need to make sure first we have contributors willing to write travel content for the article (local experts?) because one problem with some of our travel topics is that none of the Wikivoyage contributors have visited the location(s) of the travel topic. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 20:51, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If this is going to be another exercise in writing history without sources, I would say it is a waste of time. Wikipedia has better articles than we could write. Let's delete this article, and if someone wants to write about points of interest associated with the German Empire that travellers can visit, that could be the basis for a new article, with a concise explanation of the context, of course.
However, as our coverage of places like continental Tanzania, Namibia, Togo and Papua New Guinea is woefully inadequate, travellers would benefit more from an expansion of travel information about this places than they would from an article on the defunct German Empire. I would hope that someone with an interest in these places could contribute to our articles about the modern-day countries. Those who want to write about history would really be better off contributing to Wikipedia (with citations) where the history is better covered than we can here. Ground Zero (talk) 21:12, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, I haven't been to either of those places. But I can write a bit about Qingdao based on what I've seen in Chinese travel shows. For instance, travellers may want to go there to experience the unique beer culture, where they sell you Tsingtao beer to drink out of plastic bags. Of course, drinking beer out of plastic bags is not a German tradition, but the fact that the Tsingtao brewery is based in the city and is so well-known is a legacy of German colonial rule. If you look at our Namibia article, it does list some towns known for their surviving German colonial architecture. And for those European cities I mentioned, Strasbourg for instance has many German buildings in its old town that you can go and have a look, built during the period before World War I when it was part of Germany. I think there is the potential for an article like the ones we have for the Russian Empire or the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The dog2 (talk) 21:12, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Neither of those articles is a good example. They list countries, regions and cities, but no museums, monuments, or important buildings that played a role in the history of the empires. Wikivoyage is better as a travel guide than as a history blog, IMO. Ground Zero (talk) 21:16, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Any "German Empire" article would cover the home country more than any colonies. That might be fine, though. We could consider whether to call it "Prusso-German Empire" or something, if we want to include pre-unification content. I see there's no "Prussian Empire" article, and there are a lot of sights that would be worth including in such an article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:40, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. There's not much travel content, but it is non-zero; the article was created to provide context for MV Liemba & there is a link to that.
To me it seems obvious it should be kept as an extraregion. That was the consensus at Wikivoyage:Votes_for_deletion/September_2018#German_East_Africa & nothing has changed that should alter it. It is quite clearly a region & equally clearly does not fit into our hierarchy. SelfieCity's claim that calling it an extraregion is not appropriate as there is no current "German East Africa" strikes me as arbitrary & dumb.
However, as I wrote in the Tibetan Empire discussion "On the other hand, the Roman, Persian, Chinese, Mongol & Mughal empires all have travel topic articles." OK, we could make this a topic.
A German Empire article would be a good idea if someone wants to write it; this could be merged & redirected there. Pashley (talk) 22:43, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Pashley: I think you should think about whether you really need to call user:SelfieCity's claim "dumb". Let's discuss this without name-calling. I agree that extraregions in this travel guide should be current extraregions, not historical ones because this is not Wikihistory. It is not a dumb idea, or even an arbitrary one, just because you don't agree with it. Ground Zero (talk) 06:48, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Ground Zero:, I feel stupid here for not knowing what this means, but what does "because this US not Wikihistory" mean? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 07:07, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Typo corrected. Ground Zero (talk) 12:06, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I wrote that the idea "strikes me as arbitrary & dumb", which of course implies the possibility that it will not strike others that way. To me, that seems like fair debate; I could have said "is" rather than "strikes me as", or used stronger terms than "arbitrary & dumb", but chose not to. I do not think that is name-calling.
As for your "It is not a dumb idea, or even an arbitrary one, just because you don't agree with it.", you have it exactly backwards. The fact that it seems d & a to me is the reason I do not agree with it, not a consequence of disagreement. Pashley (talk) 07:26, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is completely unnecessary. In any argument you can argue for your position without belittling the positions of others. The only argument that you have advanced for keeping it as an extraregion is that there was a discussion three years ago. As no-one calls the area "German East Africa" anymore, and as those countries have fought for their independence from subsequent colonial masters, I don't think it is an appropriate descriptor for the region today. Ground Zero (talk) 12:06, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like everyone is going for a delete except Pashley here. Anyone else got something to say? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 00:52, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, Wikivoyage:Deletion_policy says:

Simply asserting that a page does not fit within our goals is not sufficient for a deletion rationale, which needs to reference specific policy.

No rationale meeting this criterion has been given; as far as I can tell, no attempt at that has even been made. To me, it therefore seems obvious this is a speedy keep; the nomination is nonsense, barely worth discussing & certainly not worth acting on.

I realise that I'm losing this argument, so I've copied the page to my user space. Pashley (talk) 02:14, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think that if you can add information about the locations of WWI battlefields and some other things (German colonial buildings? plaques memorializing something that happened during that period?), you may be able to move the article back into article space as a travel topic. I'm glad you will keep it in your userspace, rather than seeing it be deleted. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:16, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Ground Zero: time to delete? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 05:26, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
As Pashley has decided to move it to use space, I think it is safe to delete this from main space. Ground Zero (talk) 11:07, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This was deleted after discussion archived at Wikivoyage:Votes_for_deletion/July_2021#German_East_Africa.

It was restored after the pub discussion below:

German East Africa[edit]

This page was recently deleted, see Wikivoyage:Votes_for_deletion/July_2021#German_East_Africa. I copied it to my user space & have now fixed what seemed to be the main objection, a lack of travel information. See User:Pashley/GEA.

I am now ready to put it back in main space. Does anyone want to comment before I do that? Pashley (talk) 12:06, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose I'm not criticising your work here (infact it is looking good), but here's the problems with having this article:
  1. These countries have fought their independence from their colonial master - Deutschland
  2. Going and wanting to look for these sites may impose a safety concern to the traveller, as well as a frown
--SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:11, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Please oppose or support based on policy reasons. If we only covered 'safe' regions, we would delete every article relating to Syria. If listing ex-colonial sites (or indeed anywhere people might "frown" on) were a problem, we'd delete all the empire articles.
This article still has limited travel information, but it's more of a travel article than the one that we deleted, so I can't oppose. I do hope that User:Pashley intends to carry on working on it, rather than just doing enough to get it past WIAA.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 12:25, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We have history articles that provide only lists of relevant countries and cities, which I think don't qualify as travel articles. I think that is a problem that we should address. I agree that this article would benefit from more points of interest, but as it has several already, it qualifies as a travel article in my opinion. I would support this returning to the mainspace. Ground Zero (talk) 13:08, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is significantly improved and I, too, now support moving to mainspace. All that we need to consider is whether it is an extraregion or travel topic. I can see it being written as either (given its more recent development) and do not have a strong preference either way, although the current format is more like that of an extraregion. If an extraregion it should be called Former German East Africa. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 14:21, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I am still not convinced that we should have historic regions as extraregions. They are valid travel topics, and I think they should be written as such, and described as such even if written like extraregions. A travel topic avoids most of the colonial baggage issues, as they can be handled as historic facts. An extraregion brings that baggage to the present region. –LPfi (talk) 14:32, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree that it is a travel topic, not an extra region, which could be offensive to some people. Ground Zero (talk) 14:43, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I support restoration of this article to mainspace as a travel topic. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:35, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • As consensus appears to be for a travel topic, the article may need reorganization before being returned to mainspace. It is currently formatted as a region article and for a travel topic, this may be confusing to some readers. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 15:37, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes Now restored. Pashley (talk) 08:39, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Tanzania Park?[edit]

I'd like to add a link to this park because it has statues of von Lettow-Vorbeck & his troops. However, I cannot find a primary source to link to. Things I have found are German WP and maybe a home page (but I do not read German) and an English wiki article (but what on Earth is second.wiki?).

Would any German speakers, or perhaps someone else, be able to help here? Pashley (talk) 08:34, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @Hobbitschuster: who knows Deutsch. But Google translate also does an OK job at translating en to de and vice versa. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 08:38, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
From the English article, this looks complicated. There have been protests & the park has not opened. @Hobbitschuster:, are the German articles any clearer? Pashley (talk) 01:10, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt we'll get a response. Last edit at 20:21 3/08 but I pinged him at 08:38 29/07. Been almost a week. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 03:43, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Quick summary from the latest article I found (08/2020): Festive opening was planned in 2003 but Tanzanian president withdrew support joining international critics. Main criticism is that the park is not critical enough but instead glorifying colonialism. Park is the size of half a football field, closed for the general public. Original plan was to reopen the park celebrating the increasingly close "city partnership" between Hamburg and Dar-es-Salaam. As of today it is still unclear when the park will open to the public. Hamburg government expects several years to pass. Bugsinmyfood (talk) 18:31, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Attribution for our German East Africa article[edit]

Swept in from the pub

Most of you will remember the history of this article back three months ago, but summary short:

  • It was an article that existed until it was nominated for deletion in July this year
  • It was deleted that same month, although Pashley had kept a copy of the article in their userspace to work on a few days before it was deleted
  • It was well improved by Pashley, and it became back into mainspace
  • Now while most of it was re-written, some of the original text remains

Now given that attribution is needed, does anybody know how to get the old history back? I don't know exactly how this will work, but I presume that the German East Africa article will need to be moved to another page (out of mainspace), restore this old page, move it into someone's userspace (feel free to move this into my userspace) and then link the attribution on the relevant talk page? I think I know how to fix this issue, but I thought I'd let everyone know first and if there's a better alt solution, please share it below. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 04:17, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The clean solution would be a history merge. This might be helpful: w:en:Wikipedia:Administrators'_guide/Fixing_cut-and-paste_moves. --El Grafo (talk) 13:54, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
History merge is the way to do it – in this case. Done.
If there had been a content fork, then having revisions from the two forks intermingled would have been confusing, and each contributors contribution very hard to discern. In such cases it is much better to leave the history of one of the branches connected to another page. If one branch is going to be redirected to the other, leave the history there. In cases like this (development on user page, where pages aren't guaranteed to stay) finding a name for the branch to be redirected is harder. Luckily no edits had been done to the mainspace page after the copying.
–LPfi (talk) 15:54, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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