Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/South Australian legislative election, 2006

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted.

[edit] South Australian legislative election, 2006

Round 1 failed

Round 2 failed

Round 3

Okie dokie, how's it looking now? The concensus is that it's looking good, feedback on this page has been acted upon AFAIK, if there is anything that is preventing this article from reaching FA status, please let me know, otherwise, if there is nothing preventing it, let's add another Featured Article to wikipedia! Timeshift 14:33, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment - much of the article looks good. Here are some initial thoughts:
  1. In what sense is this the Liberal Party's worst election result? The source given suggests that this is for a statewide election - this needs to be stated.
  2. Do the tables of results list all the parties which stood? If there is a cut-off point, this should be noted; if not, it'd be interesting to know why no no-hope parties seem to have stood.
  3. The Legislative Council section needs more references. Some it expresses opinions (e.g. "he proved to be more than just a single issue MLC"), and this in particular needs to have the source clearly shown. Some other sections would also benefit from additional references, but are not so lacking.
  4. The maps are difficult to read as the ALP's colour is so deep. Could it be changed to a lighter colour, making the border lines easier to see? This deep colour is also a problem where it is used as a background for text.
  5. It'd be good to standardise on a colour for independents. White is used on the maps, but grey in the tables. Warofdreams talk 17:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  1. It was the Liberal Party's worst election result, in terms of the percentage of lower house (the house that decides which party will be government) seats they won, as can be seen by the reference linked to (worst result before this was in 1906 but that was before the Liberal Party as well as the Liberal and Country League). However I do see where you're coming from, but i'm not sure how to describe how it was their worst result to a global audience. Any suggestions?
  2. I was actually thinking about expanding this like I had been doing with individual districts such as Adelaide. I will do this when I find some time (next couple of days).
  3. Mmm, I was unsure about this sentence, I never added it myself. I am thinking about rephrasing Xenophon's paragraph totally.
  4. Will see what I can do but I do not really wish to deviate from the colours used for Australia's other elections (see election links on Template:Politics_of_Australia). What are your thoughts after this?
  5. Good point. Will work on it. Cheers for your words of advice. Timeshift 06:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Good work on this. I've tried rewording the sentence under point one, and changing the text colour where the Liberal Party colour is used as a background (just the first instance at present, to see whether this is popular). Good work on the maps; while the yellow borders may not be the prettiest solution, they certainly make the divisions clear and so solve the issue there; and also on standardising on a colour for independents. I'd now be prepared to support provided that more references are added to the "Legislative Council" section; although the most contentious sentence has been removed, this is still largely unsourced. While the "Results" section appears less contentious, it would still be very good to see more citations, as per Staxringold's request. Warofdreams talk 21:57, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Conditional Support I'd be willing to vote support but for one reasonably large issue, IMO. I see almost no citations in the "Results" section. First, while they are linked under External links, it'd be nice to see the results cited for the large results table (at least). Beyond that, what are the criteria for "Key" seats? Staxringold talkcontribs 22:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Will do. As far as Key seats, I didn't start off the article so I can only say from my perspective, is that the ABC who do TV and radio coverage of election nights chose them, based on their likelyhood of falling to Labor. Stuart and Unley were included as they were also feasible possibilities for Labor, but there is no way that I could ever forsee Heysen falling in to Labor hands any time soon. Timeshift 06:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the ref, that looks better now. As for Key Seats, I know it'd be a bit of work, but any chance of changing it to Close seats, and setting some kind of a margin (I dunno what margin would get you a good number of seats, <1%? <3%? Staxringold talkcontribs 19:24, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
They can't really be called close. Rory McEwen, an independent, held a margin of 26.6% - by no means marginal/close, but a seat to watch due to being an independent (and now a margin of 6.2%) which is why it's called a "key" seat, because it's a seat that psephologists believe has a feasible chance of changing hands. Timeshift 20:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment The lead is now so long that the Table of Contents is not visible without scrolling on a reasonable-size browser window. This is clearly a result of attempting to respond to RandomP's comments to the first FAC attempt, but now it seems excessive. It can be shortened a little by making the infobox smaller by shrinking the pictures to about 130px, and the sentence "It is bordered..." could probably be dropped. Beyond that needs a decision about what to move to another background section or lose completely. WP:LEAD says 1-4 paragraphs, and this is currently 5 substantial paragraphs. While the background is useful to someone who found the page from Special:Random, much is available a click away from the first paragraph, and would be background brought with the reader from most links into this article. --Scott Davis Talk 04:09, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Wanna take a go at chopping it? :P Timeshift 06:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
You beat me to it - I'm happy now. --Scott Davis Talk 10:13, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
(to clarify, that's support from me now. --Scott Davis Talk 11:51, 21 December 2006 (UTC))
  • Comment Everything has been acted upon (except for party colours, should it be changed or should it be the same as the other state election pendulums?). Can everybody please re-look at the page and see if anything needs changing or adjusting. One issue I was unable to fix, attaching the reference for the title "post-election pendulum"... if I leave it out of the ' ' ', the words contained within them don't bold, if I include the reference in the ' ' ', the number of the ref appears in the Tabof of contents... suggestions? House of Assembly results for all parties are on page 15 of the reference, Legislative Council results on page 10. All HA included, however for LC, I have left out the parties that got 0.1% at last election and did not run at this election. Suggestions, comments, anything that can help it reach FA status will be most appreciated! You guys have already been great help as it is. Thankyou very much. Timeshift 16:13, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
If you can, lighten the colours a tad, it shouldn't be too difficult. And move the reference from the title to after the boxes. michael talk 01:32, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. I think this has developed into an excellent article. The only minor issue I could find with it was that it linked the South Australian electorate of Mitcham to the Victorian electorate of the same name. I have currently linked it to the Electoral district of Waite but, although the Waite article claims that Waite is merely Mitcham renamed, Mitcham covered a very different area, including a lot of what is now the Electoral district of Unley. I have been meaning to create a separate article for Mitcham but I am currently seperated from my reference sources. As mentioned, this is a minor issue and doesn't detract from my support of the article; I just thought I should mention this somewhere. --Roisterer 01:20, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
The solution would be to show maps of districts throughout time, including in articles on abolished ones. Bragg and Davenport, for example, are in a completely different location from where they were when first created in '67. These qualms don't present a problem to the article's FA status, however. michael talk 01:32, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Above suggestions completed. Anything else that people think needs improving? Timeshift 07:04, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. I found the results tables very confusing. I would recommend using simpler, more elegant tables based on something like this: Template:Canadian federal election, 2006. —Cuiviénen 21:59, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Clarifications: "Informal votes" - I assume that means invalid votes or spoiled ballots, but it's not clear. Having vote totals at the top is confusing; sicne the number of people who votes really isn't relevant to the results, it should be at the bottom of the table. The number of candidates who stood for each party should either be in a separate column or not included. "Primary votes" linking to plurality doesn't tell me what is meant by "primary vote". If it's the first step in the single transferable vote, call it first preference. Parties that have stood candidates before but didn't in this election should be omitted; right now, it's unclear whether they stood candidates and won no votes or didn't stand at all. The term "swing" is misused; it should be "change". The Droop Quota is too technical for an article about a single election and should be omitted. That should help you get started. —Cuiviénen 19:02, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
      • I've created what I feel is a much better table for the HoA election in my sandbox. I could create one for the Senate as well. —Cuiviénen 04:10, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately I cannot find a wiki page for invalid/informal/spoilt votes. Total enrolled is at the top, with informal votes, then down the bottom at the end of the votes it has a total tally for the amount of total valid votes. Add the informal votes to the formal votes and you get the votes cast figure. All verifiable through the provided citation and/or www.seo.sa.gov.au. It's relevant in terms of the fact that an election where an outcome was expected and/or people's apathy toward politics is rated in terms of if the informal vote has risen or lowered. I have fixed the number of candidates issue. Fixed primary vote to first preference. Parties that did not run should be included as suggested by previous comments throughout the FAC process, and is required anyway to show that CLIC (Peter Lewis) did not run in this election and subsequently lost a seat - the fact that areas are greyed out except for the minus percentage show that they did not run. Changed swing to change. Why id droop quota too technical for an election article? It's only a small link in the upper house results table and has no drawback to having it there as such... Timeshift 20:03, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Object. 1a. My overriding impression is that it's a boring article. Who cares about the 2006 election there? My point is proven by the fact that the lead contains nothing, niente, zilch, zero, about policy. Elections used to be about policy; if policy doesn't even rate in the summary at the top, why bother? That's not actionable, except that the prose has to be "compelling", and it's hard to be in an article that studiously avoids anything that's interesting. Beyond this inherent difficulty, there's a genius for stating the obvious:
    • "South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country." Gee whizz.
    • "The majority of its people, 1.1 million, reside in the state capital,..."—Do we need to be told that 1.1 million is more than half of 1.5 million? "Live" better than "reside".
    • "31.9% of seats (15 of 47)"—Do we need both figures? I'd drop the percentage.
    • "four-year term" with the hyphen.
    • And this snake: "In the upper house, the Legislative Council, both major parties finished with a total of eight seats each, with Labor winning four, Liberals three, No Pokies independent Nick Xenophon polled an unprecedented 20.5 percent, returning himself as well as electing his running mate, Family First elected a second member, the Democrats vote collapsed leaving one remaining member, and the SA Greens won a seat for the first time." The grammar doesn't work. Did Xenophon himself elect his running mate? "With" occurs twice in successive clauses. Remove "a total of". What a bombsite. Tony 05:59, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Further down, at random: "It has been Australia's main centre-left party since 1904 and its ideology has greatly varied over time." Two quite different ideas jammed into the same sentence with "and".

Tony, your comment is unclear - are you saying the subject is boring, or that the current article is a boring report on the subject?
Your criticisms of stating the obvious are either because you already know the obvious, or haven't thought of the less obvious:
  • I have encountered foreigners who assumed that Melbourne is in South Australia, as it is the southernmost mainland large city. A complaint at an earlier FAC was that the article did not define "South Australia" beyond a wikilink.
  • Some readers respond to quantitative and some to qualitative information - both the 1.1 and "majority" are valuable.
  • Both percentage and number matter - the total number of seats has varied over the time of the comparison.
I'll have a go at fixing the sentences you've identified. --Scott Davis Talk 10:13, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
I've chopped around your first suggested sentence, but in the light of Australian Labor Party, there appears to be nothing wrong with the second one. Do you disagree with either part, the juxtaposition of the two parts, or the conjunction between them? --Scott Davis Talk 10:46, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Above suggestions completed. Despite myself feeling somewhat offended by the tone of certain comments, I and others have worked toward and I believe fixed any and all criticisms of the above mentioned issues. Is there anything else that can be worked toward to improve the article to get it to FA status, or is it too boring to some people? And thankyou very much to large majority who have left positive comments regarding how well the page has come along, I do appreciate them. Timeshift 18:35, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
  • It's somewhat better now. However, a few points:
    • Why does "Sovereign" link to "Queen of Australia". The states are sovereign entities themselves, and for many decades now, Elizabeth Windsor has been Queen of South Australia. It's a serious constitutional matter.
    • Why are all of the simple years linked? I can cope with 1901, which contains some relevant information at the top (that's unusual), but the others are utterly useless. Take 1865 It starts with:

January - The first free public school west of the Mississippi River was established in Tipton, Iowa. 8 January - Borax is discovered (John Veatch). 24 January - U.S. President Franklin Pierce declares the new Free-State Topeka government in Bleeding Kansas to be in rebellion. 29 January - Queen Victoria institutes the Victoria Cross

Can you remove these useless links? They dilute the important ones and make the page speckled blue. Tony 13:12, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Links removed. As for the sovereign/qoa stuff, refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=South_Australian_legislative_election%2C_2006&diff=94666313&oldid=94664717 - ScottDavis may want to comment on this so i'll let him as he's probably more familiar with it than I am. As for Cuivienen's contributions, what do you think of the current tables? I don't think they need changing and nobody else has raised the issue, and you seem to be the guy to ask. Is there an issue with the tables? Timeshift 13:26, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
She is not styled "Queen of South Australia" in the same way as she is "Queen of Australia". The article Governor of South Australia says at the top "The Governor of South Australia is the representative in the Australian state of South Australia of Australia's head of state, Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia." The Governor's web site is not clear of the exact role relationship, except that it is not via either the UK government or the Governor-General of Australia. "The Governor's direct relationship to The Queen, which is independent of that of the Governor-General, reflects the sovereignty of South Australia within the Australian Federation." suggests (but does not explicitly state) it is to the Queen of Australia. South Australia is neither a Commonwealth Realm nor a member of the Commonwealth of Nations (independently of Australia). Commonwealth Realm says "She is also represented by a Governor in each state of Australia, by a Lieutenant-Governor in each province of Canada and by a Queen's Representative in the Cook Islands. In these cases, she is represented in her role as Queen in right of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand respectively." The AUSTRALIA ACTS (REQUEST) ACT 1985 is also unclear to me. --Scott Davis Talk 08:49, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Overall, it appears that the Governor is the local representative of the Queen of Australia, at least since 1986, if not earlier. I think in this article, what's there is sufficient. I copied the text I used for that edit pretty much straight from Parliament of South Australia. I suggest that if you're not satisfied, add {{cite needed}} to the details in Queen of Australia or any of the articles it links to. The wikilink should be enough in this article, as the issue is incidental to the subject, which is the election. --Scott Davis Talk 11:51, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that she's Queen of SA. This was clarified in the late 70s, I think. Tony 03:06, 22 December 2006 (UTC) PS, but it's a minor point, so I won't hold to it. Tony 03:08, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

So how do we change your object to support? :-) Timeshift 05:32, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Comment - not sure if you saw the comments I made last week; as I wrote than, "I'd now be prepared to support provided that more references are added to the "Legislative Council" section; although the most contentious sentence has been removed, this is still largely unsourced." Warofdreams talk 02:28, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Is everything ok now? I have added the reference/citation link for the 2006 results PDF to both the lower and upper house result tables as requested, which should cover whatever you might want a reference for. Anything specific, please let me know. Timeshift 12:44, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment' there is no fair use justification for all those logos, they are not necessary for the reader to understand the article. --Peta 23:13, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Fixed. Timeshift 12:44, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Object. Comment. I don't really see the point of the big parties section - it is list-like, takes up a lot of the article, and includes a lot of information that doesn't specifically pertain to this election. This could well be cut down to a couple of concise paragraphs, and the article would be better for it. Rebecca 23:16, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Well I've been told to include it for the international audience. A lot of criticism seems to contradict earlier criticism made by others. I cannot please everyone. How do you suggest I change it that keeps everyone happy? Or can't I please everyone? Who makes the final decision about whether this should be a Featured Article, and why can't they contribute a bit more to criticisms? I hope I don't offend anyone but i've found the whole FAC process quite confusing with everyone contradicting everyone else and thus not exactly knowing what is required. Timeshift 12:16, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
I know it is a large section, but like TS said, it's essential for an international audience. Newcomers to Australian politics need an introduction to our parties and that section does it reasonably well. Cutting it down, I fear, could result in a poor understanding of them. michael talk 13:53, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
I realise that we need to explain things, but I think this section is over-the-top, and takes up too much of the article: I think we could have a much smaller and more concise one with a link to some broader article giving more detail for those who want it. Rebecca 01:57, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
How do you propose it's done? Have a go at the edit, we can always revert if need be - because I think that the section is already at it's bare minimum and wouldn't remove anything else. Timeshift 02:50, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm still not very happy with this section, but I don't want to stand in the way of the article getting featured, so I'm changing this to a comment. Rebecca 00:24, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. An excellent first FA by TS. It has been through enough improvements to merit FA status. michael talk 13:53, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - It's difficult for an article almost entirely about statitics to be "compelling" to many readers. Any drama would help - I was sidetracked on the Playmander article for a while.

Anyway, please provide some explanation of "informal votes" since I have no idea what that means. I'm also unclear why the party and district names are bolded; it seems contrary to WP:MOS. I personally think acronyms like IRV, STV, and TAFE should be spelled out, although mere wikilinking is tolerable.

Fixed.

Down in the legacy section:

    • "It included 1,600 public service job axings despite an election pledge of only 400, however none of the redundancies will be forced." What is a forced redundancy in this context? Does this sentence have a bit of a POV?
Redundancy packages are available for the employees, nobody is sacked in voluntary redundancies, they are not forced upon employees, unlike the Liberal government in the 1990's who slashed the public service.
    • "Being replaced is the current $90 million contract for 170 buses won by Scania with Custom Coaches from 2001 over five years." Just a suggestion but how about "This contract completes an upgrade that began with the $90 million contract for 170 buses by Scandia in 2001-2006."?
    • "With the new contract, Adelaide expects to be at 89 percent disability accessible by 2013 and fully accessible by 2022." Something doesn't seem parallel in the contruction. Maybe "expects to be 89% disability accessible"?
Removed. Timeshift 15:11, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Kill the section. It's unimportant; most of the issues don't directly relate to the election. michael talk 02:31, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Killed the paragraph. The rest relates to directly to parliamentary people and issues and think the rest of it can stay imho. Timeshift 15:11, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't mean to be a party-pooper, but aren't the NewsPoll results copyrighted? - Ta bu shi da yu 00:52, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
No. 'Any reproduction of this material must credit both NEWSPOLL and THE AUSTRALIAN."', which is what i've done :-) Timeshift 15:11, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment So how are things looking now? I've acted upon all suggestions and fixed as appropriate and replied to each comment or criticism. Is it ready to be a featured article yet? :-) Timeshift 04:29, 1 January 2007 (UTC)


Comment One thing I'm a little concerned about in these reviews is that it's been largely bottom-up - while such analysis is totally necessary to get to the best standard Wikipedia can offer, it ignores some big-picture issues and the so-called "birds eye view". Oddly enough, even a quick reading of the text reveals spelling and grammatical errors which are in need of repair, and some textual redundancy, but I'll ignore those for now in the interests of trying to get more of a perspective or focus on where this article needs to go from here.
  1. Well written, comprehensive, factually accurate and stable.
    1. Well written - generally yes, although needs a proof-read.
    2. Comprehensive (does not neglect major facts or details) - Yes.
    3. Factually accurate - Yes.
    4. Neutral - Some questions regarding this, but broadly yes.
    5. Stable - yes.
  2. Complies with MoS and Wikiproject guidelines
    1. Lead section - Contains information irrelevant to election that does not read consistently with lead or intention, also needs proof-read.
    2. Hierarchical headings - Yes.
    3. Table of contents (substantial, not overwhelming) - Yes.
  3. Images with succinct captions and acceptable copyright status - Maps of high quality (good work TS!) Pictures of leaders copyrighted and unlicensed but this should be OK in the circumstances.
  4. Appropriate length - Yes.
Neutrality of some points, lead section and writing style (standard of prose needs to be "compelling, even brilliant") need work, all other points seem OK to go IMO. Orderinchaos78 10:19, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Hmm. Where are the spelling/grammar issues.... I and others have looked and fixed as appropriate many times, you must have an excellent eye (a compliment). Timeshift 12:16, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Noticed a few "it's" that should be "its", and especially in the lead, a fair bit of awkward wording. It's not a criticism - it's what happens when you're very close to something, I'm guilty of it myself in articles I work on extensively :) I would propose rewriting most of the lead, and completely omitting the third paragraph, which has the look and feel of having been dropped in and adds little or nothing contextually. The concept that the lead should be a summary of the article capable of being an article in and of itself should be key. The following is my suggestion - I am putting it forward here with the full knowledge of "if you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly ... do not submit it" rather than a "my version is the best possible".
Legislative elections for the 51st Parliament of South Australia were held in the state of South Australia on 18 March 2006, and were conducted by the independent State Electoral Office of South Australia. The centre-left Australian Labor Party, in government since 2002 under Premier Mike Rann, gained a 7.7 percent statewide swing[1], resulting in the first Labor majority government since 1989 with 28 of the 47 House of Assembly (lower house) seats, a gain of six seats. The centre-right Liberal Party of Australia, led by Rob Kerin, achieved their worst result in any South Australian lower house elections, with 15 seats.[2] Following the outcome of the election, Iain Evans replaced Kerin as opposition leader.[3]
In addition to the major party results, all three sitting independents and a sitting Nationals SA member retained their seats. In the Legislative Council (upper house), both major parties each finished with a total of eight seats, with Labor winning four and the Liberals winning three. No Pokies independent (...as per current from here)
Hope this contribution is of some use or help. I'll have a quick look through the rest before bed but by and large the main body was in substantially better shape. Orderinchaos78 13:20, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Cheers for the assistance :-) Btw, voting is not compulsory for citizens over 18 years. Enrollment forms are sent to citizens 17 years of age, all they need do is not send the forms back, which means they are not required to vote in any elections. Also, the South Australia info was added as per previous criticisms over people not knowing what South Australia was, as the article must be for a worldwide audience, and apparently wikilinking to South Australia wasn't enough... Timeshift 13:51, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
No worries! :) As a fellow politico, I'm keen to see the standard rise on political articles for Australia and IMO you've done a tremendous effort on this article - it's not far from FA at all in my opinion. AFAIK it's compulsory to enrol - it may be different in WA to SA though (I'm Perth-based). However, my understanding is that the roll is national, but used by State ECs/EOs - in which case it's been compulsory since 1911 [1] [2] Orderinchaos78 14:03, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
45 Is State enrolment compulsory? Initial (first time) enrolment for State elections is not compulsory, however, after having enrolled you must maintain your enrolment details and vote. It is compulsory to enrol for Federal elections once you turn 18.[3] Timeshift 14:27, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Have replaced the lead with yours, with a few slight changes. Timeshift 14:50, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I would disregard the earlier objection and remove the third paragraph from the introduction. It is un-necessary – a description of South Australia would only be relevant if something in its make-up uniquely affected elections; this is not the case. See this article for a good election article lead.--cj | talk 15:48, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Done. I happen to think the lead is pretty good, but if you can make any suggestions in particular they would be most welcome. Timeshift 15:59, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Comment - I've added {{fact}} tags to the remaining statements which appear to need a citation. If citations can be found, or if sections can be altered so that they can be cited, then I will support. Warofdreams talk 23:27, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Done. Timeshift 03:50, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Support - excellent (and speedy!) work. Warofdreams talk 11:19, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Support as my previous concerns have all been addressed. Good luck! :) Orderinchaos78 12:00, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment - so, with everyone having withdrawn their objection and/or providing support, anything else to do in getting it to FA status? :-) Timeshift 12:03, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Just sit back and wait. If no new objections arise, Raul is likely to feature it next time he looks through. Warofdreams talk 15:05, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References

  • Object - 1c The referencing is very bad, consisting of a bunch of weblinks without authors or publication dates, which will make it very hard to verify that information if/when those links go dead. You can either use the cite templates, or fill in the information manually, but we need at least to see author and pub date on new sources, and more information on websources. Readers need enough information to be able to find your sources in a library, in hard print, or on the net should your links go dead, which most of them inevitably will. Also, since you haven't identified your sources with correct formatting, for all we know (without checking each and every source individually), the entire article could be referenced to unreliable blogs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:36, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
If this is an issue, why hasn't it been raised by anyone else after all this time and why has everyone else supported the article becoming FA, even by some administrators? Timeshift 08:12, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, that's a very good question. I ask it often, and I see that more reviewers are starting to check references now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:26, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
In all fairness, it would be very difficult (and would look unwieldy) to adopt such a tight standard for what are mostly government publications and transcripts of programs (TV and radio) by the national broadcaster. There are a few spots where referencing could be improved but I can clearly see the origins of most of the articles. Ones I would argue could be done better are:
No, it wouldn't - why do you suppose most other FAs are able to do it? And, why do you suppose the cite templates exist? (Maybe to help format news, web, and book sources correctly?) I will start a few to show you how to correctly format your references. I don't use the cite templates - I do them manually. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:26, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Comment With regard to the objection, I have now looked around and found three featured articles 1 2 3 which do not use the cite web/cite news template and in two cases don't even provide links to the information or a year of currency - the referencing in this article is actually of a considerably higher standard than those mentioned. I hope this is taken into account by whoever reviews this article for FA. Orderinchaos78 14:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I didn't say you had to use the cite templates, and what other articles did/do is irrelevant - we are looking at this article, and many older articles no longer comply with current standards - for that, we have WP:FAR. I've done the final section for you as an example - it would take you less time to complete your references than it is taking you to object to completing them: as you can see, five of the thirteen references given are not verifiable - that's a problem. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:56, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I should clarify that the article has little to do with me - I entered as a reviewer only a few days ago (see script above), and once it passed my objections I changed my vote to support, and have since been looking to help wherever I can to get this through the process. In my own work I always use the cite templates, as can be seen from my contributions history. As for references - which five out of which 13? I see 83 in total. If you can point me to them, I'll look and see what I can find/do. Orderinchaos78 15:04, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Ahh.. I see what you mean now (having looked at it more closely). This is a hazard of citing any News Ltd publication or The West Australian, and why I refuse to do so. I'll have a look for possible replacements for those, and failing that, can get the actual cites off a fulltext service I subscribe to. Thanks for pointing that out. I would note, however, that if you compare the last part to the first part, it looks jumbled and unreadable - the only way to sort it out would be to get rid of the two columns and have an overly long list (this was the problem I encountered when trying to do the first five) Orderinchaos78 15:09, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
It's not just a problem with citing web news sources: it's a problem with citing any source without giving full and complete bibliographic information, which will allow a reader to find an alternate source for that information, or to relocate dead links. Also, last access date should always be given on any internet source. The aestetics look just fine on my screen, and WP:V policy overrides aesthetics. I also fixed the top section, to give more examples (authors and publication dates left out, and incorrect titles given on publications, which will make it harder to locate those sources should the links go dead.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:15, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for adding some of the missing sources, Orderinchaos78. I had to change the formatting, for consistency. I had already added many cites manually, and the article doesn't use the cite templates. You added sources with the cite templates, which resulted in inconsistent date formatting. I changed them back, to agree with the others. It doesn't matter which format is used, but results should show a consistent style: if you want to use the cite templates, all of the refs I did will need to be changed as well. I don't recommend that, since the original authors didn't use the cite templates, and it will be much more work to convert them all. All that needs to be done is to add on the missing information to what is already there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:37, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
It's a weird one for sure. Not sure what's going on as I've been trying to submit the revised links for 15 minutes with no success. It's now 1am over here and I'm supposed to be somewhere at 10am, so I might leave it to others at this point Orderinchaos78 15:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
It's morning here, so if the other authors want my help in completing the refs, I can pitch in, but first a consistent style should be decided on, and someone has to locate missing sources. I started a talk page section on that. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:57, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I managed finally to get the Legacy ones updated, so they're fine now (I manually altered them back to the format you had - still feels weird typing in the dates the wrong way round in an article about Australia, but oh well :)). The other sections, not sure. Anything from the Advertiser or Australian will need to be checked on a full text site as they delete their articles after about 3 months. Factiva has both on its file, and has page numbers for offline paper editions which is great. Anyway, bed for me. Orderinchaos78 16:02, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I was afraid that might be an issue: that's why I only did one section. If the other authors want me to switch those I already did, I can do that. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:05, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Hope nobody minds - I have gone ahead and changed these two. Orderinchaos78 14:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Seriously. It's just references. I've referenced, and IMHO the page going for FA status has much better references than some other FA articles i've seen. Again, seriously, any controversial statements have been referenced and can clearly be read by the weblinks. Why must we split hairs? Timeshift 17:19, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I also want to point out the fact how long i've spent on this project and the amount of hours i've put in to it, and to get various member's approval, yet at the last hurdle to find this glaring in my face. But I do see that many efforts have been made since i've last been online, and I do thank you for it. It would be nice if this stumbling block could just disappear (does that sound a bit selfish? :P) but if there's still stuff to be done, let me know so I can see how difficult it is and whether I have the time in the next few days to accomplish the tasks, whatever they may be. I know it might sound like a whinge, it's just that i've put so much time in to this and to find the references are bung, is a bit disappointing... (i'm also a lil bit drunk in another state of australia, sorry if this sounds like a big whinge :P) Timeshift 17:52, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

It's cool. I didn't even realise a few of the ext links were broken - that's a lesson for *me* for next time when reviewing. With all but two or three exceptions, they were News Ltd ones. There was a couple also which linked to a password-only site. About 2/3 of them seem to be fixed after our work tonight, the other 1/3 are easier as they really just involve converting the remaining ones to look like the ones we've done - which means clicking (and hence checking) the link, grabbing date, author if necessary, and noting today's date under "retrieved". Once they're all done, I think that clears that one up. (And yes, I know what it must be like - just when you think it's all done, something else comes up - but I can see in retrospect this was a more valid issue than I originally thought - apologies to Sandy!) Orderinchaos78 18:21, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
No problem - no apologies needed :-) As you can see, many important sources just weren't there. The notion that "it's just references" is something I'm trying to get more reveiwers to be aware of, so this doesn't happen at the last minute to others - but not to worry, it's still doable. As far I'm concerned, "brilliant, compelling prose" is not a pillar of Wikipedia, while WP:V is, and FAs must satisfy WP:V before we even bother to examine the prose. I fail to grasp why so few reviewers let articles get this far into FAC without verifying the sources. It's a pet peeve; I originally came to work in FAC/FAR by becoming aware of two glaringly inaccurate, poorly-referenced, biased and POV FAs, which passed because of brilliant prose combined with reviewer ignorance of the issues. With several more hours of work, we should be able to wrap this one up, but I can't substitute the internet archive sources, since I don't know if the archived versions are still accurate - I can help, but you all will have to do that. I can help you fix your refs, but I cant' really find/decide on the best references to use. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:01, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I've completed all the refs, except the dead links for the government sites - if you all can decide how to handle those (internet archive?), I can remove my Object. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:36, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Only one problem source left (source found, but doesn't verify the text cited to it), so I'm striking my Object, assuming that remaining issue will be dealt with. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:06, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Dealt with (see article talk page) - replaced an unsourced claim that the leader "just sat back" with a reasonably factual claim that Labor's advertisement reminded voters of three actions, each of which is sourced. Orderinchaos78 03:54, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Five outright supports and no objections remaining :-) Timeshift 12:59, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

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