Template talk:Infobox Australian Place/Archive 2

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Post-implementation - some tinkering required

Now that we've got it through, I've changed across some of my model towns/suburbs/LGAs firstly to see how they look and secondly so that when I create brand new ones I'll be using the new template. Couple of oddities though:

  • City of Joondalup - the images are out of whack - the old Austlocalgovtarea allowed size to be specified, and this wouldn't hurt to have on all of them - although it should be strictly optional (i.e. the template should behave as the template will normally, unless a size is specified). This also applies to those on the dreaded Perth Suburb template. My suggestion would be to have an "imgsize" attribute that if filled in can limit the size, and if not leaves the script to do as it does presently
Solution: get larger filesize images. TheJosh 12:05, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately with the Perth ones I didn't make them so that's not an option. (The image is about twice the size it needs to be on screen) Orderinchaos78 12:14, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Whats the problem? looks fine on my machine. A bit tall perhaps but thats it. Try refreshing your browser, or purging the file cache. TheJosh 12:19, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Duncraig, Western Australia - After doing this one I realised that the domain link (which is now itself deprecated as domain have changed their site) was messing things up (eg of new one: [1]). Otherwise works exactly right (and I like the smaller font for the neighbours! looks so much less ugly :))
  • Works exactly right for towns (I've converted Harvey, Wandering and Beverley).

Great effort guys and considering the risk of hostility that existed just before this development project began, I think this has been managed in an incredibly orderly and collaborative fashion and will be far more useful than the ones it replaced. Orderinchaos78 10:53, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Check out our conversion progress with the query api. Current Count: 720 (thanks to gedit - replace all)

  • I've only just had a look at this template since I noticed the infobox on the Melbourne article now has a notice saying that it is now obsolete with a link to this page. I'm interested in how it is intended to be implemented there.. Certain fields that were present in the previous infobox now don't appear to be there, such as the population estimate year (some estimates may not be recent so it is probably important to know what year the population is listed as)... Also, shouldn't they be consistent fields? Some just say for example, "Population" and some say "Established:" (ie with a colon). I might be bold and change them now - revert me if there is a good reason why this is the case. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 13:49, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Also, the LGA url doesn't seem to display unless there is a LGA image as well (I haven't checked the code, but I noticed in the LGA example on this talk page, it displays directly below the image). Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 15:32, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Wow - I just saw Diliff implement this on Hobart. Great work guys - a standard at last, and it looks fantastic! -- Chuq 23:35, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Quick one - we have a big problem re the header. On suburb, it previously (on IAS) linked to (city, state|city), (state) whereas now it links to (city), (state). End result - we have unhappy people from the other Perth running around changing all the Perth ones and breaking the template's logic for suburb neighbours. I realise the distinction has been drawn to support LGAs and towns, but is there a better way to do it? Orderinchaos78 01:59, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
I have put a fix to this issue in the template code. If "Perth" is entered as city there should no longer be an issue. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 16:15, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
  • There was a version of the previous LGA template which supported the naming of adjoining LGAs. This appears to have been disabled. I know that this was not widely implemented and I only became aware of it 2 weeks ago, but I think it is moderately useful.--Grahamec 03:05, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
That was actually my doing (about two weeks ago I was mucking around with that template knowing it was going to be deprecated anyway and actually came into something that might be an idea) - [2] was one of the handful I converted across. It's easy to do for WA because Dept of Local Govt here produce a series of maps that draw borders for the entire state. If one wanted it back, it would be a matter of turning on "near-nw" to "near-se" for LGAs, and putting in code so it says "LGAs near..." instead of "Suburbs near..." - I think it would be overkill to link the word LGA as suburb presently is, as the "LGA" link further up already goes to the state based one. Orderinchaos78 (t|c) 10:48, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
I implemented it for some of rural NSW and I think it should be turned on, but I'm not into programming templates yet.--Grahamec 13:05, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
I can see the line that blocks access to LGA's - it's a pity this thing isn't more like a programming language, an "or" would be very useful here. Orderinchaos78 (t|c) 16:04, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
I have now included the "neighbour box" for LGAs. The box will only show if a neighbour is specified using the near fields. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 16:15, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. These are now good templates.--Grahamec 23:39, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Is there a problem with the LGA urls (where there is no logo) or am I doing something wrong? It seems to work for Tweed Shire Council, but not for Kyogle Council or City of Maitland. I think the logic should be: if LGA then (if logo... if url then...) else if url... (if you know I mean) but I'm not willing to experiemnt with this yet.--Grahamec 00:45, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for fix.--Grahamec 00:55, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
No problems, but it does look a bit strange having the url there on its own without the logo. I'll see if there can be better placement than this. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 01:17, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Maybe the url should be bigger if there is no logo.--Grahamec 01:55, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
A url along will now create a new line, where if there is a logo it will show as before. TheJosh 02:47, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

When all of this is over, we should archive this conversation TheJosh 21:42, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Done. No need to wait. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 06:20, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Locator map

Are there any plans to implement a facilty where a locator dot is placed on the locator map according to latitude/longitude values? Like {{Infobox protected area of Australia}} (eg. Organ Pipes National Park). Even better is {{Infobox Indian urban area}} (eg. Mumbai) which as a label also. — Moondyne 14:48, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

This functionality is currently implemented, but it was being debated while this template was being developed. Only about 5 paged used it in old templates. Reccomendations:
  • Delete as per above. TheJosh 07:59, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. Sorry that I didn't realise it was already implemented. Seeing that it is, I cannot see the argument for its removal. Per previous discussion, support to remove was based on it only being used in 5 articles. Is that a good reason? Lots of articles have State or Country map images with manually added red dots (eg. Martyman's locator maps at here and here) which doesn't seem very elegant and I can think of lots of small town articles where we don't have a photo but could easily add a map with a overlaid locator dot. — Moondyne 09:57, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Woudnt it be better to show something about the town in the image, rather than just where it is? Those images are to broad most of the time, and there is fedgov, stategov, near-X and dist#,location# for where something is. TheJosh 11:25, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Often the location of a small remote town is more significant than a photo of its main street. And often the photo is just not available unless an editor happens to be going there. — Moondyne 02:30, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I can see this function being useful.--cj | talk 03:30, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
A small bit of playing shows that an infobox can show both the map and a named image at the same time. Just make sure you provide both loc-x and loc-y and you will be alright. The image used is Image:City locator blank-MJC.png, and the width used is 230px. It would probably be better to use this rather than fixed images.
  • Known Issue the superimposion will be in different places on different webbrowsers, as its done on the client side. Compare Adelaide on Firefox with what it looks like on Internet Explorer. IE shows the dot about 2 px to the right as what firefox shows it. With such a small image, a few pixels is about 100 km! --TheJosh 05:00, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


Development in progress

Can people please not use this feature for the time being, as we are going to change the way this will work, so it shows a state map, not just a country map. Until then, do not use this feature. TheJosh 07:44, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Josh, in the Indian template referred to above, they use lat'd and long'd to determine the dot location. That'd be awesome. Also, Image:Locator Dot.svg looks nicer than Image:City locator point-MJC.png. FYI, I compared Adelaide in IE7 and FF and couldn't see any pixel shift you refer to. — Moondyne 10:15, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Thats because Adelaide is using a static image. Try Wistow, South Australia, which is a much less significant town, but had the same pixel-coords as Adelaide, being only 40km (about 0.3px) from Adel. The plan is to get some maps of just the state, and switch in the appropriate one, so that one pixel is a smaller distance than on the australia map. --TheJosh 10:30, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Duh! Yes I see the pixel shift now. Thanks. — Moondyne 17:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
This sounds great. I also agree with the use of the other dot at 8px. I've had a look at the code to place the dot by latitude and longitude and its way beyond me, not sure how they worked it out. Josh if you need any help with coding for state based maps let me know. I'm assuming it will be done by the switch parser function. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 10:36, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
That bits easy. I need the state maps first. I talked to the guy that did the aussie maps, just gotta wait now. --TheJosh 02:42, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Just found the ones listed here. These look good to use. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 03:10, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Implemented, have fun. At some point, could someone convert the tas one to look like the others, and save as a png at a reasonable size? --TheJosh 03:29, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
The dot will now center over the co-ords. The easiest way to determine a positon, is lo load the appropriate state image into an image editor, pick the location, and not the co-ords of the pixel. The dot will then appear somewhere near there. TheJosh 03:37, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure if I'm looking at the right image, but Image:Tasmania_location_map.png (hosted at Wikimedia commons) looks right to me. -- Chuq 07:43, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
A locator should not be used as a replacement for a good photo, but should rather supplement the image (both can be used). Perhaps we should move the locator somewhere else (say the bottom of the info box, down near the suburb boxes etc) --TheJosh 08:18, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
This is a good point, and I would support this. I would also like to see the new locator maps eventually replace the ugly green ones with red highlight, like the one at Mount Gambier. There must be tens of these uploaded location maps that could be made redundant by the locator system. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 08:35, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm a bit confused, were these last two replies (by TheJosh and Scharks) targetted at my comment above? I was just replying to "could someone convert the tas one to look like the others", by stating that the locator map for Tassie appears to be the same format/colour as the other states. About the photo suggestion though - they are good in addition to the locator map, but IMO if it is a choice of one or the other, then a locator map should always be used in an infobox - photos can be scattered throughout the article. -- Chuq 09:43, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Could someone please look at User:TheJosh/Play2. The images look very large for some states...Perhaps a solution can be found (eg 'nth wa' vs 'sth wa' ??) --TheJosh 08:36, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't like the idea of splitting the states - it would confuse people unfamiliar with the area. Maybe have the state locator maps at a fixed vertical size? -- Chuq 09:43, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Cant do, unless if you download the original image for each state, edit it, and then re-upload. I can do this. This has the potential to become quite a complex problem... --TheJosh 09:57, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Solutions

What do people think of these solutions?

Split the images

You could overly the state name over the image so its clear. You could even do zoomins and stuff if you wanted. --TheJosh 09:57, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Oppose per 'confusing' comment above. SauliH 06:32, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Oppose This wouldn't look right. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 07:35, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Fixed height

Could work, worth the effort. --TheJosh 09:57, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Support would look tidier. SauliH 06:32, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Support Best option, however I don't see too much of an issue even using the images at their current size. I know they make the infbox a lot longer, but generally it is the width that is the main concern. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 07:35, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Ditch loc-x/loc-y

neutral As long as the dot is in the right place, I am all for it. Question - having had one problem between Firefox and Explorer browsers, do we know that the red dot overlay will not screw up royally in the future because of some browser quirk? Is there a possibilty that it will become a timebomb waiting to go off?SauliH 06:32, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Oppose It's great to have a way to display where a place is without having to upload an image. We would also have to make sure that there will be no future issues with its use as per SauliH, and specifically state how to use it. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 07:35, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Neutral to oppose - it's better than having thousands of little images everywhere, as long as it works. Orderinchaos78 11:39, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

List of Suburbs

Nice template.... I am attempting to implement this in Toowong, Queensland and have come accross one issue. The assumption that 'List of Brisbane Suburbs' will remain as a page is not correct. Instead I feel that the template should point to the category of 'Suburbs of Brisbane' as the list page will not be maintained long term as it is redundant. Can we fix the template to point to the suburb category, I feel this should happen for all cities, but at a mimimum for Brisbane. Rimmeraj 00:05, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

If the page [[list of <city> suburbs]] does not exist, it will not display a red link, but rather a static piece of text. I will extend this functunality to check, in this order: [[list of <city> suburbs]], [[:category:suburbs of <city>]], plain text. TheJosh 07:57, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

bot approved

The bot has been approved for testing, limit 50 edits, 1-3 per min. See Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/TheJoshBot

Yay! TheJosh 08:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Excellent. Can't wait to see it fire up. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 08:23, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Its converting 'Infobox Town Au' right as we speak.
  • It looks OK except it seems to be converting suburbs to towns - see for example Grange SA - perhaps minor tweaking required--Golden Wattle talk 10:23, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Sorry i just noticed and fixed. It was loading Infobox Australian Suburb but thought it was Infobox Town AU. my bad. TheJosh 10:42, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

The bot has been approved. I will do Austlocalgovtarea next (236 transes) --TheJosh 05:46, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Congrats on getting the bot approved. It will be good to see all of the LGA templates converted. Will all of the obsolete field data be put on the talk pages like before? ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 06:59, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes as a lot of data is being thrown out. There have been some issues, because a lot of the pages using these boxes are not well formed. (such as images in the header etc) --TheJosh 05:53, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Any examples? I'd be happy to have a look at any after-the-facts and do the research to fix them up (I've in fact been doing that in some cases anyway) Orderinchaos78 09:40, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Not Well Formed = data in the wrong fields. eg image of town in heading, or logo of council in url param --TheJosh 11:02, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Ahh, I'm getting you. I was thinking you meant the blatant abandon of convention applied by some to, for example, the Perth Suburb template where entire blocks of text and all manner of manual formatting are present where one would expect a word or single link. Orderinchaos78 11:07, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Localities and Sub-Localities

I'd like to see this template capable of listing localities within a suburb. For example, Port Melbourne, Victoria has the distinct localities of Beacon Cove, Fisherman's Bend and Garden City. Likewise East St Kilda has the sub-locality of Balaclava and Toorak the locality of Hawksburn. Many people will search by locality rather than suburb and when they do, the get redirected to the suburb. Rather than a user scrolling all the way down the page to find this out, it would be great if you could just list them somewhere in the infobox. --Biatch 01:41, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Oppose Doesn't appeal to broad range of places. Also, Keep it simple stupid TheJosh 05:04, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose This is a pandora's box. You will have every suburbs main street listed as a sub-suburb or whatever it is. The TOC serves as sufficient means to list subsections if a suburb requires it. Leave the infobox as an overview.SauliH 05:22, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose I feel suburb localities would be better represented in the prose within the article intro, especially if people have been redirected. K.I.S.S. is there as well. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 09:02, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose Belongs in prose. Also what is a "locality"? We have been using the Gazetteer of Australia as our reference and it only lists gazetted (i.e. official) suburbs and localities. Also the use of "locality" is confusing as locality and suburb mean the same thing in a metropolitan area (although locality is broader in scope as it can include rural and other bounded and unbounded entities which are clearly not suburbs). Certainly if it's well known, mention it in the intro paragraph of the suburb article and maybe even have a separate section and heading on it if it's notable enough. Orderinchaos78 15:33, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Property Values and Currency

How does someone from overseas tell that the median property value quoted is in AUD and not USD ? Does the user have to put this prefix before the value or can it be automated somehow ? --Biatch 05:25, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Done TheJosh 06:25, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Deputy Mayor

The new box doesn't appear to have the facility to add the Deputy Mayor information for LGAs I think this is a useful feature which should be included as it was in the old infobox. (124.178.202.182 09:25, 21 November 2006 (UTC))

Oppose Where do you stop? Treasurer? etc. The infobox is an overview. Current office holders should be written into prose (or tabulated) under the council specific, sub heading of the LGA article.SauliH 16:22, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Support / Rebuttal Deputy Mayor is the place to stop. In Local Government there are no other office holders. Mayor and Deputy Mayor are the only office bearers. All other elected Councillors are equal. There is no such thing as a 'Treasurer' of a Council in the traditional parliamentary sense or any other ministerial type appointments. Finances are handeled by paid employees (which Councillors are not) with the annual budget approved by all of Council. In the absence of the Mayor the Deputy Mayor plays an important legislated role as their replacement. 124.178.202.182 03:01, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Support as above. Deputy Mayor is actually a significant official, to an extent that no other councillor or executive within the council is apart from, of course, the Mayor. (The Treasurer, btw, would be the CEO, a non-elected official) Orderinchaos78 15:18, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Oppose Kiss. --TheJosh 02:40, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Multiple Electoral Districts ??

The template only handles one electoral district per suburb. The suburb I live in is part of 3 state electoral and 2 federal electoral districts. Does this mean you only list the one that most of the suburb is in ? How can this be better represented ? --Biatch 03:22, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Enter a comma seperated list of links, such as Mount Barker, South Australia (state) --TheJosh 03:41, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
e.g. Canning Vale, Western Australia which has two state electorates. Orderinchaos78 15:20, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Many thanks. Curious that LGA uses a different one-to-many system. --Biatch 03:13, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Auto-assignment to categories

Hi all. I have just made a small addition to the template. When you add a year for "est", the template automatically assigns the article to the category "{{{est}}} establishments" so you do not need to enter it manually at the end of the article. This infobox has the potential to automate a lot of different categories, but I won't go any further without your OK. - 52 Pickup 17:31, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

This works great and I can't see any issues with it. What were the other categories you were looking at automating? ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 00:48, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
I have just added a bunch of other categories. Now the categories "Cities in ...", "Towns in ..." and "Local Government Areas of ..." are automatically filled if the "state" variable is filled in using the standard values (nsw, sa, act, etc.). To auto-categorise "Suburbs of..." requires a bit more work since not all the categories are named the same (eg. the correct category is "Suburbs of Newcastle, New South Wales", not simply "Suburbs of Newcastle"), so these need to be defined individually within the template. I've put in a few to get things started.
One problem that I discovered with the year-established category is that in some entries, the year has been entered as a wikilink (eg. Elizabeth, South Australia has est=[[1955]] instead of just 1955). This has some unfortunate side-effects (see the beginning of the text). At the moment, there is no way that I know of that can strip the brackets or just give the name of the link. There is a #replace function, but that has not yet been installed on Wikipedia. So if this category is to work (using the currently-available functions), "est" must be entered without wikilinks. - 52 Pickup 10:33, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
I have a solution for the wikilink thing. Also, you should cut the 'suburbs of <city>' because there are several hundred cities in Australia, and you can never cater for them all. Detailed categories like that should be added to each article manually (and a reasonable chance they already do). Also, because this is a high-use & esoteric template, test changes in a Wikipedia:Sandbox of some description. --TheJosh 11:45, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
The only exception to the above rule, would be for capital cities. --TheJosh 12:02, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Nice work fixing that established category. Changes were tested in a sandbox, I just didn't realise that some year entries were wikilinked (which is a rather unusual thing to do). The "Suburbs of ..." category was just an attempt to see if it would work. I know there are heaps of cities, but something like this could have been useful when the category has an unusual name (like my Newcastle example) or if (for some reason) categories need to be renamed in the future. I'll see if I can come up with a simpler way of coding this, otherwise it can be dropped to simply those of capital cities. - 52 Pickup 12:06, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Already done. It looks for a valid category by the name 'Suburbs of {{{city}}}'. If such an article does exist, it adds the category, otherwise it does nothing. Not very clean. Perhaps a redirect will fix? It works the same way '{{{year}}} establishments' does, because #ifexist: checks against a literal string, without stripping wikimarkup, and will fail on '1832 establishments'. clever, huh? --TheJosh 12:18, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
I've just expanded that so it will first search for "Suburbs of {{{city}}}", then search for "Suburbs of {{{city}}}, (state)", where {state) is the full state name, not just the value of {{{state}}}. That seems to catch the other categories. Setting up all these categories then makes it very easy to populate new categories as they are created.
If you want to go one step further, you could add a few fields here to help populate other categories (Coastal cities, harbour cities, etc.), but that's probably a bit much. - 52 Pickup 12:42, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Balmoral, New South Wales (Lake Macquarie) is probably the first page in Newcastle (which we put so much effort into getting to work) that actually autocats! There appears to be a heap of articles there with manual infoboxes. Not even the best bot can handle those!

Excellent. I think we should be able to catch just about everything now. The Newcastle and Lake Macquarie (mustn't mix up the two, trust me) entries are full of these manual infoboxes - messy. - 52 Pickup 13:16, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Automatic calculation of population density

Here's another feature that you might find useful. While working on Template:Infobox Former Country, we figured out a way to automatically convert area from km2 to sq.mi. and to automatically calculate population densities. To do this, you need to give the area (im km2) and the population *without* commas or spacing. There is another function which can put the commas back. I'm not sure if you would be interested in doing this here, considering how much as been done so far, but it is worth a thought. - 52 Pickup 17:50, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I put the code in in but because some articles have commas in their area values, such as the example on this page, I reverted it back due to errors. What is the function to put commas in and is there a function to take commas out? Thanks for your great suggestions. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 00:47, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
There would be a comma stripping function I fink, look at the ParserFunction String documentation.
Yes, if you enter a string that contains anything other than numbers, you get an error. Unfortunately, at the top of that StringFunction page, it says "These ParserFunctions are currently not installed at the Wikimedia projects." The #replace function there would be very useful here and with the problem with dates (in the above section). Also, many entries have extra text in the population/area fields (year, reference, etc). So at the moment, if the input is not changed to just a number, and a extra fields assigned for the addition of references, then this won't work. Depending on widely this infobox has already been implemented, it might be more trouble than it is worth. Ah well... - 52 Pickup 10:38, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Quite a few either give a ref for the population or something like (2001 census) after it. I had thought of the same idea and realised the low likelihood of achieving it for the same reasons. Orderinchaos78 13:21, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Eveything the bot does strips <ref> but thats the only cleanup it does. (<ref> doesnt work in templates, but is still commonly seen)


Suburb adjacency box

I notice the "suburb adjacency box" from Template:MelbSuburbBox1 has been integrated into the "suburb" mode of this template. The variant Template:MelbSuburbBox1/Water has been listed under the #What are we actually replacing? section above, but this infobox doesn't have the facility for changing the colours of certain adjacency cells (for example, suburbs bordering Port Phillip have the cells marked blue in Seaholme, Victoria). I don't think this would overcrowd or over-"busy" the table - it would probably make things clearer. Is there a plan to integrate this functionality into the template? -- Chuq 07:20, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Not that I know of. My opinion is no, as that would add another 8 fields to our template, which already has a heap anyway. Let the userbase argue it out:
  • Support -- Chuq 07:20, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose as above. -- TheJosh 08:15, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose: I like the use of italics for non-suburb locations within the suburb boxes where required. I also feel that this would complicate what the suburb box is actually there for. For example, Port Phillip bay is not a suburb, so there should be no need to list it. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 08:23, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose as above. Italics is good. I've been using brackets around entities mostly but am happy to accept any consensus on this Orderinchaos78 13:18, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
I wasn't specifically stating it should be done, just saying that this page states that this template supercedes Template:MelbSuburbBox1/Water and it doesn't, without these changes. "Port Phillip bay is not a suburb" - that is my exact reasoning - it needs to be differentiated in some way - either a different colour, italics, or left out completely. IMO colours are more indicative of what the difference is, but I don't mind either way. Don't forget these eight additional variables can be completely ignored if no cells are to be a different colour, and the defaults will be used. -- Chuq 09:36, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
You also have to remember that, ever since the beginning we have been ditching properties. Why? Infoboxes are for an overview, and we all generally liked Infobox Town AU because of its low number of fields, and simple layout. Also, someone unfamiliar with the concept will not know what the blue means. Coodanup, Western Australia is a good example of a non-suburb neighbour, whereby Harvey Estuary is in italics. --TheJosh 10:05, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
The advantage of italics is you dont need to add additional fields, users just insert them inline. --TheJosh 03:24, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Mild Support -- The colouring is a nice idea but it would require extra fields. Setting them to default is fine, but people will generally forget to use them. But still, specifying italics (also a good idea) is not stated in the directions; but even if it was, some users would probably forget to follow them anyway. Either the extra fields should be introduced and/or a clear rule on what to enter (or not enter) is needed. - 52 Pickup 13:43, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Mild Support looks nice, but correct that the bay is not a suburb. Perhaps the box could read "localities near this suburb". I've noticed some of these links are localities and they simply redirect to the suburb of the locality. Above all however, my biggest issue is with Portsea, Victoria. When a suburb is surrounded by water except for one direction, the box condenses and looks ridiculous. There is no way of telling whether Sorrento, Victoria is North West, West or South West. --Biatch 03:14, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • tried something with Portsea, Victoria. Better than it was, and uses the italics. What do you all think?SauliH 04:11, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose--cj | talk 03:39, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose the solution to use italics accomplishes the same thing - a differentiationSauliH 03:53, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

The intention wasn't to act like Port Phillip (or whatever body of water it is) is a suburb, but simply to indicate why there were no suburbs on certain compass points. Italics are fine, and have their benefits (as TheJosh mentioned above, they can just be used inline) but to say that "someone unfamiliar with the concept will not know what the blue means" is strange when the other preferred option is to use italics. Italics are even less obvious, particularly with Port Phillip, as the name of the bay doesn't have "bay" or "river" or "strait" in it. -- Chuq 06:09, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Could always do it as ''[[Port Phillip|Port Phillip Bay]]'' Orderinchaos78 02:54, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Elevation

I'm dubious of the Fallingrain elevations, especially as it gives Grafton as 236 feet (when it is actually close to sea level). The BOM link for weather averages actually gives accurate elevations in metres.--Grahamec 13:22, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Being in a hollow, the falling rain probably uses a formula of averaging of a certain radius around the geographic centre. The Average is warped higher. This is only my supposition. The BOM is probably a better source for those towns it covers. Falling rain gives info for more towns and could be a good secondary source in flat areas.SauliH 16:19, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
It's more complete but clearly has some errors/issues - I'd suspect in some cases they've sampled a lat and long not exactly identical to the town itself. That being said, should be OK to use as long as the figures make sense Orderinchaos78 02:53, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

'City' mode - locator base image

Launceston
Not Set

{{{float_caption}}}
The location of Launceston
The location of Launceston.

Take a look at the images to the right. The first is one of Martyman's standard fixed locator image. The second is using the locator dot. IMHO the first image is a lot better for this purpose, the second has too much detail. Opinions? Would anyone have a problem with changing the image used for the "background" image here? -- Chuq 05:48, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Launceston
Tasmania

{{{float_caption}}}
The location of Launceston
The location of Launceston.
I liked the coloring of the ocean in the second map, but the lines of the first. What about this version where I combined the two?SauliH 07:27, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't mind it either way - the "transparent" water looks good in the infobox (especially the "header" colour - was that a co-incidence or matched like that) but the "blue" water makes it obvious what it is :) -- Chuq 08:51, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I've changed the locator image back to the Martyman one. I think it looks best without the water colouration. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 11:16, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Was the old image used anywhere else? We should make sure the locators aren't out of whack (like with the top template on the right is now!) -- Chuq 11:22, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
The template was only changed to use the old image on Thursday (23rd) and no-one is meant to use this function in articles until we work out how to use it. The Martyman map had been used for the old locator_x/y fields for ages. Also note that the Australia map will only show if state is not specificed as "sa, vic, tas" etc, which will be very unlikely. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 13:54, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Ouch! I'm not sure what has changed recently, but it has broken the majority of locator maps on Hobart suburb infoboxes! See Claremont, Tasmania, North Hobart, Tasmania - the dots should be up against the Derwent River as in Green Point, Tasmania (a page that I edited/created after the template was changed). I don't mind changing them all so long as it won't change again! (not to mention, the statewide map is pretty unsuitable for Hobart suburbs, the first map on this page would probably be the most suitable. Is this customisable? -- Chuq 22:23, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

This has occurred after the infobox width was changed yesterday. I would think if the change is reverted, the locators would go back to the correct positions. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 00:28, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
As long as the width change isn't going to happen again in a hurry that's not a problem - I can change them to the new size. -- Chuq 04:52, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

It would be better to have no locators in use until this infobox has stabalised. --TheJosh 05:44, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

'Towns' mode - town distances

I made this edit to make the font size smaller. Please revert or let me know if it has caused any adverse effects. -- Chuq 07:26, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Looks fine to me - I always look at Bridgetown, Western Australia when doing anything with distances as if that works just about anything will :) Orderinchaos78 15:57, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
From taking a look at the Burnie, Tasmania, Devonport, Tasmania and Hobart infoboxes - I thought the font size needed to be a tiny bit smaller. "Devonport" and "Launceston" were wrapping onto the next line - they aren't really overly long city names are they? Note that Ulverstone, Tasmania and Launceston, Tasmania were fine. I've shrunk it from 95% to 90%, again hope it doesn't break anything! -- Chuq 01:38, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

How should distances be measured?

Should distances (for dist# and location#) be measured in a straight line or by road?

I believe straight line distances should be used, as they give an accurate and standardised representation across all infoboxes. Plus, they're much easier to measure (using Google Earth). Using road, the distance can be skewed such as with Spotswood, Victoria. It's 7km in a straight line, but is 10.5km by road. JohnnoShadbolt 07:34, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I've been using http://www.travelmate.com.au/MapMaker/MapMaker.asp which is what is listed on the front page at Template:Infobox Australian Place#Fields. It uses road distance, which I figure is what is expected when talking about distances between towns and cities? -- Chuq 07:48, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Straight Line --JohnnoShadbolt 07:34, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Road --Chuq 07:48, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Road people are not birds. --TheJosh 10:09, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Road IMO the reason for the provision of distance, in part, is sociological. I use whereis, but in Melb's case, Melway etc gives a pretty good idea whether it's way-off or not. Orderinchaos78 11:11, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Road most distance measurements that people encounter (unless flying) will be via road. Now, if the distances in a straight line and by road are vastly different, say on either side of Port Phillip Bay, or the gulfs in South Australia, I think this is a piece of information that could be added to the prose of the article. SauliH 15:21, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Road --Mattinbgn 21:03, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Road easier to find and more relevant. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 01:03, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Road -- SatuSuro 01:51, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
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