Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Canberra/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Completion graphs

I propose that having an article exist should be worth 1 point, it being a complete or detailed article should be worth an extra point. To calculate the percent complete = number of points / ( number of required articles * 2 ).

Using this method if all articles exist but are not complete then the graph will be at 50%. Martyman 00:58, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Featured Suburb Example

I would like to get a suburb in Canberra up to featured article status as an example of what a good suburb article can be. I have put a fair bit of work into Yarralumla, Australian Capital Territory, but would appreciate any feedback or contributions people could give before I try and nominate it for featured article. Martyman 05:06, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It looks very nice. Any plans for a demography section- all that data should be available from the ABS, schools and transport if relevant are also missing. You should include your new close up map (also very nice) somewhere too--nixie 02:26, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I have downloaded the statistics from the 2001 census but they really didn't seem very interesting to me. But yes I guess a demographics section should have a place in the article. I did include the population from the 2001 census in the lead section. Schools are mentioned in the notable places section, but could be moved to their own section. A roads and transport section does exist but there really isn't too much you can say about Canberra public transport. The trouble with the close up central canberra map I have created is that half of Yarralumla is off the side of the map. I might make a new version extended to cover all of Yarralumla but certainly won't be doing that for all suburbs as it is too much work. Martyman 04:59, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps schools and transport and local shopping centres could be stuck in a section called suburb amenities or something similar. I'm not sure demographics are that interesting either, and they can mean very little without having something to compare them to, average age, household income/size wrt the rest of Canberra/Australia may be interesting- since we're looking at a realtively wealthy suburb.--nixie 06:08, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I have had a go at re-arranging the sections. I still have to source the data for the demographics section, but the amenities section is pretty much complete. Martyman 02:51, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It looks really great now, one last thing would be to add a politics section like the Summer Hill, New South Wales article, saying which electorates the suburb is in and a list of notable residents if there are more than the govenor-general.--nixie 23:38, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I can't help but think most entries will be very bland. I live in Scullin, there's a school, a shop, some churches, and bunch of houses. All rather bog standard, and IMO, not really worth chronicling.

Map of Inner Canberra

Inner Canberra final version
Inner Canberra final version
Inner Canberra original version
Inner Canberra original version

I have spent a fair bit of time drawing up a map of Inner Canberra that can be used to show the location of many important buildings. I will create custom maps with hilighted buildings/areas for each article. Any feedback on changes to the format of the map would be appreciated. Martyman 00:18, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

So we keep things consistent- how are you planning on marking the subject of an article on this map? --nixie 02:29, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I was thinking about this. If it was a building, for example parliament house I would probably draw the building in red. For an area like Civic, Acton or Parkes I was thinking about turning the colour level down on the rest of the map. Do you think I should add more labels for things or leave it simple? Martyman 05:01, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I have uploaded a slightly updated version of the map. I have decreased the brightness of the green slightly, labelled more streets and added some more buildings. Martyman 02:02, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Is it the monitor I'm using, or does it look more fuzzy now?--nixie 23:33, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I changed the size of the full size image up a bit to fit more detail. Either you are refering to the thumbnail which might not generate as well from the size I have choosen, or you mean the full size image, which could be the problem that I saw where I was getting a cached version of the old image blown up to the same size as the new image. A full shift-reload fixed it for me. I have desaturated the green a bit to make it less glarey too. Martyman 01:36, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
the fuzziness appears to have been a cache thing, now I can see the new one it looks great--nixie 01:45, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I uploaded the original file for reference and agree that in the original version the thumbnail looks better. Mostly thanks to the green green. I prefer the less saturated green in the full size images though. I also un-bolded the suburb labels which I think improves the fullsize image but looks fuzzier on the thumbnail. Martyman 01:41, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Note to self: Fix spelling of Melbourne Avenue and move Norhtbourne Avenue label into crop area. Martyman 01:44, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Further note: fix spelling of Stirling Park. Martyman 00:58, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Resources

  • A very deatiled history of Kingston[1]
  • Information from the ACT heritage museum [2]
  • ACT planning and land authority, the place names officer- will let you know that meaning/significance of street and suburb names (placenames@act.gov.au) [3] available online here [4]
  • ACT government Environment and Heritage portal[5]
  • Australia Post, good for checking postcodes [6]
  • Canberra by Suburbs, good for checking neighboring suburbs [7]
  • ACT Library, list of useful suburb online references [8]
  • Canberra Suburbs / ABC 666

{{Canberra-stub}}

I've created a new template, named Canberra-stub for stubs related to Canberra. This is what it looks like:

This article relating to the city of Canberra or the Australian Capital Territory is a stub. You can help by expanding it. See the WikiProject Canberra for article coordination.

It's based off Template:Melstub, and can be used by adding {{Canberra-stub}} instead of {{stub}}. Try to use it instead of {{stub}}, as it will help to list Canberra-related stubs in one place.

--Somebody in the WWW 10:26, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I just noticed that there is a {{Template:Canberra suburb stub}}, which is specific to Canberra suburbs, and not Canberra in general. Should we merge the two? Somebody in the WWW 09:50, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The question is fairly accademic as I am the only person who has been doing a large amount of work on Canberra suburbs. The suburb stub template adds suburbs to the "Suburbs of Canberra (incomplete)" category providing an easy list of suburbs articles that are incomplete as opposed to Canberra articles that would be defined as a stub. I intend to sit down and create a big bite of the remaining not-yet-created suburbs some time soon. Martyman 12:41, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Wouldn't a better system for the suburb boxes be to have templates (like WikiProject Melbourne has with Template:MelbSuburbBox1 and Template:MelbSuburbBox2) that add the category as part of the template, instead of having lots of table code? Somebody in the WWW 05:11, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It has already been done [9] I just haven't gotten around to implenmenting the new system yet. I will have to go through and change the existing articles I have created and add the new locator info to the project page. The trouble is it stops you being able to add non-suburbs to the locality box, so many are still going to have to be hand coded anyway. Martyman 06:35, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
CanbSuburbBox1 has been based off MelbSuburbBox1, which automatically adds [[<entered into page>, Australian Capital Territory|<entered into page]]. A solution would be to make a seperate box, based off MelbSuburbBox2, which would allow you to blank out suburbs, etc... Somebody in the WWW 10:53, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I don't mind using the manual method the way the Yarralumla, Australian Capital Territory is currently set out. It requires a bit of coding but is not too difficult. The code used is as follows: Martyman 01:57, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
{| align=center cellpadding=5 cellspacing=0 class="toccolours"

|align=center colspan=3 style=background:#efefef|[[List of Canberra suburbs|Canberra suburbs]] near '''Yarralumla'''<br><small>[[South Canberra (district)|South Canberra]]</small>
|-

|align=center width=33%|[[Black Mountain, Australian Capital Territory|''Black Mountain'']]
|align=center width=33%|[[Acton, Australian Capital Territory|Acton]]
|align=center width=33%|[[Civic, Australian Capital Territory|Civic]]
|-

|align=center|''Stromlo Forest''
!align=center|'''Yarralumla'''
|align=center|[[Parkes, Australian Capital Territory|Parkes]]
|-

|align=center|[[Curtin, Australian Capital Territory|Curtin]]
|align=center|[[Deakin, Australian Capital Territory|Deakin]]
|align=center|[[Capital Hill, Australian Capital Territory|Capital Hill]]

|}

Please note that the two stubs mentioned above have been changed, to conform with stub naming policy and the hierarchy of stub types. They are now

Grutness...wha? 08:03, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Suburb infobox

I setup a standard (of one?) infobox for my article on the suburb of Macquarie, Australian Capital Territory. It captures a bunch of standard information as a snapshot rather than having to massage it into the body of the article. Garglebutt / (talk) 22:20, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Macquarie
District: Belconnen
Established: 1967
Postcode: 2614
Population: 2,292 (2001 census)
Median property value: $310,000 (2005)[10]
Location: Canberra, Australia 
<!-- BEGIN WikiProject Suburb infobox (scroll down to edit main article text) -->
{| border="1" bgcolor="#ffffff" cellpadding="5" align="right" width="300" style="margin-left:3px"
!bgcolor=#e7dcc3 colspan=2|Macquarie
|-
|bgcolor=#e7dcc3|District:||Belconnen
|-
|bgcolor=#e7dcc3|Established:||1967
|-
|bgcolor=#e7dcc3|[[List of postcodes in the Australian Capital Territory|Postcode]]:||2614
|-
|bgcolor=#e7dcc3|Population:||2,292 (2001 census)
|-
|bgcolor=#e7dcc3|Median property value:||$310,000 (2005)[http://allhomes.com.au/c/ah?a=uisu&i=471]
|-
|bgcolor=#e7dcc3|Location:||[[Canberra]], [[Australia]]
|}
<!-- END WikiProject suburb infobox -->
Nice, can I ask where you got the population stats? I have been trying to find some. It might be good to have a heading for the district as well - as in District: Belconnen Cfitzart 00:41, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Go to the ABS and do a keyword for the suburb you are looking for. In the list of the results there will be SuburbX (statistical local area), which will give you all the stats fot that suburb from the 2001 census in a zipped excel file. There are no stats for districts.--nixie 00:48, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

oh thanks, I wonder which of those stats could also work in the infobox Cfitzart 00:55, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
I've added district to the infobox. I thought about other stats to include but then the box becomes too much a summary of info already presented within the body of the article. Garglebutt / (talk) 03:56, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Postcode would be a good addition, I think you're right about leaving out stats other than population.--nixie 05:11, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
I can provide stats about area if you'd like to include those. Adz 07:05, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Do you mean the size of the suburb? That could be a useful summary stat. It could be used to produce a population/m^2 kind of measure. Garglebutt / (talk) 08:59, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes, the size of the suburb. The information is in the ACT Government maps of suburbs and districts which I can access from time to time. I'd upload them bit by bit when I have time. - I don't know how useful population density would be as I imagine that it would be very similar for the most part, but we could try it and find out. Adz 00:45, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
If you look at the stats for each suburb from the ABS, the area is in the spreadsheet header, for example Cook is 1.6km2 and Macquarie 1.7 2; density will probably be pretty even across Canberra--nixie 01:37, 31 August 2005 (UTC)


Suburb density

There does seem to be some variation in suburb density. Kingston covers 1.3 sqkm with population of 2145 giving density of 1650 people per square km. Red Hill has population of 3088 over 4.8 square km giving density of 642 people per square km. Cook with a population of 2741 and an area of 1.6 km has a density of 1713 and Macquarie's density is 1348. In fact housing type and proportion of open space are more interesting characteristics, but not sure where easily findable stats on open space are.--AYArktos 02:26, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

The census has a record of the type of dwelling, houses, townhouses etc. I haven't come across open space vs. developed area though.--nixie 02:51, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
  • My thinking was that density is an indication of both housing and open space. I figured Red Hill would have relatively low density compared to Gungahlin. Perhaps it would be a good stat to add to the list of suburbs in the first instance. Garglebutt / (talk) 11:11, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I think it would be neat to convert the list of suburbs into a snazzy table, with area, pop, pop density and merge it into the new suburbs of Canberra article. I can start putting it together if people think its a good idea.--nixie 11:18, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Canberra suburb - on VfD

Please see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Hawker, Australian Capital Territory

The article on Hawker had not been made into a good stub but I have had a first pass at upgrading it. It would be a poor precedent if we allowed such an article to be successfully voted for deletion --AYArktos 10:49, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)


Stub template nomination for deletion

The template associated with the incomplete suburb articles was nominated for merger with Template:Canberra-stub or for deletion on June 19 at Wikipedia:Stub_types_for_deletion--AYArktos 21:52, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In the debate it has been suggested to change the name of the category to Category:Canberra suburb stubs. I would suport the rename. Any comments?--AYArktos 01:52, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Debate result: Category renamed, all articles moved

Another Canberra related VfD

Debate result: merge into Capital Hill, Australian Capital Territory; redirect from a likely spelling error.


Parks and gardens

woohoo all parks & gardens started, shouldnt that mean its over 50% complete now?? Cfitzart 06:52, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

  • you're right. the formula for calculating completion is outlined abouve. i'll go and change it. Adz 08:52, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

thanks its good to see it slide up! Cfitzart 13:11, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Suburb progress

In addition to the one complete suburb (Yarralumla) I've added that there are 9 that are reasonably detailed. I realise that this is going to be a contentious point (where do you draw the line? what id detailed?) BUT please bear in mind that I'm not trying to keep a scorecard, but rather, try to point out three things:

  • articles that could become quite good with only a little bit of work
  • articles that you can look towards when looking for ideas about things to include in little stub articles
  • the large number of suburbs that still need a lot of work before they start to look detailed.

The articles I have considered to be reasonable detailed are: Waramanga, Red Hill, Capital Hill (see talk page for notes on what else it needs before complete), Lyneham, Rivett, Aranda, Parkes (there's not a lot there, but there also isn;t a lot to say. I would add transport, parking issues, physical description (urban character)), Ainslie, and to a lesser extent, Conder. I think that Kingston and Griffith could get there without too much work, but they are significant suburbs and I think would require a fair bit of work before they were complete. (There are a lot of heritage and cultural issues in both).

Anyway, time for me to go to bed (which is why I told myself I wouldn't work on suburb stubs now). For more pointers on making suburbs complete, see Martyman's suburb requirements page.

I've updated the status to include Macquarie as being reasonably detailed. It's not that exciting a suburb from what I can discover so I don't think there is much more that can be added. Garglebutt / (talk) 06:45, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Adz 14:41, 25 August 2005 (UTC) PS. I realise I'm quite new here, and I don't want to be telling you all how to suck eggs, so please excuse me if you already know all this. I just thought it might be worth taking stock of where the suburbs are up to.

Thanks for this - it's a nice update on how things are going, and we need all the people we can get interested on this, as the project has really slowed down in the last few months. There's still a lot that could be added to all of these (except Yarralumla, perhaps), but it does provide inspiration to do some work again. I'm tempted to give Waramanga some work (as it has enough links already there that, if expanded, would make for a much better article). I really should fix up some of the inner north articles, too. Ambi 17:08, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
I have been thinking that my original suburb completion requirements are a very big ask for most Canberra suburbs. Suburbs in other cities tend to be larger and have some level of self government. I put a lot of effort in developing Yarralumla to the level of detail it is now, but think that that amount of detail is not going to be available for many of the newer suburbs in Canberra. Any comments? Martyman 22:44, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
I think that while it is true that most newer suburbs seem to be less interesting than the older ones, many of the criteria you have suggested would still apply to many of the suburbs. I think even the newer suburbs could have at least a couple of sentences about most (if not all) of the following:
  • name and origin of name (find on [ACTPLA's origin of place names website
  • location
  • date developed
  • map
  • populations stats - from ABS - although may need to access at library or ask uni students to access it
  • housing stock and urban character - large blocks? medium density? town houses etc. - (not hard to do).
  • transport - adjoining roads; main access road (if there is one); transpot issues (eg. access to gungahlin)
  • shops - brief decription. in decline? resurgence? existing? never built?
  • schools and other facilities. retirement village, preschool, artists studios.
  • landmarks, if any. eg. Mt Taylor in Kambah, Mt Majura near Watson, others,
  • significant events - eg. bushfires.
  • issues - development issues? rebuilding after the fires? (other issues?). eg: in Aranda I've tried to mention GDE and A10. (GDE also applies to Kaleen). In Giralang there is an issue about saving the local shops.
  • active groups. Again, see Aranda. Most suburbs at least have a district Community Council, but not all do. Some have several groups.
  • Politics. - at the very least, booth results help paint a picture. I don't think you can do much more than that in Canberra, but you can mention the electorates.
For some suburbs it might be difficult to say something about some of these things, but I think we could manage a sentence or three about most things for most suburbs. Adz 00:08, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Excellent list of suggestions - I think if we could put all of these in an article, it'd be easily featured-worthy. I think there's some of these that even the Yarralumla article doesn't have. Ambi 02:08, 26 August 2005 (UTC)


Detailed/Complete

Sorry I'm just a little confused now with the terms detailed and complete. The way its put on the project page doesnt it mean that detailed is, er, a more detailed version of a complete article. so doesnt that mean that there would be 10 complete articles now, but some of them arent "detailed" yet, or have I got that mixed up? Cfitzart 16:25, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Heh heh. I thought the same thing but someone established the convention that the Yarralumla article was the role model for complete whereas the others have plenty of detail but are not deemed complete(?). I could argue that some of them will be complete even though there isn't as much detail because some of the suburbs don't have much history or community groups. Garglebutt / (talk)
I think we should say that more of them are complete, theres not much chance of any suburb in Canberra competing with Yarralumla given its history, important buildings etc. Its more encouraging seeing a reachable goal for completing the article. In fact Im going to be bold here and change the wordingCfitzart 01:02, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
I could care less about definitions, but I think it would be a mistake if we settle on only making stubs for Canberra suburbs. There's a bit that could be improved about the Yarralumla article - and there's much that could be added to many of the others. They may be smaller than articles on huge cities, but we can still do better than we have so far. Ambi 01:23, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
I introduced the term 'detailed' on the suburb progress graph to differentiate from the term 'complete' without realising that it was in conflict with what was in the requirements on the suburb project page.
To me it made sense that an article isn’t ‘complete’ until the article contains sufficient detailed information and doesn't need significant additions (other than small bits and pieces). To my mind, if it had plenty of detail, but fell short of being ‘almost exhaustive’, then it would make sense to call it ‘reasonably detailed’. I felt that it was worth highlighting that there were suburbs other than Yarralumla with a fair amount of detail that could be made 'complete' with a little bit more work. Alternatively, by highlighting how many 'detailed' suburbs there were, I thought it would highlight how many others still needed a bit of work to even have any amount of useful content at all (some of the stubs are very bare). (see my post under the heading suburb progress above).
I’ve since realised that the requirements set out what is ‘complete’ and ‘detailed’. This seemed to go over my head earlier. As the only people who use these terms are ourselves – for the purpose of marking progress – I don’t really mind what we call them (we call them red and blue for the difference that it makes). Just as long as we don’t stop working on suburbs because we think that they’re ‘complete’. I think it’s easy to think that Canberra suburbs are boring and all the same, but they’re actually not, and I think that there is a lot of info that can be included from the list above.
Having said all that, I think there is more value in expanding the articles about districts than there is in trying to provide detail/complete the articles about the suburbs, and that is where I intend to focus when I have some more time to do wiki. (unfortunately, ‘real life’ is getting in the way at the moment). I think that most of the things in the list above also apply to districts and that people from outside Canberra accessing an Encyclopaedia would be more interested in the districts than individual suburbs. Bear in mind that when you look at what links here, not many articles link to the suburb articles, but an outside person who was curious about Canberra and read the Suburbs of Canberra article would be more interested in reading about the satellite towns (districts).
Adz 02:29, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
  • The Sydney project uses Complete and Feature which makes more sense. Not all suburbs would ever reach Feature status. Garglebutt / (talk) 02:57, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

List of completed suburbs

Moved list of complete and detailed suburbs to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Canberra/Suburbs#List of completed suburbs --Martyman-(talk) 03:37, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

It just strikes me as a bit odd to be calling a basic stub "complete". Shouldn't we be aiming for a bit more than this? Ambi 02:14, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
We can aim for more than that by moving them up to "detailed" status. (added list for detailed) It just seems that what we had before was that no article was complete unless it was as long as Yarralumla, which would have been almost impossible. Cfitzart 03:31, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Causeway

I'm just going through User:ScottDavis' disambiguation lists (made from places on the postcode lists), but there's a "Causeway" there. I've never heard of any place called Causeway, and it's not on the List of suburbs of Canberra - anyone know what it is? Is it just some of the dreck that slipped in when the list was created, or does it warrant an article of some sort? Ambi 13:46, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

'The Causway' is a an area in Kingston east of Wentworth Ave. It is a small area and quite different in character and design to the rest of the suburb. I think it consisted/consists largely of small govie houses but not as old as those in the rest of Kingston. Its located near the Kingston Foreshore development. Look for 'The Causway' or 'Spinifex St', Kingston on Whereis.com.au. I don't think it warrants its own article, but that's just my opinion. Perhaps it should get a mention in the Kingston article. Adz 23:49, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
Ah, thanks. Seeing as you know something about it, would you be able to add something to the Kingston article about it, so we can redirect Causeway, Australian Capital Territory/The Causeway, Australian Capital Territory? Ambi 00:25, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I will, but I think it'd appear a bit odd without a more detailed description of Kingston's boundaries, urban character and land uses. I'll add it all to my list of things to do. I'll try to get around to it soon but haven't had much time lately. Adz 01:08, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
It's one of those little curiosities like Oaks Estate. I think the original idea under WBG was to have a causeway carrying a railway line from Kingston over to his railway station at the Russell end of Constitution Avenue, but it never got built. From memory, this is the only remnant of the construction workers villages that remains inhabited. The Causeway Hall remains intact, but the old guvvies have been knocked down and new ones put up. I think it deserves an article, because it's a lot more interesting than a lot of the "cookie-cutter" suburbs that were stamped out from the 60s onwards.
There was an article about the Causeway in the Canberra Times earlier this year. It was intended to be another one of Griffin's grand boulevardes but only one block was ever built as the FCC never really liked the idea. Its other purpose was to create a large eastern section of the lake but there were apparently some concerns about flooding and the risk of creating a breeding ground for mozzies. There was actually a wooden bridge at one stage but it got washed away by a flood in the 1940s(?). It looks like a bit of a ghost town now but its an interesting area with a fascinating history. Gimboid13 18:51, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation, Gimboid - I'll see if I can find the article and put something together. Ambi 00:09, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

The Causeway as remarked above is part of Kingston but of a separate character. There are a number of early suburbs/areas of Canberra that are not official suburbs now, for example Westlake. Note Kingston used to be called Eastlake and Forrest was Blandfordia. There is a history of Westlake and I think one of the Causeway too. All suburbs are interesting regardless of their date of establshment. The Radburn, New Jersey plan associated with 1960s suburbs including Garran, Curtin and Hughes is fascinating. So too is why we have moved away from the very structured planning for suburbs in more recent times. One day we will manage to include it in the Wikipedia--AYArktos 10:07, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Canberra, by its very nature, has a lot of fascinating development. The way whole suburbs were planned around a design concept, for example. Or the early attempts to portray Canberra as a futuristic city along the lines of Brasilia. The square edged modern houses and housing developments along major entry routes such as Canberra and Northbourne Avenues, in stark contrast to the more conservative 1930s housing nearby in Kingston and Braddon. The vanished workers subrubs - if you poke around between Yarralumla and the lake, you'll find old gardens and remnants of the temporary dwellings constructed during the 1920s. I could care less about the boring Mawson-Dickson line suburbs, though they should each have an article, but it's the quirky parts of Canberra that deserve to have their stories told. Canberra is not yet another city!
Would it be possible to put together an all-encompassing article detailing these stories and the planning of Canberra? Anyone think this is a good idea/can think of a name for it? It might also be interesting to have a Lost suburbs of Canberra article. Ambi 00:11, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps it could be included as a History section in the Suburbs of Canberra article. Or there could be a paragraph or two in the Suburbs of Canberra article with a link to a main article called something like Early urban history of Canberra or History of Canberra suburbs - or something like that. It should probably also mention some of the best bits that are included in other articles, such as the Old bus depot in Kingston, the first airport at Dickson and the first power station in Acton. Adz 12:34, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Actually, that's a much better idea. Would there be any interest in dedicating some attention to history of Canberra and perhaps splitting off some parts into sub-articles (cf. History of Sarajevo)? The main article could do with the attention, and having seperate articles would allow us to cover these issues properly. Ambi 13:54, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
I have been working on the start of an article called Government housing in the Australian Capital Territory (which includes the old Guvie (Canberra) article). The early days section with some expanding could almost be an Early urban history of Canberra article. I do intend to expand the article to cover govie housing up until current day. Martyman

Schools in Canberra

I would like to suggest we add an education section to the Canberra Wikiproject.

Generally education in Canberra could do with some tidying up. Maybe the Education Section of the Canberra article could be expanded into an overview Education in Canberra article. At the moment we have "Category:Schools in the Australian Capital Territory" and "Category:Education in Canberra" this seems messy, do all schools need to be added to both or should one category be made a sub-category of the other?

We have a comprehensive List of schools in the Australian Capital Territory. But I don't think we should be running out and creating articles for every red-link on the page. As discussed on the page, maybe the schools pages should be redirects to the suburb articles, and school content be developed there. In fact any school article that already exists and is below a useful length should probably be merged back into it's parent suburb article, until enough content exists to justify it's own article. Martyman 06:05, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

I think an Education in the Australian Capital Territory article would be a better name for the suggested summary article.--nixie 06:14, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
Speaking of schools, I just saw the Lanyon High School article which has a section "recent events" where between "200 and 400 students" are supposed to have attacked the school. Is there a source on this?? a date or even a year might give it some credibility. Cfitzart 09:08, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
Erm, that sounds remarkably like bullshit to me. Ambi 02:33, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I have been doing some work on Education in Canberra. I have created a new Education section of the WikiProject and listed some information there. --Martyman-(talk) 03:52, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Districts

I've done a bit of work on the Belconnen (district) article. I've also put up a 'to do' list on the talk page, which might have been a bit presumptive of me, but it was more a list for my benefit so that I can remember what still needs doing more than anything. It might provide some useful suggestions to anybody who wants to work on other district articles. I think having info on Districts is more valuable that trying to complete all the suburbs as it would give people a better picture of Canberra than if they had to go to every suburb article and then only found out who it was named after and what year it was settled. Adz 06:53, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Nice work on this Adz and the todo list is a good prompt. I agree that it is better to have a nicely fleshed out district article with a bit of info on less interesting suburbs, but some of the editors have made it clear that they prefer a separate article per suburb even though most are just a couple of lines of text; go figure. Garglebutt / (talk) 07:35, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
There has always been broad consensus on Wikipedia that suburbs deserve their own articles - try putting one on WP:VFD and watch how overwhelmingly it gets rejected. This is not to say that a fleshed out district article is useful - they're both important, and one doesn't cancel the other out. Ambi 02:33, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
I think the problem is that the definition of a suburb in most other cities is different to Canberra. I believe in most cities a suburb has some form of local government associated with it. I do feel that any Canberra suburb that someone feels interesting enough to write a decent article about should exist, but the abundance of two line stubs for many of the newer/less interesting suburbs (while possibly useful as a starting block) is not very useful. Martyman 10:51, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
It sounds like you're thinking of what a suburb or neighbourhood is in North America. In an Australian context, a singular suburb is never (or rarely) municipal or incorporated. Rather, they are merely geographical subdivisions of a larger city or LGA, with an assign postcode. Some suburbs or neighbourhoods in Australia have "residents associations", but these have no legal or official status. Nevertheless, it is appropriate to expect an article on every suburb in Canberra, as for other cities in Australia.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 11:43, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
I would have thought the majority of wikipedia users are from North America, and therefore any consensis of keeping all suburb articles would be based on their definition. In Canberra as many as six or so suburbs share one post code. Anyway I am really just arguing this for the sake of it, really I do agree that if enough effort is put in and every suburb gets the details set out in the discussion further up the page, then that would be great. Martyman 11:51, 16 September 2005 (UTC)


new participant

Recently, this user [11] edited the project page and added User:Skyring to the list of participants. Skyring is a recently blocked user. The user also added a new Charnwood page here Charnwood, ACT in addition to Charnwood, Australian Capital Territory which has been edited. Just not sure whats going on here? Cfitzart 05:51, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Actually, he is a not-so-recently banned user. He should not be editing at all. You are well within your rights to remove him from the list (ie, revert him) if you wish.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 05:57, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
I've been working on a few Canberra suburbs recently, mostly adding links to the satellite images, such as in Duffy and Civic. I came upon the Charnwood article and as there was no dab page or note, assumed that there wasn't a corresponding Charnwood, ACT article. Bzzzzt, wrong! I've put my page up for speedy deletion and added the bits of material to the Charnwood, Australian Capital Territory article. Sorry for the confusion!
You don't speedy duplicate articles. You merge, then redirect. If you honestly mistook the convention as "Charnwood, ACT", then someone else could. A redirect will prevent that problem. I've replaced the CSD notice and duplicate content with a redirect. --fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 06:43, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, thanks for that. Do you think we need a dab page, with Charnwood in England and Charnwood in Canberra, to avoid the sort of mistake that tripped me up, or is the note on the English page good enough? I used the same thing with Ebbw Vale and that seemed to have consensus.
Mark, there's no need to indulge him. He's becoming ever-more sloppy in an effort to entice interaction. --Cyberjunkie | Talk 11:58, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
Seems to be working, then! But no, honest mistake. I should have checked before creating a new article. I don't think anyone's putting me forward as the perfect editor, least of all myself!
Be a good boy. Go away.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 03:35, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
Oh please. It's so obvious what you're trying to do Skyring. Go away.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 06:10, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

I have reverted him. Skyring, you are welcome to edit when your ban expires on the proviso you stop your trolling activities. Have a good day, --Cyberjunkie | Talk 06:25, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. My advice to you is to not to get all fired up about it. If you think someone's trolling, just ignore them and hope they'll go away. Stress is what ends a lot of useful wikicareers. Take it easy, do good work, don't grind your teeth.
Again, it's so obvious what you're trying to do. Skyring, go away.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 11:58, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Map template

Following along from the Google Maps links I did recently, I'm pleased to see that we've got a map template to automatically generate links to a number of mapping sites. All you do is insert {{Mapit-AUS-suburbscale|long=149.035|lat=-35.337}} and modify the latitude and longitude to suit. The "suburbscale" keyword generates a scale sufficient to show a whole suburb.

One point to watch: make sure that you show the latitude with a minus sign in it, otherwise you end up with a map from somewhere in the region of Japan!

Here's the template with the information above, shown for Duffy:

Coordinates: -35.337° 149.035°


Nice. I've added it to the other Weston Creek suburb articles. - Gimboid13 03:48, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Stub templates

Discussion on the naming of stub templates relating to this and other Australian city wikiprojects is in progress at WP:WSS/P#Australian cities. Feel free to comment. Grutness...wha? 01:41, 23 September 2005 (UTC)


grapevine isp

Recently this article Grapevine ISP was added to the canberra category, seems like it could be corporate promotion?. The organisation is owned by ActewAGL and TransACT, and the creator of the article, User:Aceyducey has only contributed to those articles, all on the same day: Special:Contributions/Aceyducey ---- Astrokey44 07:00, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

It's still quite notable, and the article isn't bad, so I don't see much of a problem. Ambi 07:33, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
fair enough, just checking.. Astrokey44 09:32, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Change of stub templates

After the discussion mentioned above, the stub templates and categories relating to Canberra have been changed.

  • {{Canberra-stub}} used to link with Cat:Canberra-related stubs - it now links with Cat:Australian Capital Territory stubs - the reason for this is that almost all of ACt's stubs would be about Canberra anyway, and the remainder would probably relate quite strongly to the city. It also saves having a small number of stubs which wouldn't otherwise have a category.
  • {{Canberra suburb stub}} used to link with Cat:Canberra suburb stubs - Neither of these now exist. In place of them are {{Canberra-geo-stub}} and Cat:Australian Capital Territory geography stubs. This keeps Canberra (and Australia's other cities) in line with other cities in the world with their own stub categories. Most of the stubs in here are still suburbs, but hills, lakes, districts and the like are also included.

We at WP:WSS hope that this won't cause any inconvenience and (hopefully) will be even more useful than the old stub types. Grutness...wha? 05:37, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Today's Canberra Times

If you're in Canberra at the moment, you may be amused to know that banned local user Skyring is on the back page of today's Canberra Times. Ambi 10:37, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

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