Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 25

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Archive 25

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Proposal to ask for permission from Gold Coast City for use of image.

I found a image some time ago on the GCCC website.

I've had on on since under a "fair use" agreement. I just think it might be time to ask GCCC for permission on this.

I WILL need a Gold Coast based editor to do this for me, I come from Victoria.

Heres a draft-

START DRAFT

To whom it may concern:

I found your page http://www.goldcoastcity.com.au/t_standard.aspx?pid=1054 while doing research for the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia, and thought your image regarding Miami,Queensland might be appropriate for inclusion in our articles concerning History of Miami, Queensland.

I am specifically seeking your permission to use this image: http://www.goldcoastcity.com.au/image_content/heritage_Miami2.jpg

I would like to include your image in these articles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami%2CQueensland

Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/) is a free encyclopedia that is collaboratively edited by volunteers from around the world. Our goal is to create a comprehensive knowledge base that may be freely distributed and available at no charge.

Normally we ask permission for material to be used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. This means that although you retain the copyright and authorship of your own work, you are granting permission for all others (not just Wikipedia) to use, copy, and share your materials freely -- and even potentially use them commercially -- so long as they do not try to claim the copyright themselves, nor prevent others from using or copying them freely.

You can read this license in full at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GFDL

This license expressly protects creators from being considered responsible for modifications made by others, while ensuring that creators are credited for their work. There is more information on our copyright policy at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights

We choose the GFDL because we consider it the best available tool for ensuring our encyclopedia can remain free for all to use, while providing credit to everyone who donates text and images. This may or may not be compatible with your goals in creating the materials available on your website. Please be assured that if permission is not granted, your materials will not be used at Wikipedia -- we have a very strict policy against copyright violations.

We also accept licensing of images under other free-content licenses like some Creative Commons licenses - see http://creativecommons.org for this.

With your permission, we will credit you for your work in the image's permanent description page, noting that it is your work and is used with your permission, and we will provide a link back to your website. Please explicitly state under which license you grant permission.

We invite your collaboration in writing and editing articles on this subject and any others that might interest you. Please see the following article for more information. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction

Thank you for your time.

Kindly, <senders name here>

END DRAFT

Nathannoblet 10:31, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Have you considered that the image is in the public domain? I am not a lawyer, but Template_talk:PD-Australia on Commons indicates that if a photo was taken before January 1, 1955 it is now in the public domain - so you can do what you like with it. With a Picture Australia search I found a high quality version of the image (with the Image Number which would be handy in any correspondence done, or on image description pages). The Senior Librarian of the Local Studies Library (details) would be the person to contact about this image.--Commander Keane 02:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
"I WILL need a Gold Coast based editor to do this for me, I come from Victoria."
I don't know why. You don't need to live on the Gold Coast to email the Council or send them a letter. Sarah Ewart 14:19, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, it is in the public domain (taken in 1935). Not needed. -- Punk Boi 8 23:49, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Median property prices in Brisbane suburb articles

A few people are going around and retagging lots of Brisbane suburb articles with a new infobox (which, incidentally, is pretty good, even better than my old BrisSuburbBox template), such as on Bracken Ridge, Queensland. My question is, a fair few of these seem to include a "Property Value" field. There are a couple of issues I have with this field:

  • It seems to be very time-specific, median property values can change (and wildly!) in a particular suburb. Is someone going to go to all of the hundreds of Brisbane suburb articles to change all of these every time a new survey is released?
  • Are property values really encyclopædic anyway? Wikipedia is not a real estate guide.

If I'm the only one that is thinking this way, I'll shut my mouth. I really don't think they have a place here though.

Lankiveil 02:13, 3 December 2006 (UTC).

I think it's an interesting piece of information. The source given is the Real Estate Institute of Queensland, which is probably an appropriate choice for a source (using a particular agency as a source would not be appropriate). The Institute gives the figure as the median price for 2005, which should be mentioned in the infobox. --bainer (talk) 02:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, if we are going to mention this information, I think that this is the best place to get it. My issue is less with where we get the information from, as it is with whether we actually include the information in the first place. Lankiveil 09:02, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Hi. I would like to invite you to post this at Template talk:Infobox Australian Place. The transition to a new infobox for suburbs towns, and local government areas has been taken in an effort to standardize the look and data included in Australian infoboxes. A look at the template's talk page will show just how many variances there were. The fields to include in the new infobox were debated before the template's creation and implementation. The property value field was a feature of the South Australian (?) infobox and after debate a decision was made to include it in the new box. Whether you will find a great level of support for removing it, I am not sure, but the discussion will be more fruitful there then here IMO. BTW the template development was done as a part of this WP (through WikiProject Australian places), and you will find that it's development was quite open to opinion from all contributors. The implementation is being carried out mainly through a bot that was developed to specifically carry out the transition. That is why it appears that it is a 'few people' doing the changes. SauliH 02:54, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's a bad thing that it's happening, quite the contrary, it's a good, very flexible infobox, and full props to whoever took the initiative to develop it. Lankiveil 09:02, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I think it's useful if they're all taken at about the same time, although the risk of redundancy and out-of-date info and so on causes problems as you have highlighted. However, it enables me to see right away, for instance, that Banyo and Ascot are quite different suburbs despite being close together (as a Perth person Brisbane is interesting for me as it's the Australian city I know least about) Orderinchaos78 03:03, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I have an issue with the use of median property prices produced for/by real estate agencies. The methods they use are are based on sales only ie total sales/qty sold over a given period as such it becomes bias to type and quantity of housing sold. Take a Perth riverside burb like Bassendean that has a broad range of housing, from riverfront 1/2 acre mansions to 1950's-1960 1/4 acre asbestos houses or new 700sqm high desnity housing. All have the same land title, yet if any one type statistically dominates the sales during the period then the median price become bias.
Given this what encyclopedic value does the median price actually contribute to the article? Gnangarra 04:07, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I hadn't thought of this, but I guess it's true too. The suburb I used in my example is about 2/3rds middle-class detached housing, and 1/3 housing commission. However, because the housing commission is almost all rented by the government instead of bought and sold, the sample will be biased towards the nicer areas of the suburb. The median value would be dragged down a bit if the housing commission areas were included, but there's no way to objectively measure their value using real estate figures. Lankiveil 12:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC).
The archived discussion of the property value is here [1]. I had put it up for discussion of removal, which is what the vote was for. At best it received weak oppose to the removal. I still am not sure whether it is a great field to have or not. Probably lean on the remove. Gnangarra has a point, which we could get around if we could use a more stable indicator of property value. SauliH 05:43, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Finding a good metric for property values is not easy. See, for example http://www.rba.gov.au/PublicationsAndResearch/RDP/RDP2006-03.html -- Danny Yee 08:13, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Even better is if you can generate a link automatically that goes somewhere, based on say, postcode. (perhaps even something dedicated like geohack that could provide links to a number of different sources) That would be best, because then we can automate it, thus eliminating user error, large hard to read field values and general disorganisation.
The ideal source would be the same used by the shires to calculate rates, they get there values from state government dept that does the assessments, an area average would be more balanced as all properties are assessed including government housing. Gnangarra 14:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
It the Valuer Genral http://www.dli.wa.gov.au/corporate.nsf/web/Value+Watch this would have the info for WA if any one has access to a copy. A quick nasty Google search shows similar such information for each state. Gnangarra 14:34, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
domain.com.au seems to be pretty up to date... that's what Template:Infobox Australian Place suggests to use. But sometimes it says it's SNR (statistically not relevant) and has no figure.

e.g. example postcode search with Tewantin chosen If you use a reference you can say when it was last checked. It is theoretically possible that a bot could read the median house or unit value and put it on wikipedia... Zephyr103 10:22, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Australian literature redux

There's a call on the Matilda blog for improvement and expansion of Wikipedia's Australian literature articles. This was also mentioned on the ABC's Arts and Entertainment newsletter on Friday. --Canley 22:59, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Austalian hospitals

I recently upgraded the Template:Infobox Hospital making it more generic and less US-centric (I'm British), and I need some advice please whether I've correctly coded and given guidance on the 'HealthCare' parameter as it applies for Australia. At its broadest this parameter is meant to distinguish "Private" from "Public" hospitals (in US also Charity Hospital), and for the major English Speaking countries also automatically insert wikilinks to the relevant public health system. In the UK this therefore takes the value of "NHS" and will display "Public NHS". Likewise in Canada apparently virtually all hospitals are public and specifying "Medicare" will link to Medicare (Canada) and so display "Public Medicare (Canada)", or the relevant Province's scheme if there is a separate wiki article (e.g. see Toronto General Hospital).

My question therefore is does the same terminology and its usage apply for Australia, i.e. just as all public UK hospitals are under the NHS and for Canada under their Medicare, are all public Australian hospitals under Medicare - or is Medicare (Australia) only for those of lower financial means and everyone else needs cover their public hospital usage via separate private health insurance (i.e. more like the US system) ? (if the latter is the case then public Australian hospitals would need to be described just as "Public")

As an example, see this use for Concord Hospital, Sydney (where I was lucky enough to spend Elective time during my own training) David Ruben Talk 15:26, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, all Australian public hospitals are funded by Medicare. Well, sort of. They are funded by a bizarre combination of state government and federal government funding, which leads to all manner of wasteful cost-shifting and blame-reallocation. But it's still much more cost-efficient than what the Americans manage :) --Robert Merkel 00:19, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Many Thanks. David Ruben Talk 01:30, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Pink and mulesing

Pink (singer), influenced by PETA has advocated a boycott of Australian wool over mulesing and live export by Australia. Vandalism and unreferenced POV-pushing has resulted.

Cormo express is currently a redlink.

Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to a featured article on mulesing. Andjam 09:22, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't see a nomination of mulesing in WP:ACOTF yet...--Scott Davis Talk 14:18, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

WP Victoria

Please help with this new project. Can someone please set up up? -- Punk Boi 8 00:11, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

For those interested, the project is here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Victoria. You might want to try putting it into the directory, too. Lankiveil 13:25, 22 December 2006 (UTC).
I am sure I speak for those of all of us at Wikipedia:WikiProject Western Australia bon voyage, happy christmas and enjoy the setting up for Wikipedia:WikiProject Victoria ! SatuSuro 13:50, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Australian collaboration of the fortnight - was Torres Strait Islanders, now Kangaroo

Merry Christmas everyone. Preparations got in the way so I'm a day late with the selection. Anyway, Torres Strait Islanders got off to a good start then stopped a couple days after selection. It more than doubled in size even though it's still fairly small.

It was WP:ACOTF from 10 December 2006 to 25 December 2006

  • 4 contributors made 11 edits
  • The article increased from 161 words to 369 words - 2.3 times longer
  • See how it changed

The new selection for the Christmas and New Year season is Kangaroo please help to prepare this already-large article for nomination as a featured article. There are several new nominations each with only a single vote so far. --Scott Davis Talk 12:53, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Eureka Stockade - review of featured article status

Not sure if anybody saw this comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australia. I missed it and I notice there has not been a lot of response.

Just in case not and people did want to comment or address the issues raised, here is the advice of the review again. It seems a pity that an Australian article risks losing featured status. I can see some issues. The NPOV seemed to be a singly held view in my opinion though and I believe has been addressed.--Golden Wattle talk 08:57, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Eureka Stockade is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy (Talk) 21:11, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

LGAs

Hi everyone, there has been discussion at Talk:Townsville,_Queensland#Arbitrary_section_break about how LGAs should be titled and what should be included. Generally there does not seem to be separate articles for Local Government Areas and Local Government Authorities, so in the interest of consistency maybe all of the articles should be changed to either one or the other, there seems to be a lot of articles with the title of the Local Government Authority for major Queensland cities, and Shires all over Australia, whereas major cities elsewhere mainly (but not exclusively) title the articles - City of... Could we please come to a consensus about this issue, at the moment I think City of..., Shire of... or Municipality of... is better because it is broader and details about the administrative Council can be a subsection of the article. Would like to hear your thoughts, WikiTownsvillian 08:06, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

If I could perhaps clarify some of the points WikiTownsvillian raised... I think the original question was whether ther should be separate articles for the council that governs a municipaliy, and the geographical area which falls within that municipality.
I think the question of "City of XYZ" vs "XYZ City Council" is largely solved by the official name of the LGA concerned, although this can add to confusion where "XYZ City Council" can also imply 'the council which governs XYZ". In either case, I think that all aspects of an LGA can be covered in one article unless there is sufficient information about the council, its history, politics, personalities etc to warrant a separate article. ... just my thoughts to get the ball rolling. Cheers
In the interests of keeping comments in one place, it might be best if responses are posted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian places. Cheers. -- Adz|talk 12:29, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Missing articles on Australian films

I just discovered Category:WikiProject Missing Film articles/Australia, perfect for those amongst us who enjoy creating film-related articles :) -- Longhair\talk 10:29, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Happy new year

It just went past midnight ~7 minutes ago in Victoria, ACT, New South Wales and Tasmania. Hope you all have a good 2007 :) Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 13:07, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Happy New Year

I would just like to wish everybody a Happy New Year DXRAW 00:47, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Hobart/Tasmania WikiProject changes

Hi everyone, SatuSuro suggested starting up a Tassie wikiproject - I responded by suggesting it be "merged" with the Hobart WikiProject. As a result, we now have Wikipedia:WikiProject Tasmania, which covers all articles related to the state including all Hobart (and other city) articles. Some of the articles covered by WP:Hobart's were in other parts of the state anyway, so using the name 'Tasmania' is certainly more accurate. Longhair has assisted by fixing the {{WP Australia}} talk page template to point to the new project; other links to the project will be fixed over the next day or so. -- Chuq 02:42, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Just a gentle reminder for those who might not have noticed - please help by either participating or supporting! -
Wikipedia:WikiProject Tasmania
Wikipedia:WikiProject Victoria
Wikipedia:WikiProject Western Australia

SatuSuro 06:18, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Sweet nostalgia

Cute story in the Age [2] that fans of oldtime Aussie lollies might enjoy reading. (And probably good as a source on these almost folklorish items now.) --pfctdayelise (talk) 06:10, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

New collaboration of the fortnight is Mulesing

Kangaroo was WP:ACOTF from 25 December 2006 to 7 January 2007.

The new Australian collaboration is mulesing. Its nomination is at Wikipedia:Australian Collaboration of the Fortnight/History#Mulesing. Please help to improve it in any way you can. It has already improved since being nominated.

--Scott Davis Talk 10:59, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


White Christmas in Australia

Can anyone think of anything useful to do with some photos of snow and cross-country sking at Lake Mountain at Christmas? Regards, Ben Aveling 11:00, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. The two possibilities I can think of is talking about the weather in Australia (which is currently a red link :) ) or Christmas in Australia. Christmas_worldwide#Australia could do with some expansion (eg antipodean Christmas carols). Media organisations like to report on white Christmases, so you can get some reliable sources to go with your photos. Andjam 11:43, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Articles for deletion

People might want to check out Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wanker (2nd nomination) Jooler 17:34, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Greg Bownds, apparently an Australian professional wrestler. Regards, Ben Aveling 10:30, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

You can just add these to the List of Australia-related deletions, and to the Candidates for Deletion list above rather than posting them here. --Canley 00:11, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Chris Taylor / Craig Reucassel

Apparently on the January 7 episode of Chris Taylor and Craig Reucassel's Bloody Sunday show on Triple J, they complained that their Wikipedia articles were inaccurate. A couple of users have added this fact to their articles, but I think it would be more productive to get them up to scratch before next weeks show. Anyone want to assist? The show is available via podcast from here for anyone who wants to hear what they said (I haven't heard it myself). -- Chuq 00:34, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'm listening to it now. Craig says whoever wrote the article about him is making him look way smarter than he is, and that no way did he get a UAI of 99.95. He said he changed it and someone put it back. Chris says that he corrected the year he was born and the degree he studied at uni, and that too was reverted. They say they are amazed that there are people who are watching articles like this seemingly 24 hours a day. They noted the [citation needed] tag on the Today Today article about them having the cricket on in the background of the Bloody Sunday radio show, and said they could confirm this was true... but then they are concerned that their word is not reliable enough and that a university professor will have to look into the matter and confirm it. -Canley 11:50, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
The problem is knowing whether they're taking the piss or not. Saying that working on Channel 9 was "his life's dream" would send a red flag up for me, if I didn't know any better. Their comments about having to have a university professor verify their dates of birth before being inserted do have a point though. Lankiveil 22:11, 8 January 2007 (UTC).
It's funny ... with that comment about the uni professor they are taking the piss .. but its not far from the truth .. when a known comedian/media satirist tells you information specifically so it can go in their Wikipedia article, you do need a 3rd party to verify it. I had a look at the history of Chris' article - the year of birth was added in August 2006 sometime and hasn't been changed since then - so I'm not sure when he was doing his "testing". -- Chuq 23:27, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Liasing for an image of Lucy the Sheep

One image for anti-mulesing activism could be a photo of Lucy the Sheep, who featured in the 2004 federal election. A possible source of a photo is mentioned in Talk:Mulesing#Photos_of_anti-mulesing_activism . Would anyone be interested in liasing with the animal rights organisation mentioned? Andjam 11:52, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Canvassing

Would someone who is feeling patient please take a look at the contribs of User:Jrnetwork; they claim to be the webmaster of the authors - and are creating giant link farms - trying to make their clients use more bandwidth? --Peta 06:51, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I rewrote Hazel Edwards, removing dozens of external links and replacing with wikilinks. There was also a lot of duplication (entire paragraphs repeated), and dubious references (all Wikipedia articles to things like Antarctica and Hippopotamus). The actual external links section was full of barely related websites such as the Australian Antarctic Division, and I also removed the Category:Antarctica. That said, the article wasn't too bad (as in absolutely gushing with praise), and the subject seems notable enough for inclusion. Will keep an eye on the editor though. --Canley 10:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I had never heard of her, but then I saw that she wrote "There's a Hippopotamus On Our Roof Eating Cake" - you don't forget a book title like that! No notability problems at all IMHO. -- Chuq 11:44, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

A potentially useful resource

I've just stumbled across the australianbiography.gov.au website, and I thought it might warrant mentioning here. It has some detailed interviews with a bunch of important figures, some of who I still don't think we have articles on. If anyone's up for it, it could be helpful to a) make sure we have articles on all of these people, and b) try and incorporate some of the very useful stuff in them into relevant pages. Rebecca 04:09, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Here's the coverage. I've definitely missed a couple of disambigs but it's a start --Steve (Slf67) talk 05:43, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Lily Ah Toy, Northern Territory Pioneer; Faith Bandler, Civil rights activist; Charles Birch, Scientist and Theologian; Nancy Bird-Walton, Pioneer Aviator; Flo Bjelke-Petersen, Former Senator; Neville Bonner, Former Senator; Veronica Brady, Nun and academic; Eva Burrows, World Leader, Salvation Army; Jim Cairns, Politician; Betty Churcher, Art Educator and Gallery Director; Diane Cilento, Actor; Inga Clendinnen, Academic and Writer; H. C. Coombs, Economist; Zelda D'Aprano, Feminist and Political Activist; Bruce Dawe, Poet; Smoky Dawson, Entertainer; Elizabeth Durack, Artist; Malcolm Fraser, Former Prime Minister; Margaret Fulton, Cookery Writer; Rosalie Gascoigne, Artist; Jack Hazlitt, World War I veteran; Barbara Holborow, Children's Court Magistrate; Donald Horne, Writer and academic; Thomas Keneally, Writer; Rosalie Kunoth-Monks, Actor and Aboriginal Activist; Phillip Law, Scientist and Antarctic Explorer; Mungo Ballardie MacCallum, Writer and Broadcaster; Dame Roma Mitchell, Lawyer and Governor; Jack Mundey, Activist; Lowitja O'Donoghue, Senior Public Servant; Sir Marcus Oliphant, Scientist; Charles Perkins, Aboriginal Activist; Elizabeth Riddell, Journalist and poet; Bill Roycroft, Olympic Equestrian; Bob Santamaria, Political Activist; Peter Sculthorpe, Composer; Victor Smorgon, Industrialist; Shirley Strickland de la Hunty, Athlete and Conservationist; Bud Tingwell, Actor and Director; Albert Tucker (artist), Artist; Tom Uren, Politician; Ray Whitrod, Policeman

SFD

Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion/Log/2007/January/12 - regarding an issue in Western Australia roads - has salient issues arising that have implications for a lot of Australian stubs - please check! SatuSuro 15:26, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Potential copyright concern

Is the current state of Albert Solomon acceptable? It appears to be primarily a copy of Australian Dictionary of Biography online, with a note

1.This article is a reproduction of: Scott Bennett, 'Solomon, Albert Edgar (1876 - 1914)', Australian Dictionary of Biography Online, 2006, http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A120013b.htm Note: As soon as any change is made, it will be necessary to identify the original ADB text remaining by putting it in quotation marks, footnoting each section of it to the original citation, and removing the statement `This article is a reproduction of'.

It feels wrong, but I'm not certain which reason - breach of ADB copyright, or restriction on future editing on Wikipedia. Could a copyright expert please check? --Scott Davis Talk 08:22, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Copyright violation with no assertion of right of use, and restriction on further usage in contravention of GFDL. I've reverted to a prior version which unfortunately leaves a single line article. --Steve (Slf67) talk 08:59, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
This is an absolute copyright violation. We can use the Dictionary of Australian Biography because it's from the first half of the 20th century and is thus out of copyright. The Australian Dictionary of Biography, on the other hand, is very much still in copyright, and thus cannot be reproduced without explicit written permission. It is very important that the two are not confused. Rebecca 09:41, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Somehow I feel that simply pulling the text from an old source is 'wrong' too. Not for copyvio reasons, but because of the idea of wikipedia being the work of wikipedia editors, not some deceased academic. SauliH 14:52, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Oh, don't get me wrong, I detest it when people do that too. It's just that we legally can (not should) base articles off public domain work, which we cannot do in this case. Rebecca 06:19, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Robert Askin

If anyone has a bit of spare time on their hands this summer, it would be lovely if someone could take a look over our article on Robert Askin. For a fairly significant politician, this article is atrocious - it covers his rise reasonably, then goes into his pro-development policies, and then spends ten (!) paragraphs detailing rumors of his corruption. It doesn't even have a single word on how he actually left politics, and only a couple of paragraphs about what he actually did as Premier. I'd try and fix it myself, but I don't have access to the necessary resources at the moment, so it'd be lovely if someone else could have a go at fixing it up some. Rebecca 06:18, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Do we know why the image was deleted? He's dead, so a fair use one would be more than justified... JROBBO 09:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Stay in Touch article on vandalism

The SMH's Stay in Touch column vandalised an article to see what would happen. The column isn't too bad - I like articles focusing on the less glamorous work involved in wikipedia.

I then looked up the IP address involved, and noticed on User talk:203.26.177.2 a fair few warnings about previous instances of vandalism. It looks like it's a shared IP, so the vandalism probably wasn't by the author of the column. Should we trust these kind of people to write a newspaper? Andjam 10:22, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

According to APNIC the IP address is owned by John Fairfax Holdings, publishers of the Sydney Morning Herald, so yeah, it's pretty sad that staff at one of this country's major newspapers are vandalising Wikipedia - not just once or twice for "belly laughs" and "to see what happens", but on a regular basis. --Canley 14:13, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
They also vandalised mulesing. Too bad we can't see the edit history for what they publish each day! Andjam 12:25, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Category:Racism in Australia

What do people think of this new category? And what do people think of the fact that it contains such article as Pauline Hanson and Palm Island, Queensland? Hesperian 23:44, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

It will be used as a pejorative label on many articles and I do not want to imagine the disputes where people are arguing whether something/one is sufficiently racist to be placed in the category. I would support a deletion. michael talk 00:08, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Agree, plus there can not be a clear criteria for inclusion. I suggest it be put to CfD. --Bduke 00:15, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Agree with Michael entirely. Send it off to CfD. -- Longhair\talk 00:17, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
To quote Ms Hanson: "I don't like it." Maybe a rename to Category:Race issues in Australia? Takes a bit of the pejorative edge off the flat-out "racism" label. I would certainly support a category deletion though. --Canley 00:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Renaming only hides the devil under another disguise. Delete outright. -- Longhair\talk 00:29, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, a bit weasly isn't it! Then delete it I say. --Canley 01:46, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I ask myself whether there's a legitimate use for this category, and the answer, unfortunately, is "yes". This category is a legitimate area of interest and research, and can legitimately hold articles such as Equal Opportunity Commission, Racial Discrimination Act 1975, Koowarta v Bjelke-Petersen, Fight Dem Back, Alas Poor Yagan, Jack van Tongeren, 2005 Cronulla riots, Lambing Flat riots, Explorers' Monument, etc. In all these cases there is a broad consensus and understanding that the subject involves or is related to racism in Australia.

I think the problem here is the overzealous categorisation. I notice, for example, that The Bulletin is categorised into it. Surely there's a potential legal issue for the Wikimedia Foundation right there. I say keep the category, but largely depopulate it, and put some effort into crafting strict but sensible admission criteria.

Hesperian 02:08, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd concur that this is an unfortunately needed category. And as far as The Bulletin goes, if the Packers' want the kudos of publishing Australia's oldest magazine they have to live with the fact that it once was an obscenely racist publication with "Australia for the White Man" as a masthead! --Steve (Slf67) talk 02:20, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
I do not think that such a category is useful in the first place, other than a label to slap on something. Secondly, racial matters and perceptions can be highly subjective, and as I said earlier, I do not want to see all the petty arguments for and against the category's inclusion in particular articles. To avoid potential headaches, and a neutrality mess, categories like these need to be given the flick. michael talk 02:24, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Looking at the contents of the cateory at the moment then - where are those articles going to next? I think there is a need to think of that. SatuSuro 03:30, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree that the current category name can be seen to have pejorative undertones, but I believe a category of this nature is required. Perhaps we could refer to one of its parent categorys Category:Politics and race and extrapolate a new subcategory Category:Politics and race in Australia. However, the main issue, as Hesparian has pointed out, is to be very selective about the categorisation of articles. It is ludicrous, for instance, to place a geographic entity such as Palm Island, Queensland in such a category, whereas an article titled 2004 Palm Island Riot would be suitable.--Melburnian 05:32, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Probably there were too many pages in the category. But that's a case for reviewing it, not for emptying it or removing it. Racism in Australia a completely suitable topic for a category. Even if it wasn't, it's not appropriate to empty a category before it passes a CFD. Regards, Ben Aveling 10:02, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

food needed in Sydney

Can anyone in Sydney help these poor workers at Downer EDi? I didn't have the heart to warn them for vandalism. I sent them 57 Varieties of Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense instead. --Scott Davis Talk 11:29, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

ACOTF: Palm Island replaces Mulesing

Mulesing was ACOTF from 7 January 2007 to 21 January 2007

  • 18 contributors made 78 edits
  • The article increased from 1052 words to 1836 words - 80% longer
  • See how it changed

Thanks to all who helped. Palm Island, Queensland is the new ACOTF, selected with only three votes (in the event of a tie, the oldest nomination is selected). It has already received significant editing since being nominated, so please help to improve it further. --Scott Davis Talk 12:45, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikimania 08

Why not have Canberra as Austria's city of choice for wikimania 08 bid. Its a good third option between Sydney and Melbourne. Its also our capital city. Why not? Culverin? Talk 01:19, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Why would Austrians want to travel all the way to Canberra? --Steve (Slf67) talk 01:24, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
They might like to visit the Australian Institute of Sport, to find out more about sport in a country that was temporarily ahead of them in the 2002 Winter Olympics medal tally. Incidentally, has Canberra even held a meet-up yet (not that I'd be able to attend)? Andjam 04:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Ich reise die Welt zum Besuchen dich, Kanberra!! Back to serious business. It really should be Melbourne or Perth IMO. I might be biased on the Perth one, though. :) Orderinchaos78 07:52, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Australian article assessments

Is anyone willing to help out with assessments of Australia related articles? The backlog is currently sized at over 10,000+ articles. The assessment quality scale is here for those needing more information and willing to help. See you there. The growing pile of articles is available for your review at Unassessed Australia articles. -- Longhair\talk 12:36, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll chip in a bit tomorrow. Daniel.Bryant [ T · C ] 12:43, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I pick up on those I come across, I have tried to add {{WP Australia}} to article talk pages as I come across them. Typically stubs of low importance unfortunately. Paul foord 13:04, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I've done some for you then - all numbered articles gone, and some of the "A"s. I'll do more as I go on. To make it easier, would it be possible for a bot to go through any article with an Australia-related "Stub" tag on it and make the class automatically stub? If articles improve they can be reassessed - it's easy. But that would make this job a lot easier. Most of the articles out there are stubs with a couple of lines. JROBBO 13:09, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

The Kingbotk plugin, for use with AutoWikiBrowser supports auto-assessment of Australia-related articles marked as a stub. I've never used that function myself, but it does work. The Kingbotk plugin also manages the many Australian sub-WikiProjects of WikiProject Australia, and assigns the relevant template(s). Running AWB in automatic mode may require approval at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval however. -- Longhair\talk 14:44, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

It might be worthwhile recruiting Australian bot operators to form an automation department for WP:AUS so that we have experienced users to perform such tasks.--cj | talk 15:26, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

What should happen when an article gets deleted, like this non-notable individual? Thanks, Andjam 11:27, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe that Mathbot picks up that the article is no longer there and removes it from the list. Mathbot's updates usually happen at least once a day but occasionally more often. --bainer (talk) 11:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
The talk page usually needs deletion if the only contents are WikiProject templates. The same goes for articles that are redirected to others. Marking these types of articles with the {{db-talk}} template will see somebody come along and delete them eventually. Mathbot doesn't perform deletions to my knowledge. -- Longhair\talk 12:04, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

archiving to paysite of The Australian newspaper articles

As at January 2007, [The Australian] is placing archived articles in Newstext; "a user-pays site, with a minimum purchase requirement of $AU17.50"[1]. So cites to such articles are not long or necessarily even medium term. While present situation exists finding hard copy cite asap may be less work. Comments? SmithBlue 13:53, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I think they will be available through the Wayback machine/ Internet Archive. Moreover hardcopies are available at major libraries with newspaper collections. I wouldn't cease citation if appropriate. Citation does not have to be of online sources--Golden Wattle talk 19:52, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Citations of news should have dates and titles so they can be found in libraries once the online links die.--Grahamec 04:13, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Yeah simply cite the publication, date and page number as hard copy. Unfortunately some articles will be lost this way as not all of them actually go to print. We've had a number of problems with articles older than about 3 months which disappear never to be found again (not even in wayback) - I have generally endeavoured to use ABC and Fairfax links where possible for their durability. Orderinchaos78 13:02, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Tried the Wayback machine. It worked! Very surprised and relieved. Just put in old link and at bottom of list the desired article appeared. SmithBlue 15:07, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
{{cite web}} has archiveurl and archivedate parameters to record where it was archived to, and keep the original URL. {{cite news}} doesn't have those parameters. News.com.au seems to archive some articles to newstext faster than others - not sure if it's the ones they bought or the ones they wrote themselves. --Scott Davis Talk 10:42, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Encouragement to vandalism?

I have encountered on a talk page mention that there might have been a media outlet in australia that actually encouraged people to vandalise wikipedia... what as a project do we do with something like that? Ignore it? SatuSuro 02:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we should develop a form letter to send out, pointing out that as they obviously find Wikipedia so useful, they could help contribute to our mission by making useful edits on lesser-edited topics. Except for Chris & Craig (who I notice continue their fascination with Wikipedia editors). Waste of time there. :) --pfctdayelise (talk) 05:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Endangered languages

portal needs help

Does anyone know how to fix the embarrassing red links for featured article and picture on Portal:Australia? --Scott Davis Talk 10:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to Golden Wattle for a quick hack fix. --Scott Davis Talk 10:26, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

WikiCast : Southern Star.

Hi.

I know this is not exactly WikiPedia related, but WikiCast a project aimed at creating free-content programmes for 'broadcast' is possibly needing some assistance from the Australian contingent on Wikipedia.

One of the ideas suggested for WikiCast was Southern Star a weekly news digest.

Your views on this and any offers of assistance would be greatly appreciated.

ShakespeareFan00 01:31, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

There is already Wikinews ? --Golden Wattle talk 01:39, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes there is Wikinews - but Southern Star was more of a news digest, it could also do analaysis which Wikinews doesnt. ShakespeareFan00 13:34, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Noble Park, Victoria

Noticed some rather interesting changes there during the course of today relating to some riots that allegedly occurred there. Not so much an active issue but one for the watchlists - and if anyone knows more about it and has verified reliable sources, it probably wouldn't hurt to detail what actually did occur. Orderinchaos78 14:40, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Didn't it involve a bunch of thugs trashing a video store? Does that really qualify as a riot? QazPlm 13:54, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Portal:Military of Australia feature candidate

It would be very helpful if some of the contributors here could possibly contribute to the Military of Australia portal feature status here. It so far has 6 supports and to the best of my knowledge all the current objectiions have been met. It is so close, just need some help getting over the line. Hossen27 09:40, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

It made it.[3] Congrats to all who worked on it :) Cheers, Daniel.Bryant 09:02, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Leyland Brothers is the new Australian Collaboration

Palm Island, Queensland was WP:ACOTF from 21 January 2007 to 4 February 2007

  • 14 contributors made 214 edits
  • The article increased from 13 kb to 32 kb - 2.5 times longer
  • See how it changed

In addition, several new articles were created:

Please help to improve Leyland Brothers in any way you can. There are several new nominations on WP:ACOTF to choose from for next time. --Scott Davis Talk 11:12, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Johnny O'Keefe

The article on Johnny O'Keefe was deleted today as a longstanding copyvio. Some of the older Australians Wikipedians who may remember JOK, (touted at Australia's first bona fide rock'n'roll star) may like to fill in the gap now left behind in Australia's rock music history. -- Longhair\talk 08:43, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I have restored some earlier non-copyvio versions. IMO the copyvio should have resulted in reversion to the most recent non-copyright-violating revision; not outright deletion. Also, I have edited articles with User:Dunks58's (the apparent copyvio-er) before and from memory he did have his own music website, some of which he transferred into Wikipedia - I will check and see if there is any link. -- Chuq 09:11, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Old growth forests

As far as I can tell, neither Category:Old growth forests nor List of old growth forests contains any Australian entries. Please tell me we still have some old growth forests left. Hesperian 11:16, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I think it's just a matter of identifying them. There are are probably some articles in Category:National parks of Australia.--cj | talk 11:37, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Some are tied in with RFA's some are not... have left a message at hesperians talk page about this ...SatuSuro 12:48, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
http://www.daffa.gov.au/rfa http://schools.wafa.org.au/where.htm http://www.green.net.au/adan/index2.html are suggested lead ins re WA context - the Tasmanian one is a bit more complex SatuSuro 12:54, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Category:Racism in Australia again

I feel uncomfortable about recent additions to Category:Racism in Australia. We discussed this cat earlier this year - see Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 25#Category:Racism in Australia. I think some recent additions don't belong there. The conclusion was that as Hesperion put it we need to "put some effort into crafting strict but sensible admission criteria." Yet to be done and probably needed in my view.--Golden Wattle talk 23:20, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I recently scrubbed this category from 2004 Palm Island death in custody. The attitude some people seem to have is that if it involves black people, it must qualify as racism! I was on the fence last time, but I'm increasingly of the opinion that the category is worthless. Lankiveil 02:44, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

Hi, sorry to come late to the debate. I was the one who added the category Racism in Australia to the 2004 Palm Island death in custody entry, not having realised that it had been removed once previously. I'm looking forward to reading the link Golden Wattle put in above, but I would like to say first that the category wasn't added because it simply involved black people, and I definitely don't think the category is worthless. That to me would imply that either there is no racism in Australia worth mentioning, or that few people would be interested in reading entries falling under that category. As for whether the Palm Island riot was a racist event, I guess it depends who you ask. I have spent some time in Aboriginal communities over the past 12 months and there is not a doubt in their minds that the severe injuries sustained by Mulrunji were at the hands of the police; that the first pathology result attributing the injuries to a fall on the stairs was a cover-up; and that the use of SWAT teams against a community of unarmed men, women and children was an inappropriate use of force. Whether there were racist attitudes held by the police, police commissioner and pathologist involved depends on the likelihood that they would have taken similar action against a white man in custody. I think it unlikely, particularly given a lack of precedent with the SWAT involvement. Anyway, I will have a read of the previous discussion before saying any more. I'm all for coming up with an appropriate definition and strictly sticking to it. Sholto.mac 04:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for commenting. My problem with adding this category to things like that particular article is that it's never clear whether the incident in question was motivated by racism. Unless Hurley can be proven to have yelled "Die Darkie!!!" as he repeatedly punched Domadgee in the spleen, I don't see how you can claim that it's 100% "racism in Australia". As it is, adding that category to things like that is merely speculation - something that has no real place on Wikipedia.
I do like the idea of moving a lot of these articles to "Category: History of Racism in Australia" - things like White Australia Policy can be put in there. But before that happens, I think it should be clearly laid out what sort of articles need to be put in there, otherwise we'll be back where we started. Lankiveil 08:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

Still on racism

Never mind; the issue was rather more banal than I had thought. Archived. Hesperian 06:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

New search tool for Commons - Mayflower

Mayflower Commons search

this new tool has been created to do searches for specific words within media file stored on Commons. Gnangarra 05:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Sydney Royal Easter Show

Because its getting close to show time i think its time that this article got expanded. DXRAW 08:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Road transport in Australia is new Australian Collaboration of the Fortnight

Leyland Brothers was WP:ACOTF from 4 February 2007 to 18 February 2007

  • 7 contributors made 22 edits
  • The article increased from 279 words to 1045 - 3.7 times longer
  • See how it changed

The new collaboration is Road transport in Australia. Please help to improve it and any related articles in any way you can. Some of the articles that link to it contain rather inaccurate, stereotyped or stylised views of Australia. Unfortunately, Special:Whatlinkshere/Road transport in Australia appears useless while the current collaboration is linked from the {{WP Australia}} template. Also improve any of the related articles linked from this top article. --Scott Davis Talk 11:49, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

What to do with List of Australians?

What to do with this article? It's been around a long time (created September 23, 2002 [4]), and was probably once a useful index to Australian biographical articles. Today, I imagine the list is unmanagable and will never be anywhere near complete any time soon, if at all. The Australian people category and sub-category tree underneath manages the task much better IMHO.

What do others think about redirecting this list to Lists of Australian people, where a list of lists can be created and we do away with this list once and for all? -- Longhair\talk 10:40, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. JPD (talk) 12:43, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I am not a fan of lists. I don't think this one has a lot of meaning. Why not redirect to Category:Australian people--Golden Wattle talk 22:18, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I put {{prod}} on List of Australian politicians a few weeks ago as it was incomplete and unhelpful. The tag got removed and the list split into several shorter ones, but they seem to be just as unhelpful (except the link to the current members). It seems these lists were created when Wikipedia was much smaller, and aren't as useful as categories for lists of actual articles. I still support getting rid of them both. --Scott Davis Talk 11:24, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I've tagged {{prod}} on the incomplete List of former members of the Australian House of Representatives and List of members of State and Territory parliaments. --Scott Davis Talk 12:09, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
{{prod}} got rid of List of members of State and Territory parliaments. I've gone the AFD route for List of former members of the Australian House of Representatives and List of Australians. I may have to pull my head in from the SNOW - time will tell. --Scott Davis Talk 13:56, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Maybe split into seperate lists eg "List of Australian [insert here]s"? --Candy-Panda 12:25, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

List of Australians was laid to rest today, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Australians. Shall we now redirect it to Lists of Australians and start afresh? -- Longhair\talk 09:37, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Vote 1 against a redirect. Any links to it should be fixed to point to a more accurate sublist, or removed completely. I also would like to point out that WP:LIST says "Lists should always include unambiguous statements of membership criteria..." (emphasis original). I'm happy with complete lists, but not happy with open ones were the criteria for inclusion include "has a Wikipedia article" or "is famous" or incomplete ones where only a subset of the eligible members are in the list. --Scott Davis Talk 11:47, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
RIP List of Australians. Long live Lists of Australians --Steve (Slf67) talk 12:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Merge Indigenous Australian culture and Australian Aboriginal culture categories?

Would anybody have any objection to merging these two categories? Yes I know they're technically different, but in practice people seem to have used them indiscriminately (and in fact wrongly). Rayd8 | User talk:Rayd8 01:12, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

As there have been no immediate reactions, I have moved this discussion into Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 February 19 Rayd8 | User talk:Rayd8 08:59, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Aboriginal Gods

I see there is a category of Aboriginal Gods (and the term is also used in a number of articles). As far as I'm aware, no such thing exists. There are creator-spirits, or culture-heroes, or dreaming spirits, etc., but nothing that can really be called a God in the European sense. So I think this is rather misrepresenting Indigenous cultures, and is therefore disrespectful to those cultures. I'm happy to volunteer to do a big clean up to expunge the term, but before I start any flame-wars, does anybody disagree with this? Rayd8 | User talk:Rayd8 14:42, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I concur with Rayd8's views and would support a clean up and renaming of the category - not sure what the name should be though--Golden Wattle talk 22:00, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
I also completely agree. The term is inaccurate.--cj | talk 22:07, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
A couple of the articles in the cat refer to gods, so the cleanup needs to go a little deeper. There's also Australian Aboriginal mythology which contains a more complete(?) list. If the cat stays I'd suggest Aboriginal mythological beings. --Steve (Slf67) talk 22:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments - you're right - it will be a lot of work. But we have to start somewhere. At present the representation of this whole area in Wikipedia is quite misleading, and will certainly be offensive to some Indigenous people. It's important to tread very carefully when you're dealing with a belief system with thousands of active adherents. And the Australian Aboriginal mythology page also needs a lot of work! BTW can someone tell me if it would it be acceptable to Christians to have Jesus listed under "mythhology"? (This isn't rhetorical - I'm an atheist and I really don't know whether active Christians would consider that offensive). Rayd8 | User talk:Rayd8 03:05, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Probably yes, as much as I think that's a horrendous double-standard. Then again, I'm a baby-killing, god-hating, family-destroying atheist too. Lankiveil 02:46, 13 February 2007 (UTC).
many christians would view that as attempt to cast doubt on their beliefs. but i assume the main reason 'mythology' was used (apart from being fairly common usage, i think?) was, well, what else? until we can come up with something else i suppose we just have to pretend it's only meant to be descriptive? (note, 'religion' generally isn't used because it's too specific/ethnocentric)  ⇒ bsnowball  10:42, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
What about "beliefs", or something along those lines? Lankiveil 12:17, 13 February 2007 (UTC).
Something like "Australian Aboriginal beliefs" would seem to cover the beliefs of all Aboriginal people, which includes more than indigenous beliefs. "Mythology" as used in some areas of academia today seems to not comment on the historical truth of the stories, and in that sense wouldn't be offensive to anyone, but I suspect that most people would understand the more common meaning implying that the story has no basis in fact, making it hard to apply it to things with any sort of historical record. Having said that, I can't see anything better than "mythology" or perhaps "traditional beliefs". As for gods, I suspect the category was started out of ignorance and an attempt to fit in with the Cat:Gods by culture and Cat:Goddesses by culture categories. While "spirits" or "mythological beings" may be a better name, we will also need to address the question of how renamed category/ies should fit in this scheme. JPD (talk) 14:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
"Traditional religious beliefs"? Seems to cut out non-religious beliefs, as well as imported religions. Lankiveil 08:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC).
Thanks for all the valuable comments. While Mythology has a technical non-pejorative meaning, I think some people will still interpret it as meaning false beliefs, which is obviously inappropriate for a belief system which has many adherents. The litmus test of whether Jesus could be regarded as mythology attracted a few interesting comments (some in private) which indicated that at least some Christians would be offended by the term. So "Australian Aboriginal beliefs" sounds pretty good to me right now. Any dissent from that? Rayd8 | User talk:Rayd8 10:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
yes, the suggested phrase is almost meaningless & not in common usage. the term mythology is used in much of the relevant literature & the sense in which it is being used can be explained on the relevent cat & main article pages. that is if at all necessary, has anyone who might be offended acctually complained? expanding those rubbish stubs, although it does have to be done very carefully, would be far more useful.  ⇒ bsnowball  16:27, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that much of the relevant literature was written before the Anglo-Saxon authors had developed any respect for what is now acknowledged to be a living culture. Is anyone actually offended? Yes, very much so! This is why, for example, Mountford's classic work "Nomads of the Australian desert" had to be removed from bookshops after a legal injunction by Indigenous groups. What was acceptable in the sixties is not acceptable now. And Wikipedia should stand as an example of NPOV and equal respect for all cultures. I'd be happy to use the word mythology if Christians would be happy to have their religion listed as mythology, and I gather that does offend some (but not all) Christians. I don't think we should treat the beliefs of Indigenous Australians with any less respect than we accord to the Christian religion. Rayd8 | User talk:Rayd8 21:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Is this discussion about something different to the topics of Dreamtime and Dreaming? What about using one of those words for the category names instead of mythology/belief? They are well-understood and accepted terms, I believe. --Scott Davis Talk 04:55, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
probably not as not all of these people use the term 'dreaming'. i doubt moutford's book was removed just for using the word mythology? the term is used in contemporary literature (it means roughly 'non-historical', not 'bullshit'; amusingly enough the negative connotations do come from attempts to denigrate pre-christian european 'mythologies') and as i said, it's reference can be explained if there is a real problem. & again there isn't a better term.  ⇒ bsnowball  09:53, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Dreaming is good, but may not mean much to anyone not already familiar with Indigenous Australian culture, so it's less useful as a category. Having looked at the wikipedia entry for Mythology, I'm almost persuaded that it would be OK! It does have the advantage that it's widely-understood.Rayd8 | User talk:Rayd8 01:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Any article belonging in the category is likely to have a sentence describing dreaming including a link, so unfamiliarity with the term is not an excuse to not using it for (part of) the category name if it is most appropriate. Perhaps the category name would help people to learn about the term. --Scott Davis Talk 12:24, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Having considered the above discussion and done a bit of homework, I propose to replace the words "Aboriginal God" by "Aboriginal Ancestral Spirit", and words like "religion" by "Aboriginal traditional beliefs" (with appropriate redirects of course), and then cross the other bridges when we get to them. Anybody got any problems with this? Rayd8 | User talk:Rayd8 09:11, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Forgot to get my suggestion off Rayd8's talk page! Aboriginal beliefs for both myself - but then I have had an aversion to the use of ancestral and traditional for good reasons - it becomes ahistorical and non judgemental with the use of 'aboriginal beliefs'. Where I come (ie academic training) from - POV oozes out of the usage of 'ancestral' and' traditional' - in my opinion always better to go the way with the less of a moving target with fewer words. If there is evidence of belief of 'something that comes from before' from a particular spirit or being, it is not a god - it could be an ancestral spirit - but it is a part of a belief - better just an umbrella of 'aboriginal belief' - as to what it is it has regional variation and potentially multiple meanings - much better to qualify after from a simpler term- than get trapped by the potential arguments that arise from the position of whether something is traditional/ancestral or no... dangerous country for the wikipedia fellas SatuSuro 09:30, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your excellent comment, but there are two different things here:
  • What do we use to replace the word god in a sentence such as Baiame was an aboriginal god? Clearly belief is not appropriate here, so you have to use a word like spirit. Aboriginal spirit doesn't really work, as it's rather ambiguous. Ancestral spirit is what tends to be used both by the indigenous community and by academia. Things like culture hero would also be OK, but are less understandable by people outside the field. Aboriginal Ancestral Spirit isn't perfect either, but it's the best I can come up with.
  • What do we use to replace the word religion? I've proposed Aboriginal traditional belief and you've proposed Aboriginal belief. Both are OK, except that the latter has a slightly negative connotation, in that Aboriginal people may also believe in geology and physics as valid narratives as well as their traditional beliefs.Rayd8 | User talk:Rayd8 06:06, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
    • To me, "Aboriginal traditional belief" is from the dreaming/dreamtime. "Aboriginal belief" is vague without more context but could include Christianity, Islam, geology, ... as well as traditional beliefs. --Scott Davis Talk 12:12, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Spot on, Scott. Rayd8 | User talk:Rayd8 00:45, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Im disappointed no one has piped in with how indigenous canadians understand their world - or how the canadian project has dealt with this particular issue if at all - as there have been many oz anthros exposed to the issues of land rights and trad lands there and so on..SatuSuro 09:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Telectronics again

There is an editor who has been pushing his point of view on a series of related articles for slightly more than a year now. The latest skirmish is at Talk:Nucleus Limited where he has personally requested that I reveal "my identity and agenda" and questioned whether I was working for particular interests. I am not and have said so there. However, it is obviously time to bow out and let other editors take over. I came upon the series of articles following a request at this noticeboard last December. I have done my best but really am obviously not effective any more. Articles affected include Telectronics (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) Noel Gray (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) Nucleus Limited (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs). The firms and its principals are notable and have contributed to worldwide medical technology. They deserve better.--Golden Wattle talk 22:04, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Lists of people

There's a discussion above about a deleted article called "List of Australians". If that interested you, maybe you're interested in the discussion I just started at talk:Lists of Australians. Many of those lists need deletion or major work. --Scott Davis Talk 06:36, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Railpage Australia

Is anybody watching the edit war? SatuSuro 12:37, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Railway station article naming convention

There seems to be an undocumented naming convention where railway stations in Australia are named either xxx, City or xxx, State. Is there a reason for this disambiguation? Further, the xxx, City names are slightly misleading as they are often in the metropolitan area and often on the far outskirts of the city. I would guess that 99% of the articles under Category:Railway stations in Australia do not need to be disambiguated. Any thoughts? —Moondyne 12:45, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I guess the ", City" disambiguation appeared because it indicates that the station is in the metropolitan railway system of that city. As such, I don't think it is an unhelpful situation. I think a lot more than 1% of the articles need some sort of disambiguation. How many have a twin somewhere in the UK? JPD (talk) 11:48, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
It was done in response to the suburb naming conventions and has just been adopted that way. As far as I know there won't ever be any duplication issues under this system (except the to-be-opened Esplanade railway station, Perth has a closed duplicate in Perth on the Fremantle Line that was open for the America's Cup); about 99% of stations in Australia have been named this way (with the exceptions the iconic ones like Flinders Street Station and Southern Cross Station), and as per JPD above, it avoids duplications with UK stations, of which there would be quite a few, since a lot of Australian suburbs are named after places in England. I think it's fine that we keep it this way, so long as we are consistent. JROBBO 01:10, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
The xxx, City conventions refer to city and interurban stations. As Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney all have clearly defined interurban and city systems, this isn't a problem. JROBBO 01:11, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

TFA

For those of you (like me) that never look at the Main page, today's TFA is Banksia integrifolia. Hesperian 00:21, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Well done!--Melburnian 07:47, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Billy Thorpe

Sadly, British-born Australian rocker Billy Thorpe died early this morning (28 Feb) of a cardiac arrest in Sydney. The article on him is in dire need of a good wikifying: there are virtually no wikilinks, the article is written from too much of a first person/Australian perspective ("By the time Billy arrived on our shores...), and there are no references whatsoever (apart from those about his death). I'll be working on the article over the course of the day, can some AWNBers drop by and help improve the article to a much higher standard? Hope to see you there. --Canley 23:11, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

There will be obituaries in the papers soon for good source info to fix the article up. Nomadtales 02:11, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Cricket stub - 1877-78 Australian cricket season

I am normally an inclusionist - does anybody else think that 1877-78 Australian cricket season is just a tad non notable so far? I appreciate setting up templates but but but ...?--Golden Wattle talk 02:53, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the season is notable, but I also think it wouldn't do a scrap of harm to delete all these substubs, which don't say anything that's not in the title, and don't link anywhere except to each other. Hesperian 03:06, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Comic relief

Want to have your say at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alan Carpenter? Better get in quick! Hesperian 13:41, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Irrigation in Australia is new collaboration

Road transport in Australia was Australian collaboration of the fortnight from 18 February 2007 to 4 March 2007

  • 12 contributors made 49 edits
  • The article increased from 5.3 kb to 14.2 kb - more than twice as long
  • See how it changed. The article did not exist when nominated, so in some sense the entire article is part of the collaboration. Thankyou to all who contributed.

Another new "...in Australia" article this time is Irrigation in Australia, also created during its nomination period. Please help to develop it further. --Scott Davis Talk 13:07, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Anyone live in Western Sydney?

This should be for the WikiProject Sydney page, but since no one reads it I'll post this here. The North-West T-way is opening on Saturday, and it would be great to get some photos of the Transitway - it's free to travel on it on Saturday too. We are lacking in photos of both Sydney's transitways. Anyone up for it? JRG 01:07, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia an ABC top story

ABC News Online is currently running an article titled "Best Wikipedia pages edited over and over" as a top story. Interesting study, but I don't think it's very accurate.--cj | talk 10:41, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps .... reading through the study the statistics seem to work and the conclusions are valid based on the data analysis shown, although I'm concerned that there is no discussion of other possible rationales. - Peripitus (Talk) 11:20, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not so comfortable with the conclusions, particularly because their indicator of article quality is simply whether or not it has featured status. However valid an indicator that is, it is surely problematic when trying to demonstrate a correlation between quality and number of edits/editors. The article does acknowledge that the causality in both directions between quality and number of edits is relevant, I don't see how they have dealt with the fact that the articles they accept as high quality have necessarily received more edits simply through their exposure to the FA process. JPD (talk) 12:34, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
It also doesnt indicate what edits it considers, for many FA's the number of edits double just by spending a day on the main page, most of these are unproductive or they're reverts. Gnangarra 12:48, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
The actual article referred to in the ABC story [5] does say that they discount edits made while the article is on the main page, as well as bot edits. JPD (talk) 12:55, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to the original research. A blog entry which has also done some research on how articles are written and by whom is at: Swartz, Aaron (2006). Who Writes Wikipedia?. Raw Thought, a blog by Aaron Swartz. Retrieved on 2007-03-07. I found it interesting anyway. There is also a survey being conducted on the motivation of editors ... what motivates strangers from around the globe to collaborate and contribute to a public good like Wikipedia. Why would people come forward and donate their time, effort and knowledge? - see User:WikiInquirer and User:WikiInquirer/WikiStudy. --Golden Wattle talk 21:13, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Brian Burke scandal

I think this scandal is growing to the point where it warrants its own article, considering that it has now forced the resignations of six politicians from both major parties, may well claim several more, and could be seen to have ongoing political ramifications for a while. Does anyone have any suggestions for an article title? I'm not quite sure of what to call it. Rebecca 00:41, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it warrants coverage, but I also believe that we should wait a month or two until it's "over" in order to write it well. All too often Wikipedia is in haste to add content on events that fluctuate quickly, which can lead to pov-slants. michael talk 06:50, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure it'll be over for quite a while with the way the hearings are proceeding in WA. There's some precedent for starting an article while scandals are ongoing (c.f. the Sponsorship Scandal in Canada), and I think it's most relevant to create it now. In any case, I'm happy to write the article myself if someone can come up with a name, and I'm happy to have people checking it over for NPOV in case any sort of bias slips in. Rebecca 10:28, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
It certainly warrants coverage, but I think it would be succumbing to hype to create a specific article. There's no reason it can't be contained within the articles on Kevin Rudd, Ian Campbell and perhaps Australian federal election, 2007, but principally Brian Burke.--cj | talk 06:58, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't think the federal dimensions are anything close to notable, just this week's media hype, but the enormity of the scandal in Western Australia does. It's forced the resignation of three ministers ((Norm Marlborough, Tony McRae, John Bowler), two of whose careers - Marlborough and Bowler - appear to be over, one shadow minister (Anthony Fels), and there has been reported links to two more Labor backbenchers (Ben Wyatt and Shelley Archer) and the deputy leader of the state Liberal Party, Troy Buswell. It's become such a large scandal in its own right that it warrants an article to tie everything together. I'm happy to write it if someone can come up with a title. Rebecca 10:28, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Out of curiosity, where have the links been drawn to Ben Wyatt? He is in the wrong faction to be involved, that's why I'm curious (he's more a New Right type of the Mactiernan/Roberts cut). Orderinchaos78 11:45, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
[6] [7] Not quite in the league of the others, but he's been drawn in to the scandal nonetheless. Rebecca 11:48, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Wow! Thanks for that. Orderinchaos78 12:50, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm kind of wondering myself. It may seem fine to add it to the relevant articles, but there is an absolute tonne of things you'd want to cover - enough to make a fairly long article (all from a quick google search, I'm sure I'd find many, many more if I had a half hour for it) Is it really possible to sum it all up in sections of relevant pages? I think a new article would be best here. --Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 07:23, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
It is a bit odd to be here - he's one of ours - the WA Project talk page would be just as interested ! ta, in case anyone has forgotten the project exists. SatuSuro 10:39, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
It's a challenge - one would need to cover his years in power as a starting point, and his ridiculously high opinion ratings during most of his time in office. At federal level everyone will have forgotten this in a month - Burke really is a non entity outside WA, and is larger than life here. The scandal's really been gathering momentum since 2005. Boundary issues are also a problem - contrary to media reports it's actually three WA ministers - the first one (D'Orazio) was more generally related to CCC business and less to Burke. Had more connection with the Spagnolo affair in City of Stirling (Stirling, Wanneroo and Joondalup are all up to their eyeballs in this). I would say at this point until we can untangle what is where (it really is a web of intrigue) and write a decent article on Corruption in Western Australia or such like, we should probably defer. Orderinchaos78 11:10, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't see any great need to tie it into either broader corruption in Western Australia or to the previous Burke/WA Inc scandals, except in the context of a background section, since they're not directly relevant here. It's for that reason that I also ignored D'Orazio above - that's a separate scandal altogether, and one that belongs in his article alone. The Burke-Grill-Crichton-Browne scandal, on the other hand, is not that hard to untangle, but it is big enough and complex enough that I think it really does warrant an article of its own. Rebecca 11:26, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
"Brian Burke!? Brian who? - Paul Keating (today). - Fred 13:10, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Also describing the PM as "all tip, no iceberg" and the "Desiccated coconut". A very funny interview. —Moondyne 13:48, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps expand Corruption and Crime Commission with some redirects, and that way you can include the D'Orazio affair also. —Moondyne 13:44, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I think that would be a strange place to put this content. We need an article on the commission, its powers, its history, etc - not a bunch of content on one specific scandal which was thrown there to avoid creating a separate article. Rebecca 23:31, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
It was Costello as "all tip, no iceberg" - just brilliant - one forgets how clever he was - it shows the others up dreadfully. This Burke scandal is however surely a storm in a teacup - notable only for newsprint column lengths / newstime devoted to it. Would it really pass the Wikipedia notability test, especially if you said current events belong in Wikinews - will this be notable a year from now? The challenge is surely to reference it in the Burke article, or the Corruption and Crime article as suggested by Moondyne, very briefly with links from the relevant bits of the articles on the various ministers sacked or resigned to that section only. Don't dignify the whole thing with an article. I am not trying to censor so much as try to have some perspective on notability.--Golden Wattle talk 20:33, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Now I remember why we tried to secede. :-) Rest assured this is a very, very, very big deal in Western Australia. Bigger than some silly imploding hospital, for example; probably almost on a par with your 2003 bushfires. Hesperian 23:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
My "silly imploding hospital" comment was grossly insensitive; apologies for any offense. Hesperian 14:00, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
I really don't understand the reluctance to have a specific article, or why people keep focusing on the laughable attempts by Howard to take this federal instead of the major state-level scandal. This affects about ten different people at this stage - surely it makes sense to put it all in one place rather than piecemeal coverage all over the place. How does doing this "dignify" the scandal in any way? Rebecca 23:31, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree, Rebecca, but scoping it would be tough, and what should it be called? The CCC investigation isn't specifically about Burke. It started in November '05 as an investigation into the Busselton Council's handling of a land development at Smiths Beach, and gradually expanded into an investigation into government dealings with lobbyists in general. Hesperian 00:00, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Brian Burke backlash? Brian Burke redux? Brian Burke boomerang? 2007 Brian Burke retroaction? 2007 Election year silliness? 2007 Brian Burke repercussions? 2007 Brian Burke fallout? scandal, controversy, analysis, insert your favourite noun here. If someone just picks one, and we start it, we can worry about moving it a hundred times later. :) --pfctdayelise (talk) 01:05, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
As an amusing diversion (some would say byproduct?), a Liberal of the NCB camp has just been elevated to Federal cabinet, while three in southside Brisbane have had their offices raided. Orderinchaos78 03:56, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
"Burke's Backyard"! For me, I didn't mean to imply I was arguing for it not to have a its own article, just suggesting an alternative. Its well worthy of its own. Go for it Bec. —Moondyne 04:04, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Brian Burke political lobbying scandal. —Moondyne 04:07, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
In regards to Brian_Burke I have sub headed the CCC impact and only put in minor facts and cleaned up the referencing hopefully before anyone goes into great spiels in the article, so that'll help everyone stick to just the facts as they relate to Brian_Burke only and not digress. PS didn't know anyone was discussing it till I show something on my watch list. Regards petedavo 08:05, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Would anyone have any objections if I followed Moondyne's suggestion and created Brian Burke political lobbying scandal? (Or preferably if someone else did, because I'm turning 21 this week and very busy, but I can do it next week if no one else does.) Rebecca 09:01, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Thinking about this, I wonder whether its one of those events that really should be allowed to run its course, let the dust settle then look at the fallout. My reasoning is two fold, the first being sources currently the article would be written purely from the News media and "whats going to sell today" POV. The second being that the underlying issues/results haven't really surfaced yet nor will they during the next six months. Most of the important encyclopedic/historical information wont come until after the commissions findings and after the political grandstanding for both the federal and state elections has been extinguished. Certainly the individuals who have been named should have their articles updated with the events as they occur, even some who may have not previously warranted an article will need one. Just remember to tread lightly and refresh yourselves on WP:NPOV, WP:RS which is being replaced by WP:ATT and especially WP:BLP. This leaves three Questions: Gnangarra 15:53, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
  1. Can an article with the current available information comply with WP:NPOV and WP:BLP
  2. Will currently available sources stand up to WP:RS and its replacement WP:ATT
  3. Will this be an article or a collection news pieces
I think all of those are pretty much a given yes. There's a ton of reliable information out there, so sources are hardly an issue, and it's hardly difficult to extract the core facts from occasionally sensationalist articles. Rebecca 00:17, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Easy for you to say - you don't have to read The Worst. ;-) Hesperian 00:26, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
There's an interesting article in the links between that paper's editor and Brian Burke, surely... Orderinchaos78 09:08, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Today's Crikey draws some lines between Armstrong and Burke. Hesperian 10:21, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
All of this is interesting, but are there any major objections to my actually writing an article on this? Rebecca 05:40, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
  • No objections per se, I think there are other things more notable but there are plenty less notable articles. I hope this won't be significant a year from now (how boring but perhaps a boring life is what we hope for) but on the other hand Brian Burke has been around for a while. If you think it is worth breaking out from the Brian Burke article, go for it.--Golden Wattle talk 09:39, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
It ought to be possible to wrtite a bigger article than Printgate.--Grahamec 04:20, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Of the year

If anyone is looking for a listy project; we could use lists of the state/territorian of the year, so far we only have Victorian of the Year. --Peta 03:27, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I think Victoria is one of the only states that has its own award like this. The other states just have their state Australian of the Year award winner. JRG 12:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Isn't the Victorian one the Victorian Australian of the Year award as well? JPD (talk) 13:07, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

South Australia and Tasmania have such awards seemingly separate from the Australian of the year awards. WA seems to have one (as well as Young West Australian of the Year) but I can't easily find a link to the awards page, and also probably the other states - Peripitus (Talk) 01:04, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Reminder of item 2 Above

Talk:Lists of Australians - for anyone who might have missed it - the process is underway and the disctinctions between the use (or abuse) of lists vs categories is currently seeing lists being lined up - well worth the visit if you are unsure of which lists are being targetted. SatuSuro 01:31, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Article in The Age

Fast facts found online has an article on wikipedia which includes talking with four Aussie wikipedians. It's not a bad approach, as it avoids the article being the same boilerplate content.

Does the term "fast facts" sound a bit like "fast food"?

Wikipedia doesn't have a "mutual point of view" policy, it's a neutral point of view policy. It's an interesting substitution (the two words sound similar), but it suggests the journalist was just believing whatever was being said. Why didn't we tell him we all have PhDs in theology? Andjam 05:45, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


The lead under the image states Much of Wikipedia's appeal lies in the way it creates a community. It doesn't go onto expand on this point much in the article. While two of the four editors mentioned in the article met in real life ... I doubt whether they or anyone else would say that the appeal is about community - perhaps I am wrong. Although it avoided boilerplate content, I thought the article was pretty near useless and lacked interest. I also query its demographic assertions - what source is there that Anecdotal evidence suggests that those who contribute to the site are generally in their late 20s or 30s, have degrees and are mostly male (about 80 per cent by one estimation).? Perhaps it is the areas of the wikipedia that I contribute but from what I do know of my fellow wikipedians, I query the 80% and the narrow age limits. Perhaps the survey user: WikiInquirer is conducting at present on the motivation of editors ... what motivates strangers from around the globe to collaborate and contribute to a public good like Wikipedia. Why would people come forward and donate their time, effort and knowledge? will give us more insights. For more information on tthat survey and his methodology see User:WikiInquirer and User:WikiInquirer/WikiStudy. While his sample selection sounds good, it wil of course be only as good as the responses he gets. If everyone has PhDs in Theology ... or Peter Steiner (1993). On the Internet, Nobody Knows You're a Dog (cartoon). New Yorker, p.61, July 5, 1993. reproduced by the University of North Carolina (JOMC 50/EIS Research Initative). Retrieved on 2007-03-10. ... :-( Golden Wattle talk 21:07, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
I think that when someone writes an article on a subject which you are more familiar with than they are, it is always going to appear somewhat unsatisfactory. Having said that, I think that the article was quite a good overview of Wikipdedia in terms of introducing it to the public at large. A number of Australian Wikipedians were interviewed who made contact with the author through an email address placed on this noticeboard. I agree, however, that the "anecdotal evidence" about contributors is questionable, I too doubt its veracity. By the way, the line Much of Wikipedia's appeal lies in the way it creates a community is a quote from User:Angela rather than the author's assertion although its placement in the caption (of the online version) makes it appear so.--Melburnian 00:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Mark Textor

The Mark Textor article is a disgrace. It was written by Market maven (talk · contribs) (who also contributed to the related Lynton Crosby) and would seem to breach Wikipedia:Autobiography. It is self-serving and fails to mention any controversy of which there are plenty - that we allow such non-neutral articles is very embarrassing. I have put some links on the talk page. If anybody wants to take it up I would be very pleased. I will get to it at some stage but can't right now --Golden Wattle talk 22:52, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Note also the contributions of 165.228.99.187 (talk · contribs) - possibly related given the scope of the articles. Promotion of the firm in a favourable light seems to be the agenda, eg [8], [9] and [10].--Golden Wattle talk 23:01, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure the article could do with some improvement, but I'm actually glad that he hasn't touched on the controversies, as it may be better to have no content on the controversies than biased content. Market maven seems to have prioritised boring overview stuff instead of controversy, whereas many wikipedians thrive on controversy. Andjam 03:49, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I read it as an advert. I note also that a mention of Lynton Crosby was modified to reduce the controversial aspects by using weasel words, possibly justifiably but I really wonder. My concern is the breach of Wikipedia:Autobiography, the promotion in the John Howard article ... and the controversies if you read the links I have provided on the talk page are many. Biassed content would not be created if the first principles of wikipedia:autobiography had been observed - don't edit articles about yourself.--Golden Wattle talk 03:55, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
When making negative statements about a person in article space, it's probably a good idea to use inline citations rather than just listing references at the end of an article. With regards to "[reducing] the controversial aspects by using weasel words", are you referring to this edit? It has weasel words sure, but I don't exactly see it as reducing controversy. Andjam 22:15, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I bleieve all my edits to the Mark Textor article are supported by inline citations - see diff.--Golden Wattle talk 02:36, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
My apologies - I was looking at the Lynton Crosby article, and you weren't responsible for the negative accusations there. Andjam 03:00, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Infobox vote

A proposal on including cadastral units in the Australian place infobox? Vote here --Astrokey44 12:10, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Boatsheds - are they an Aussie Icon?

Having grown up with boatsheds here on Port Phillip Bay, I was surprised not to find an article on the subject when I first went looking. This led me to wonder whether they are peculiarly Australian, or whether they're known by another name in other countries. I've since created a small article, complete with a nice photo taken by yours truly, but it could do with some expanding. Any ideas? Ian Fieggen 06:44, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I've never seen anything of the sort anywhere in Queensland (so much so that on my last visit to Victoria I gawked like an idiot tourist at the ones you have down there). Lankiveil 07:07, 17 March 2007 (UTC).
They look like the classic English beach huts that now change hand for tens of thousands of pounds. I suspect beach boat sheds are prevalent wherever you'd want to take a boat on the water, which excludes the English channel or North Sea. --Steve (Slf67) talk 07:37, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, the beach huts (aka "bathing boxes") are very similar, though much smaller and minus the boat launching ramp, as they were generally only intended for people, not boats. According to my 76yo father, Port Phillip Bay had them also, and recalls one burning down on Edithvale beach. I haven't seen any bathing boxes for years - are there still any? Ian Fieggen 23:37, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Both Indented Head and Avalon Beach are known for having plenty of boat sheds. There's some pictured in the former article. -- Longhair\talk 23:40, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
I didn't mean boatsheds, I meant bathing boxes - are there still any? I don't know of any around my neck of the woods (Port Phillip Bay). Ian Fieggen 00:37, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Hey Ian, there are still some around Port Phillip Bay and they're generally expensive to buy. It is not that unusual to hear of one being vandalised or burned down, as your father recalls. They seem to be easy targets for vandals. There was one at Dromana that was set fire to a couple of years ago. Sarah 04:43, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Quite a few at Dromana when I was there in 2003. Scattering of them at locations up the east side of the bay at places like Sandringham. Orderinchaos78 14:03, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

new collaboration of the fortnight is relations with the United Nations

Irrigation in Australia was Australian Collaboration of the fortnight from 4 March 2007 to 18 March 2007

The new collaboration is an entirely new article named Australia and the United Nations which was nominated recently but rapidly collected the necessary support. Please help to make it a valuable contribution to Wikipedia. --Scott Davis Talk 12:15, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

independent review needed

Could somebody please review and remark on recent history of articles such as Solar updraft tower and EnviroMission? It appears that some of the references have been replaced by blog entries (maybe a highly respected and reliable blog, I don't know). Around June-July last year these articles received a lot of attention, culminating in Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-07-12 Solar Updraft Tower but eventually the main editors found something better to do. The accusations at the time were biased POV and original research. User talk:ScottDavis#JdH response to /Archive 7#solar tower. As I was accused of inserting EnviroMission propaganda against Wikipedia policy last time, I'd prefer someone else to have a look instead. Thanks. --Scott Davis Talk 13:29, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Solar updraft tower looks ok at the moment... not a bad article at all with all of the references appearing reliable and no dodgy external links I can see. As for EnviroMission I've removed the two blog links as the author only has 1 news hit and so is probably not a recognised authority. Treehugger.com certainly seems to be an acceptable link though and all of the other links are now to news sources, government or the companies website. - Peripitus (Talk) 03:51, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. Did the removal of some of the text and references by JdH on March 10 also look reasonable? The article used to be longer, and I don't believe that editor is neutral, however he does appear to be knowledgeable in the field. --Scott Davis Talk 10:55, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Looking through a random 50 edits - he seems clearly knowledgeable but I can't really pick the neutrality. In regards to the March 10 removals.#1 - removing a link to what is close to a press release and is not referenced in the article looks ok. #2 seems to be removing some crystalballism and promotional or it could be content removal - my ignorance on the subject lets me down here. All up the article could not be much longer without effectively re-reporting what the company has told news outlets and they've slavishly printed. Until they build the thing it's just another listed startup- Peripitus (Talk) 11:42, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
OK - thanks. Perhaps I was showing a bias. The previous version showed the five-year history of "it will be built in two years" stuff. Maybe that belongs somewhere, but not Wikipedia. --Scott Davis Talk 12:03, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Are you referring to Rohar1? Rohar1 identifies himself as Robert J. Rohatensky, see http://www.shpegs.org/index.html and SHPEGS. I think he is knowledgeable, but in view of the fact that he is promoting a "competing" project I do have some concerns wrt neutrality. JdH 08:47, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Map request

Is anyone aware of a map like this one http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Australia.png , except:

  • SVG format
  • Accurate state borders
  • includes New Zealand

?

I'd like to re-do this one, except use text labels so that it can easily be used for other sports which have a NZ team(s) in their league such as rugby league, basketball, and netball. (An Australia-only version would be good for Aussie rules and rugby union as well).

(Note I didn't include a thumb of the first map here, as it is located at commons and a duplicate named image is on en.wikipedia.org) -- Chuq 05:30, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Update: I'm going to use this one in the meantime but an SVG version with state borders would be better! -- Chuq 23:31, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Why would you want to include New Zealand anyway :-) DXRAW 10:58, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Because most major Australian sports leagues have a NZ team in them :P Oh and by the way, I have put one of these maps live at A-League#Clubs. -- Chuq 11:05, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


It would be great if you could combine them with text labels, as on User:Zondor/Labelled Map Documentation. Also an inset for Melbourne might be a good idea for the AFL one --Astrokey44 01:05, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
See updated example from A-League shown at right. I"m not really sure about the AFL ones as I didn't think there was much geographical significance to the Melbourne teams? -- Chuq 05:50, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Looks great! Maybe it should go in a template so that you dont have to put all the code on the article itself. AFL team rivalries talks about neighbouring teams so there is some significance.--Astrokey44 08:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Afds on this page

Can whoever removes every AfD as soon as they are completed please not do so - Australian AfDs should be left up for a day or so on this page so that people can see the outcome of each discussion. They're being removed immediately and it becomes hard to track what's been happening where. JRG 06:44, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

You can always look to the page history. The list would become unwieldy if we didn't limit it to current debates.--cj | talk 06:55, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Exactly. That list is for people to be able to access current debates which are open. If you want to view closed ones, use the log. Daniel Bryant 13:45, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
I didn't say that we should keep every closed debate - I asked that they not be removed straightaway. A 24 hour gap is not unreasonable. JRG 05:01, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Why not add AfD's of interest to your watchlist? -- Longhair\talk 08:35, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Because AfDs open and close all the time - it's too much work - leaving them on there even for 24 hours allows me and others to see the outcome of the debate without forgetting what was there beforehand. JRG 13:34, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Jimbo on Australia Talks

If you're interested, you can get a podcast of Jimbo talking on Radio National's Australia Talks here. Hesperian 06:51, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Good interview, with the founder debate ("the founder, not the co-founder!" says Jimmy), Brandt, Essjay, Bomis and even Peter Hollingworth popping up.--cj | talk 08:08, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
How awesome is the ten year old? hehe :) --pfctdayelise (talk) 11:42, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I liked the Peter Hollingworth bit... he complained that Wikipedia accurately copied things from newspapers where the original news article's facts were wrong. Sort of a nice back-handed compliment - Peripitus (Talk) 11:47, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
And I totally agree with the guy at 22:15. (newspapers are hardly infallible.) --pfctdayelise (talk) 11:58, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Any idea who the "RAF hero killed by communists in Malaysia" was? One of the callers (Gordon from New Norfolk) seemed a bit miffed that he wasn't the subject of a Wikipedia article. I'd be happy to start one, but the name of the fellow in question was not mentioned. --Canley 12:47, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

If this is too stream-of-consciousness, please refractor it here:

  • The co-founder/founder thing seemed to be wikiality applying to radio - Jimbo says that he was the founder, and the interviewer accepts it as truth. A casual listener might assume that the interviewer didn't do his homework. I was similarly unimpressed with his response to the porn question. Yes, it wasn't porn, but it wasn't totally made up. If he mentions briefly the real story, then it would reveal how misinformation spreads. The person asking was apparently from Southern Cross University - maybe the people from the uni wanted to believe that wikipedia was associated with porn. (Is Southern Cross Uni a religious university?) Actually, I'm glad wikipedia got funding from a company like Bomis. It's encyclopedias that receive funding from the Tides Center that I worry about.
  • The question about porn sites using wikipedia content to trick search engines was an interesting way to get away from the porn question. I suspect that it's only a matter of time before email spammers use wikipedia content to try to convince filters that they are legitimate emails.
  • The radio interviewer said "Is wikipedia the democratisation of knowledge, or [something bad]?" The unspoken assumption is that democratisation of knowledge is unquestionably good. Democracy is good, but it's not enough on its own.
  • I was shocked, shocked, that someone from Byron Bay was not a fan of Bush or Howard. He suggested Britannica had a pro-American bias, and suggested that you question everything. That's all well and good, but a totally nihilistic approach is useless.
  • The session implied that only admins fight vandalism.
  • Hollingworth's point about misinformation being spread raises an interesting point. We assume that if a claim is made in several different sources, it must be true. At least wikipedia cites its sources. I wish that everyone who claimed that Bush posed with a plastic turkey did the same.
  • Jimbo's comment that wikipedia has the same legal status as a message board. While very convenient, it's somewhat unsatisfactory. In message boards, you sign what you write, whereas with wikipedia articles, it says "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". A blog post with the title Is it a floor wax, or a dessert topping? is a pithy summary of another organisation trying to have it both ways. I also hope that if a libel case that was a SLAPP was made against an editor, that wikipedia would support the targetted editor.

Andjam 03:40, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Category List of rage guest programmers

Has been put up as a category for deletion. but I want some input from Aussies. link —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Farsouth (talk • contribs) 03:23, 27 March 2007 (UTC).

I've added it to the Candidates for Deletion box above. --Canley 03:43, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

David Hicks and a new article

I have started a discussion about moving a bulk of text from the David Hicks page into a new page possibly called somthing like The trial of David Hicks or The detention and trial of David Hicks. The Hicks article is currently way too long and mostly is dealing with trial, including things like Major Mori possibly being charged for comments, and the validity of the proceedings, etc. Anyone want to add their thoughts. Or help with a new name (or do the shifting for me ;) ). Nomadtales 05:28, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Is a separate article necessary? I didn't think David Hicks was really notable outside of the trial (and associated charges, or lack of them at one stage!) -- Chuq 05:35, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
No he is not really notable outside of being an idiot caught with a rocket launcher in Afghanistan, but a lot of the Hicks article is dealing with stuff, like I said, to do with the trial itself and surrounding issues like the Major Mori possibly being charged for his comments and a Human Rights worker questioning the validity of the case. This is outside the scope of an article to do with just Hicks himself. Nomadtales 05:42, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
In that case, I'd probably suggest one of the titles above, without the initial "The". If you can think of a single word that refers to the detention and trial, then used that. "Trial of David Hicks" is probably good, but wouldn't cover the last few years. "Legal issues of David Hicks" or "Detainment of David Hicks"? -- Chuq 06:15, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Yeah it is a tricky one to get the correct title. I like Detainment. Also the new article could cover things like public opinion shifting in Australia and the political campaigns waged by his father Terry and the GetUp organisation. Nomadtales 07:02, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
You mean photographed with a rocket launcher in Kosovo. --bainer (talk) 04:42, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that if the current content was tightened up (what is "Human Rights workers claim Hicks's charge violates treaties and Australian law" and "Punishment" for example really doing there?) then there really would be no need for an additional article. --Peta 04:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there needs to be a separate article, and as Peta suggests, the current article could be trimmed a bit, such as the entire list of allegations against Hicks. --Canley 22:01, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Notability - Australian rules football leagues, clubs and players

For editors interested in Australian football (the AFL kind), I have drawn up some draft notability guidelines (suggestions?) for leagues, clubs and players that can be found here - User:Mattinbgn/Sandbox - Notability Australian football leagues and clubs If these guidelines or an amended version thereof was gain some level of consensus it would provide some much needed guidance to editors about what article subjects are likely to be seen as notable and hopefully head off a number of WP:AfD debates. To keep all debate in the one location I would ask that comments be kept in the talk page of the draft guideline. All comments and suggestions and changes would be gratefully received.

I am unaware of any sort of formal process for setting out guidelines, so if I am in breach of some policy by starting here, please let me know.--Mattinbgn/ talk 09:43, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Good move. No doubt the self-proclaimed WP policy police will come after you citing "instruction creep, instruction creep" and try to merge it into some other policy where it doesn't fit, but what you're doing is a helpful start anyway. You might like to put it into a proposal for notability at some later stage, or turn it into a notability essay. JRG 10:49, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Sydney Harbour Ferry Crash

Can editors please keep a watch on articles to do with the recent ferry crash on Sydney Harbour - at least three articles have been created on the crash, including a separate one on the crash (now merged to Sydney Ferries), and two on two of the victims, one of whom is notable as a Australian champion figure skater, the other (Morgan Innes who is not and I have put on AfD. Creating so many articles is unnecessary. JRG 09:44, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Dude, where's my country?

Citizendium launched yesterday. It currently does not have an article on Australia. I know that you can't produce everything at once, but even conservapedia has a half decent article! 12:18, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I love the way that Conservapædia is all backwards about what "liberal" means. It's my favourite parody website! To get back on topic, I don't have more letters after my name than in it, so I doubt that Citizendium wants me. Lankiveil 12:31, 27 March 2007 (UTC).
I notice the only state that Conservapedia has an article for is Tasmania, and I spotted five glaring errors, (major problems, not just minor inaccuracies!) -- Chuq 03:31, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
It also lacks a map of the state. Andjam 03:34, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Australia now has an article at Citizendium. It uses some weasel words about aborigines, and picks out the two most controversial (least popular?) post-WW2 wars but doesn't mention other deployments such as East Timor. Andjam 03:34, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[Aborigines] remained primitive up until the British arrived - do we say that?? Oh, and not even a MENTION of Federation! ... --pfctdayelise (talk) 12:39, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Possible abuse of Wikipedia trademark

I don't pretend to understand trademark law, but in this month's issue of cleo <http://cleo.ninemsn.com.au/cleo/> there is a section called "cleo's guy wikipedia" or something to that effect. Basically it is a bunch of articles along the lines of "if a guy says X he really means Y". Anyways, it has nothing at all to do with wikipedia except for the use of our name.

I tried posting this to foundation-l but it bounced 3 times. The bellman 02:39, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

If the word was used in a tongue-in-cheek way, I'm not sure a trademark claim would have much traction. But I'm not a lawyer. Andjam 03:28, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Sounds weird, it doesn't sound like they are parodying Wikipedia, it doesn't sound like they even doing anything Wikipedia-like (such as requesting additions and changes to the content) - it doesn't really make much sense. They just threw the word 'Wikipedia' in there because people have heard of it. -- Chuq 05:13, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Yeah they were using it as a (possibly hipper) synonym to encyclopedia. Isn't there something about if you let ppl use your brand as a generic word you lose your ability to stop ppl from using it as a generic word in the future? Where is the appropriate place to ask/tell ppl who know/care? As i said i tried to post to foundation-l but failed. The bellman 09:20, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
WP:AN would be a good place to start, get advise of where to go next. Gnangarra 10:00, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Apparently, the foundation has a trademarks committee. You might try contacting Jean-Baptiste Soufron, who is one of the members. There is also juriwiki-l, but if you can't post to foundation-l, chances are you can't reach juriwiki-l either. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 11:57, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Jimbo interview

G'day guys, this is just to let you know that Jimbo Wales was interviewed by Ellen Fanning on Sunday this morning. Click on the following link to see the video - [11]. Cheers -- Ianblair23 (talk) 11:42, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow. requiring Internet Explorer: lame.
playing an ad before the video: lame.
overall, pretty boring. Siegenthaler, yawn.
Jimmy lied, he didn't edit her talk page at all! :) --pfctdayelise (talk) 12:36, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
Ack. That's the first time I've watched a Sunday segment in more than a year. How disappointing.--cj | talk 13:54, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
He's in Australia? Any chance we can meet up with him? enochlau (talk) 14:45, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
He's not in Australia yet. He will be from 23 April for a seminar series, which you could attend for the small fee of $300(!). Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne have already arranged to meet him for breakfast when he's in their respective cities. Sydney could possibly arrange one on 26 April. --cj | talk 15:00, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
Sounds like a plan, although Sydney people have been a little disorganised of late in terms of meeting up... :( enochlau (talk) 15:52, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Cricket in Australia

The newly selected WP:ACOTF is another new article: Cricket in Australia. Please help to make it worthy. --Scott Davis Talk 13:40, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh yeah - the last collaboration was Australia and the United Nations which grew from nothing at the start of the collaboration, thanks to about ten editors. Thankyou to all who helped. --Scott Davis Talk 13:52, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Melanesia

FYI WikiProject Melanesia has been started (it has been for a little while) and it needs a bit of help to kick on and get going. So for anyone with an interest in Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu come and join and help out. Nomadtales 03:36, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Anyone live in Darwin?

Does anyone live in Darwin who could take a proper photo of the railway station in Berrimah? JRG 04:52, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Bidgee lives there now I believe - he is a keen (and pretty good photographer) although he sometimes does not respond to messages left on his talk page - he may if you put this request to him. --VS talk 04:58, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Have you tried the people in Category:Wikipedians in the Northern Territory? Sarah 07:43, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

  • I will be in Darwin for a few days later this week and over the weekend. If I get a chance I will try and get a photo. I want to get some photos for Wikimedia Commons from around Palmerston while I am there anyway. Is there anything in particular that you want in the photo (I have never seen it before but assume it is quite large)--Mattinbgn/ talk 09:54, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks to all who have replied; to Sarah - I haven't tried the category, because it wasn't listed under the category - I've since fixed that. To Mattinbgn - what I would like in the photo is:
A good wide shot of the platform, but preferably still in a 4:3 format if possible.
Encompassing any buildings on or next to the platform, if there are any (I've never seen the place, so I'm not sure)
Preferably no trains on the platform at the time
Maybe a sign included so we know it's Darwin station (that's not as important though, as we already have one with a sign and the Ghan, but it doesn't show the rest of the station).

Basically anything like the good platform photos that we have of railway stations around Australia will be fine. Thanks so much for everyone's help. JRG 13:15, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

South Australian general election, 2006

Could a few editors/admins please whack this one on watchlist? We have a user attempting to blank and completely rewrite it without even so much as a talk page notification. As an involved party I obviously can't act on such matters. Orderinchaos 15:57, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Now, now, Orderinchaos, you know that isn't quite true. The article was not blanked, it was rewritten in its entirety. And there was a talk page notification, it just wasn't very long in advance. In response to Orderinchaos's concerns, however, I have laid out the 23 or so things I think need to be fixed in this article, which since it acquired FA status has come to inspire a fair bit of loyalty from its past editors. I have also linked (on the discussion page) to the proposed new version in my user space. Joestella 17:31, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
The discussion has taken place on the talk page where we find that we agree on some things, but disagree on others. However, as stated elsewhere, this edit clearly differs from the above statements. It's not an issue of loyalty, as I have indicated I too want to improve the article (and it would be ever so slightly odd of me to be loyal to a page that I didn't contribute to until its second last week at FAC), but elimination of 3/4 of the article and rewriting it to one user's specification not only is quite intemperate to those who put hundreds of hours into getting it to FA, but also risks its FA status. To say 23 odd things need to be "fixed" is a little disingenuous - about 8 or 9 do need attention, the rest are differing opinions on what an article of this nature should by rights contain. I'm hoping that as the morning begins (given everyone was asleep when this matter came up - I am *still* not sure why this matter was so urgent, although I have my own ideas) and the weekend draws near, we can have some other opinions on the talk page besides ours. Orderinchaos 22:36, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Pacific Sky Airlines Flight 232

Did I miss a news report? —Moondyne 03:36, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  • I missed it too - I have tagged as a hoax --Golden Wattle talk 03:42, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Cricket is excellent, next is Bushranger

Cricket in Australia was collaboration for the last two weeks and has grown from absolutely nothing to 47kb and rated as B-class. Thanks to the 11 contributors who made 238 edits.

The next article to get "the treatment" is Bushranger. The article is presently 4 paragraphs and a long but incomplete list. Please help to improve it. --Scott Davis Talk 12:34, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Just thought I would say thanks to User:Mattinbgn who did a significant amount of the work on Cricket in Australia! -- Chuq (talk) 02:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

QXZ-Ads

Over at Harrison's talk page there is a bit of a discussion about getting some sort of project banner ads done - this was also mentioned at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australia but doesn't seem to have attracted much attention.

Personally, I'm for it, and the only thing hanging is does anyone care what it looks like or not? The place for that discussion is at Harrison's talk page, above.Garrie 00:54, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I support the idea of such ads (as my conversation with Harrison will show) however I too consider that the potential image/images to be used should be placed here for the opportunity of community involvment. Towards that point I wonder if the information at Harrison's talk page should not be posted to here - so that a centralised record and community controlled record of discussion can be kept. I will also post a similar message at his talk page.--VS talk 01:11, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't think anyone will oppose – the ads are for personal use, after all. It might be a good idea to centralise discussion on a potential design here, given AWNB has a wider audience than Harrison's talk page.--cj | talk 02:49, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Hello everybody. I have cut and pasted the discussion from my talk page. Harrison-HB4026 06:52, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Posted discussion from Harrison's talk page follows:

Oh yes, I am a member of the Australian project, but I just realised that I'm still listed under my full name (User:Sarah Ewart). I reckon your idea about the ads is a great idea. I think you should go ahead and ask User:Gurch if he would be willing to include WP:AUS. Sarah 04:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
I noticed your comment to Sarah about making an advert on Qxz (in relation to my suggestion to ask others first) - in my view by asking Sarah you have asked others and if she thinks it is a good idea also then I say you should go for it - don't hold back BE BOLD! PS What's happening with our Judy article?--VS talk 05:36, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Gurch hasn't left (I just checked his account and he's been editing today). I think he's just stopped using the Qxz account. Anyway, I don't think you really need to wait around to get a response from everyone. You aren't changing to project, just finding a great way to advertise it and so I really can't imagine that anyone would have any objections to it. I'd just message Gurch or Aza or whoever is running the ad project now and see if they'd be willing to create an ad for us. The only person I would suggest you should inform directly is User:Longhair, just as a courtesy because he is the one who single-handedly started the WP:AUS project and spent many weeks creating all the pages and templates etc. Sarah 06:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I've seen QXZ-Ads ads in action on various userpages. Any effort to recruit other members is a good thing IMHO. Perhaps it's a good idea to post a notice of your intentions to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australia prior to going ahead to guage how the community as a whole feels and to formally decide on a suitable banner to use for the purpose? -- Longhair\talk 11:01, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm all for them... but please ensure there is some form of discussion in choosing the image used.Garrie 12:20, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
Harrison, I think you should talk to Gurch about what happens now. From what I have seen, when a project asks for an ad, he just goes ahead and makes one up. If members want to discuss images to be used, we should find out from Gurch (or whoever is doing it now) if they are firstly, willing to create an ad and if so, what they need from us and how much input people can have with regard to the images etc. Sarah 14:20, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I am, and all I need is the name of the page you want it to link to. Obviously if you want me to use a specific image or whatever then I'll need a link to that, too – Gurch 19:39, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

As you know I am very supportive of this proposal however I think the record of conversation would be better copied and pasted to here or somewhere else central so that it remains in a more centralised community location for the purpose of promoting general and continuing discussion, lowering the possibility of complaint, and so as to ensure an easily accessible community record.--VS talk 01:16, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Further comments regarding QXZ-Adds

My thoughts on the content.... When there was an attempt to gain interest in Aussies signing up for WWI bands of men would walk into the small towns around the place and call out COOOOOOOO - EE (Cooee). It was a rallying cry - I suggest this could be incorporated into the banner in moving text - along with symbols of Australia (Aussie Flag/Aboriginal Flag/ Kangaroos/ Emus etc) that all Aussies and non-Aussies alike would recongnise. - Just my thougts.--VS talk 07:13, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Good idea. Something flashy and animated should attract some new people :) Harrison-HB4026 07:21, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Is there an info page for these ads someplace? I can't seem to locate it... -- Longhair\talk 07:27, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Never mind, I just found Template:Qxz-ads. -- Longhair\talk 07:28, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
I quite like the Vancouver project ad, which could work for us on a background of the Australian flag.--cj | talk 02:20, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • While looking at other banners, I believe that we should make the background a green and gold colour (or the Aussie flag as CJ suggested), then a kangaroo and a boomarang should appear on each side, they then disappear and then say: "Interested in topics related to Australia?" (fade out) (fade in)"Join Wikiproject Australia!" How does it sound?Harrison-HB4026 03:52, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Well we should conclude this soon Harrison (whatever is chosen can be adjusted again later I'f sure) - I still like the idea of Cooee (and note that an anon editor provides the link to Snowball marches - which is well worth the read and to my mind in terms of recruitment to Project Aus is exactly what we hope to achieve). A Kangaroo, Boomerang, Aussie Flag background are fine - and in terms of not focusing on a single city which the Opera House or similar picture would do - these general images are better for an all over Australia call-up). Words well I'd suggest a 3 stage slide show of:
  1. Cooooo - eeee, Cooee
  2. Interested in topics related to Australia?
  3. Join us at Wikiproject Australia!

--VS talk 01:53, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

    • OK, you've left room for discussion there.
    • For anyone who needs a link, here are all the ads in full size. I like England's option if we are using flags (it's Image:Qxz-ad36.gif).I like Vancouver's use of animated gifs for the text. Do we want a hopping kangaroo leading the text followed by a boomerang, on an animated flag similar to England's (but the Australian flag)?
    • Not meaning any disrespect but I really think Pennsylvania's is a bit boring and I can't see the coat of arms clearly anyway.Garrie 04:11, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Schools discussion again

The nomination at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Albuera Street Primary School has re-raised discussion on the inclusion of schools again. More discussion has taken place at Talk:List of schools in Tasmania and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tasmania. Comparisons to the way school articles are handled in ACT and WA has also be raised, so I have posted here in order to get comments from everyone, as I'm sure the discussion will affect all Australian schools in the end (unlike our education ministers, it would be nice to have a nation-wide standard!) -- Chuq (talk) 07:28, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Hey, you should have joined in Road transport in Australia when the discussion went around in circles on licencing issues... standardiszed road rules, who needs 'em?Garrie 03:55, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

List of Melbourne suburbs

(Posted at WP Melb and here) On Talk:List of Melbourne suburbs someone has correctly observed that a bunch of orphaned lists of Melbourne suburbs have been sitting around for a while. I did some work on them to clean them up and get the size/load down. What's the consensus regarding these? Other such lists appear to exist in userspace. Also note the category they're in has been marked for speedy renaming since 3 April. Orderinchaos 06:22, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Looking at the pages themselves, they should be in Wikipedia space or a WikiProject area. They look like they are designed for finding alternate names for articles and making them into either redirect or disambig pages. -- Chuq (talk) 07:32, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the guidance. Have moved them to WP space - will update talk page. Orderinchaos 14:38, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Indeed they were for making redirects or disambig pages. Essentially the problem with Sydney articles was that sometimes there would be multiple suburb articles (e.g. one at "X South, New South Wales", and one at "South X, New South Wales"). To systematically help prevent duplicate articles, and to make it easier to find things, a big table was created to help add redirects in all the predictable places to one article per suburb. And since it was being done for Sydney, it seemed a good idea to do it for Melbourne, Canberra, Perth, Hobart, etc at the same too. However, because every link to an alternative name is now blue on the two Melbourne tables, the links have all been made, so the lists can either be deleted (as they have fulfilled the purpose for which they were originally intended), or you can keep them (if they are useful for something else) - whichever you prefer. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 05:56, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Flag of Australia - Screen Colors

The Flag of Australia image on Wikimedia has suffered the same dilemma as most flags: How to accurately choose screen colors. Flag colors are normally specified as either Pantone or CMYK colors (for printing), for which the corresponding RGB screen colors are often a "best guess".

After some research, I found that the Australian Government Style Guide specifies RGB colors that should be used when the Australian flag is depicted on web sites. These are different from the ones on the current image (mainly brighter).

In light of this more accurate specification, I've redrawn the flag image to these new RGB specs, as well as implemented some other enhancements to the file. Rather than simply overwrite the current version, I've posted my amended version as "Flag of Australia RGB.svg" (since deleted), complete with accompanying notes on the primary differences between versions.

The question now arises as to whether this version should be adopted as the "standard", and if so, whether I should upload it over the top of the current Flag of Australia.svg. I wouldn't like to breach etiquette, so I'll await confirmation before overwriting Dbenbenn's file.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Ian Fieggen (talk • contribs)

Personally, I think the new version is too bright. I much prefer the other, although I won't lose any sleep if they're switched. Lankiveil 10:46, 16 April 2007 (UTC).
I agree that they seem a little bright. Who knows what thought process went on there when some official selected those colors. Ian Fieggen 01:11, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
This is about accuracy not aesthesics. We should be using the RGB values of the Australian Government Style Guide, irrespective of which one we like best. Hesperian 02:43, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
And brightness or otherwise is usually due to monitor calibration issues, have a look at this this to check. --Steve (Stephen) talk 02:50, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Support. Surely this is not up for debate. If the Australian government specify certain RGB values then we should follow them. —Moondyne 03:22, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
In most cases, we should follow the official RGB values, if they exist. The style guide's values are probably official enough, and since they are not a ridiculously wrong depiction of the "more official" Pantone colours, we may as well use them. JPD (talk) 09:50, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree - the Government style guide should be as good a reference as you get! Mick 10:31, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I had a look at the Australian flag flying outside my building at work today, and to my eyes, a real flag looks more like the old image than the new one. You're never going to get any sort of standard with a computerised image, as screen brightness, contrast, etc, is going to mess with what the image looks like. Lankiveil 13:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC).
Okay, thanks to everyone who responded. It looks as though the consensus is with the official RGB colors, regardless of whether any of us feels that they may look too bright for our liking. This is not about how well the RGB values mimic the dull colors of a real life flag, nor about how the Australian flag colors compare to other British based flag colors, but about how the Australian flag image is supposed to be displayed. I'll therefore upload the amended flag over the original, thus making it the new default Australian flag. Ian Fieggen 00:29, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
Late entry, but regardless of the RGB colours, it now looks horrible, and on the Union Flag page, just looks absolutely strange as it is noticeably different. You'd think that the colours of our flag, hailing from the 'jack, would match wouldn't you? It needs to be changed back. michael talk 11:37, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it isn't just as simple as how "should" Australian flag images should be displayed, as our articles are about the flags themselves, not flag images. I don't think either version is a terrible representation of the colours specified by the Awards and National Symbols Branch, but there is a problem in articles such as Union Flag, where the Pantone 280 blue used in both flags is represented on the screen by different RGB values. However, the colours shouldn't match completely - the British specifications for the UJ and the Australian specifications for our national flag do actually give different shades of red! (Pantone 186 and 185 respectively) JPD (talk) 16:12, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
True, the Australian flag does indeed stand out from those few others shown on the Union Flag page. However, try looking at the far more comprehensive Gallery of flags based on British ensigns, on which there are many more flags with visibly different screen colors. Ian Fieggen 02:02, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
There is consistency when the flag has been created as an .svg. The only deviation is when an image has been uploaded as a .gif or other from an outside source. When the United Kingdom specifications change, we should do the same; until then, it should be left consistent with all the other ensign flags. michael talk 00:38, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps we should fork every flag article into an RGB and non-RGB version? Only kidding! ;) --Steve (Stephen) talk 03:11, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Anzac Naming

Shouldn't Anzac be renamed ANZAC? DXRAW 01:39, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Swapped. Anzac now points to ANZAC rather than the other way around. Orderinchaos 05:40, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Anzac Biscuit is spelt with lowercase. JRG 07:44, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't it be upper as the ANZAC stands for something and not just a random word. DXRAW 08:42, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I only swapped the two named articles (the primary word and the redirector) - there are at least three correct usages of lower case of which I am aware. Orderinchaos 07:57, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Postcode lists

Someone has nominated all the postcode lists for deletion, which really raises the question of where we need to move with them. I agree for both maintenance and WP:NOT reasons that these lists are unencyclopaedic - however, there is a need for an article on postcodes in each state (or at worst, an all-encompassing article covering the postcode system in all states). My proposition is to rewrite Postal codes in Australia, and get enough verifiable information from Australia Post to make a short article which we can use (I think my synthesis at List of postcodes in Western Australia is probably OR, although absolutely correct) Orderinchaos 02:18, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

See that article's talk page for further discussion. Orderinchaos 19:13, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Attn: Persons living just outside of Sydney

If anyone lives outside of Sydney along the main railway lines, I now have a list of photos of the CityRail network stations with and without photos. Any help (even one photo) would be immensely helpful. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Sydney/Railway stations/Photos and scroll to the Intercity section. We're especially in need of photos in the Lower Blue Mountains, and the Shoalhaven/Illawarra area. JRG 08:35, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Map Request

Would anyone like to redraw this image? Someone's nominated it for deletion (despite me uploading it before the replaceable fair use provisions came in), and there appears to be no way that I can keep it on WP while someone has a go at redrawing it, which doesn't seem right. Can anyone help? JRG 04:52, 26 April 2007 (UTC)