Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 26

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Archive 26

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Australian project

I would suggest that following reading some atrociously out of whack press reports prior to Jimbo's visit - and the fun and games that straight and not so straight commerical media can play with Jim - that the Australian project find ways of developing an Australain project version of Wikipedia:Press Kit and a local variety/species of User:David Gerard (and ex-Perthite anyways  :) ) - because of the general diffuse means by which dumbo journalists can play with us and not get an answer from the Australian project. It is obvious that some journalists think we are fair game - I am not worried about chaser so much as the alledgedly commercially employed persons claiming to be journos.

I strongly believe the Australian project credibility would gain from either having dedicated spokespersons in each state or at least one for the Australian project - as to how they are nominated or function is for this noticebaord to resolve.

I also believe we should have a sub page of this project page for the collection of 'media monitoring' re both WP Australia and Jimmy while he is in Australia - otherwise the ad hoc nature of the collection seems even more ad hoc!

I was impressed by the Australian Higher education section on Wednesday -it actually had the more balanced and reasonable article about wikipedia that I have seen in ages SatuSuro 02:34, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

At this point I'd like to point you to Wikimedia Australia, which is attempting to do that and a whole lot more (and as an unfortunate result, has so far managed to not do that and a whole lot less). Confusing Manifestation 07:11, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for that - having gone there and registered - I would would encourage anyone reading this who feels so inspired to register as well! Thanks SatuSuro 09:00, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
ConMan has said exactly what I was going to; this is exactly why we need to push ahead with Wikimedia Australia. For everyone's information, Meeting 6 has been proposed for May 6 to nut out more details.--cj | talk 09:11, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Doing press for Wikimedia requires: 1. A good feel for the community and Foundation line on things. 2. Answer your phone every time. 3. Be prepared to say the same thing over and over. I've ended up with most of the press job in the UK mostly by virtue of 2. Oh, and my day job is remarkably tolerant about Wikipedia-related calls at work as long as I don't take the p*ss ;-) - David Gerard 10:53, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
I've expressed interest in this prior, and this still stays. I'm also extremely interested in the WMA meeting, which I hope goes ahead sooner rather than later. Daniel Bryant 11:19, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

new ACOTF is Climate of Australia

Thankyou to the people who helped to improve Bushranger.

  • 11 contributors made 29 edits
  • The article increased from 4771 bytes to 12,053 bytes
  • See how it changed

The new Australian Collaboration of the fortnight is Climate of Australia. Please help to improve this one too.

There is only one more current nomination. --Scott Davis Talk 10:50, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

repeated Vandalism/Spam to an entry

Some deadshit keeps opening the John Brack entry and sticking in spam. He or she delete entires paragraphs of information and then sticks in a silly statement as a kind of joke/electronic graffiti. Its happened a couple of times now. Can one of the Aust. editors follow this up and stop the buggers? Cheers, Dr Christopher Heathcote 09:26, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Done, I've reverted to a clean version, and I'll watchlist for a while --Steve (Stephen) talk 09:34, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

The BRA

This needs to disappear quickly (IMHO)--Melburnian 05:08, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that was fast :)--Melburnian 05:14, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Very obviously non-notable group of schoolkids --Steve (Stephen) talk 05:28, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, thanks --Melburnian 05:30, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Jimbo in Australia

Triple J interview

Starts in 10 minutes (for people on SA time, at least!) – Riana ऋ 05:22, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Darn, missed it. How was it?--cj | talk 05:45, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Hasn't started yet, I think... Robbie Buck's still talking about some frisbee competition... :s Hasn't started on the live feed either actually, but they only asked people to call in with their questions after 3, so maybe it's not for a while yet. Keep listening :) – Riana ऋ 05:46, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
/me holds tight.--cj | talk 05:52, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Starting after 4 Sydney time, y'all. – Riana ऋ 05:56, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Just finished here in SA. Overall a very good promotion.--cj | talk 07:08, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Good one! MySpace must go :) – Riana ऋ 07:11, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Certainly agree with that one :) It's a shame Triple J and List of Triple J presenters didn't get a plug! (can't really expect my sandbox work at User:Chuq/List of Triple J programs to be included). Actually, its probably good that they didn't or else they would be getting vandalised by now.. -- Chuq (talk) 07:40, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Jimbo meets the Chaser

Chaser's war on Wikipedia founder from the SMH. I look forward to seeing the footage. Blarneytherinosaur talk 08:38, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh Hansen! Can't wait to see that. – Riana ऋ 08:43, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Teenage drug lord from Malaysia by Andrew Hansen. ;-)--cj | talk 09:07, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
He actually did it! Classic. Blarneytherinosaur talk 22:52, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Maybe we should leave him a message :) Daniel Bryant 07:52, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
Somehow {{uw-vandalism}} just wouldn't seem right. Blarneytherinosaur talk 03:29, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
As far as I could tell, the vandalism happened after the SMH article, so I doubt it was Hansen. Confusing Manifestation 06:48, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

The video clip was posted to YouTube. Jimmy got 4/10. He also made a comment about the incident on his article talk page.--cj | talk 03:41, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Jimbo on Today

Jimbo was also a guest on today's Today. They showed screenshots of several articles, and Karl Stefanovic mentioned his article contained inaccurate information about him working for CNN. Here's the video link if you'd like to watch.--cj | talk 10:33, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

  • I went to the page directly after that comment and noted that an anon IP had already removed the line he referred to.--VS talk 11:05, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Now if I was a conspiracy theorist, I would wonder how Jimbo has been interviewed by two different Nine Network journalists within a month, and both times there happened to be an error in the journalists own article. It's ok, I have already checked, and they were added by different users (Karl Stefanovic, Ellen Fanning) although in Stefanovic's case I can't be sure as his article has had several hundred edits of vandalism & reversion in the meantime. Perhaps Jimbo should advise the Wikipedia community of upcoming media interviews so that we can remove, reference or tag all unsourced statements in the journalists article? -- Chuq (talk) 12:58, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Chuq, I would totally support that view particularly after the conversation that the WP:WA team had with Jimbo on Tuesday on this very issue. I'm sure that if Jimbo was to drop a note here about any upcoming press he's doing in Australia that we'd be ready to jump on board to fix the article very dammed quickly. Thewinchester (talk) 02:01, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Emails both of you SatuSuro 02:10, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

New railway line articles

There does not seem to be a Australian rail project so I thought I would ask here. There has been quite a few new articles on NSW rail lines created over the past few days, such as Walgett railway line, New South Wales, Temora- Roto railway line, New South Wales and Naradhan railway line, New South Wales. The articles provide no context that I can see and I was intending to nominate them for deletion but thought I would ask the editor for his plans first. While I am waiting for a response, I thought I would ask here what the normal approach is with very short articles like the above. I cannot see the point of them myself, but do others feel otherwise? Is there some policy and/or guideline that deals with them? Cheers, Mattinbgn/ talk 07:53, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

What is the best approach really depends on the content. Here we have a series of one sentence stubs which have been created simply to fill in redlinks in the {{Railway lines in New South Wales}} template. If there were some small amount of useful content in each of them then it would probably be best to merge them together, perhaps to List of country branch lines in New South Wales, until they were large enough to be split off to their own articles, but these really have no content, other than simply repeating the title, and I don't see any great value in retaining them as is (redlinks would at least motivate people to create articles). --bainer (talk) 08:13, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
For goodness' sake, guys, the articles were created yesterday and the user who did so is planning on expanding them, as he has already said so. Wikipedia is all about expansion and improving articles, and having the articles there provides an incentive to do some work on them now. Perhaps in a couple of months, if they are still one line stubs, delete them then, but not one day after they were created. But what is it going to achieve if you just delete them on sight - they will be created again, and create more work for the user who is trying to expand the railway articles in question. This incessant push to delete everything on site is unhelpful and goes against the principle of assuming good faith. It's about time it stopped. JRG 10:52, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm usually a pretty militant deletionist, but even I'd still give these articles a little time to develop. If they haven't gotten themselves a bit more context in a couple of weeks, then I'd take them to AfD. Lankiveil 11:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC).
I might note that a bit over two years ago, someone did the same thing with suburbs of Perth, and almost exactly 2 years later I got one of them to featured article status. It doesn't happen overnight. Orderinchaos 11:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I have asked the editor if he planned on expanding them soon, he said yes, so I have no intention of taking it further. However, I still say it is probably better NOT to create an article until there is at least some content. The articles as they stand are worse than no articles at all. At least a redlink tells the reader we have nothing, while this directs the reader to a new page and then tells them we have nothing. We would not tolerate a bio, band or corporation article like that, why is a rail line any different? -- Mattinbgn/ talk 19:58, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree. These are all eligible for speedy deletion.--cj | talk 02:12, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree. However, if they are to be deleted, please actually delete them rather than merging - I'd like to leave the option of actually getting good articles in time. Rebecca 07:00, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Have created a list here of the articles we're looking at - 29 in total. I agree that some of these are substub, but the community should be given a suitable amount of time to upgrade them, given some of them aren't even 36 hours old yet. Some such as Binnaway seem to meet the criteria already, while Medway Quarry clearly does not. Orderinchaos 11:26, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Free use images

Can all Australian editors please be on the lookout for fallout from the free use images debate documented in [week's edition of signpost]. It seems that recently registered single issue editor IronFistMan went through and poorly removed images from articles relating to newsreaders or news organisations they felt had invalid fair use criteria. However, instead of correctly tagging the image itself, the user simply removed the image from the article CSD I7 in the edit summary. Both Orderinchaos and myself have combed his edit history, and cleaned up his mess. In other news, if any members of the Australian TV project are reading this comment - there's a whole bucketload of articles tagged for you which really need some work to bring them into line with the Biographies project. If any of you have the time to undertake some work in this area it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks -- Thewinchester (talk) 15:35, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Daniel Morcombe

The article is tagged as uncategorised and I am attempting to find some categories for it. I was going to add Category:Living people to the article but realise that it may not actually be the case. Do we add the category until otherwise informed or is there a time when it should be assumed that he is no longer living. -- Mattinbgn/ talk 23:29, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

  • We had a discussion sometime ago about victims of crime and specifically victims who were not otherwise notable; the discussion was at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ebony Simpson. For possible categorisation inspirations see Beaumont children disappearance. I think Category:Kidnapped Australian children might be appropriate. I also think apropros of the Ebony Simpson case that the article should focus on the disappearance rather than the victim and perhaps be renamed accordingly. --Golden Wattle talk 23:43, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
  • If you click on Category:Living people, it lists alternatives to the living people, including those who are possibly living, and those who have disappeared. Andjam 03:22, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Thank you both. I think I have been able to sort the categories out. GW, with regards to the name, I could be bold and move it but seeing it has just survived AfD it might be worth seeking consensus. I agree, the article is about the abduction, not Daniel. I have added it to the requested moves list. -- Mattinbgn/ talk 03:42, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Audio of Jimmy's lecture in Sydney

Thank you, Radio National: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bigideas/stories/2007/1912621.htm

I listened to it this arvo. Pretty cool. A few things I didn't know about, like the administrator in Iran. Also has the audio of the Chaser 10 questions. :) --pfctdayelise (talk) 15:07, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

New ACOTF is Australian literature

Thankyou to the people who helped to extend Climate of Australia. It was Australian collaboration from 29 April 2007 to 13 May 2007

  • 9 contributors made 25 edits
  • The article increased from 5,338 bytes to 15,339 bytes - almost 3 times longer
  • See how it changed

This fortnight, the collaboration will be on Australian literature, which is also supported by the new WikiProject Australian literature. Please help to contribute to this article, or any others covered by that wikiproject. --Scott Davis Talk 14:37, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Immigration Controversies

Egon Erwin Kisch, Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin, and Scott Parkin all had trouble with their Australian Immigration visas. I think they all need a category that links them to Australia. They are all clearly not immigrants, yet each controversy around their visas is quite notable. I think they deserve a category, perhaps Category:Australian immigration controversies. What do others think?--Takver 13:13, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree in principle, but it would have to have very clearly defined parameters for inclusion. Categories containing the word "controversy" tend to get targeted and eliminated fairly promptly for being too nebulous. Lankiveil 14:40, 8 May 2007 (UTC).
Do they all have immigration visas, or do they have other kinds of visas? Andjam 00:24, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
There is no decent article on Visa (document) for Australia. The Working Holidays in Australia is in desparate need of clean up. Immigration to Australia has many gaps - especially when it comes to visas. It does not explain for example that there are many many different sorts of visas see eg for one series of visa types - special activity. Related topics - Document of Identity (Australia) is a stub which needs work; Australian passport is not bad. Department of Immigration and Citizenship (Australia) needs more work.
I note that Cat Stevens who was denied entry to the US is not categorised under any border control controversy. Similarly the article on the No Fly List is not categorised in that way. I think any such category should fit with what is happenning world wide. I also think the priority might be to improve wikipedia with some decent information on Australian visas and then explore what it was about the visa conditions that led to the denial of entry. Fascinating topic but a minefield.--Golden Wattle talk 01:06, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
There is also no category for the Naomi Robson Indonesian visa controversy. She entered Indonesia on a tourist visa but was workign as a journalist and deported for breaching her visa conditions - hardly controversial decision making but our papers still reported it - or perhaps it was the head hunting angle that was giving it such a high profile.[1] If there is no categorisation of that incident or that of Cat Stevens,mentioned above, which resulted in a prominent and successful libel case against the US Government over the incident, why should there be of Australian cases? --Golden Wattle talk 01:14, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
The wikipedia article on Cat Stevens said that he successfully sued British newspapers, not the US government. Andjam 02:32, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
My bad - but the basic point remains, if he is not categorised as an immigration controversy ... ? At the very least we need a whole of wikipedia approach to the issue. There are probably other content issues to be fixed first.--Golden Wattle talk 04:05, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
My original question was, is there an appropriate category to link them to Australia in existance or one that can be created? I accept Golden Wattle's point that we probably need a "whole of wikipedia approach". Can the issue then be raised on a global forum as it seems there are several notable instances, not all relating to Australia?Takver 04:19, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Probably a new sub cat of Category:Visas should be created. It might also be a subcat of Category:Immigration law. I do not see any existing relevant category. A useful project to escalate the issue to might be Wikipedia:WikiProject Law who cover articles in Immigration law. --Golden Wattle talk 04:49, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I have raised the issue at WikiProject Law --Takver 12:48, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

After discussion at WikiProject Law I have created a new sub category to Category:Immigration as Category:Immigration incidents --Takver 09:01, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Australian transport navbox consolidation

After the addition of another transport related infobox this morning, I would like to bring about the consolidation of Template:AusPTBus, Template:Australianferries, and Template:Australian rail (these are the ones I can find) into a single navbox i've currently christened AusTrans. Instead of navboxes for each mode of transport, this takes a nationalised and single approach to the matter of navboxes on australian transport covering all modes of transport from road, rail, air and sea. Proposed target for the navbox is all Australian transport articles. State based transport navboxes would remain in place and are unaffected by this proposal. I've chosen to bring the discussion here before taking action due to the wide reaching impact this navbox could have and to generate significant discussion to see if we can't make this infobox any better before running with it. Thanks in advance, Thewinchester (talk) 03:15, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I think this sort of box is a navbox (navigational box), not an infobox. Not trying to be anal about it but just mentioning so others don't get confused :) I thought it was in the same style as Template:Infobox Australian Place and Template:Infobox Australian Road (and possibly overlapping the Road one). Back on topic - I don't know if it is worth using some sort of modular navbox system like {{fb start}}/{{fb end}}. -- Chuq (talk) 05:15, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Naming issues gracefully noted. Could you explain how the use of modular navboxes could benefit this revised navbox? Sorry, I just can't see how it would help. Thewinchester (talk) 05:48, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
The modular format allows you to grow or shrink the navbox to add or remove parts which are unnecessary - this would make sure the box contained all relevant links, but wasn't so full of irrelevant links that no-one looked at it. Compare the navboxes at A-League 2006-07, Central Coast Mariners FC, Football (soccer) in Tasmania and Ross Aloisi. You will see that they share common components but only use as many as are necessary. (You can check by editing the section and looking at the templates which make up each one). You could use a similar range of navboxes to cover Transport in Australia - highways, buses, railways, trains, waterways, ferries, airports, etc. - both nationally and across individual states. -- Chuq (talk) 08:22, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
The Ferries section is a mess. It is not comprehensive, includes some ferries in use and some out of use, includes single ferries and ferry networks, and some long ferry routes are left out. What we need are all the long-haul ferry routes in Australia (like Melbourne-Devonport, the Yorke Peninsula Ferry in SA, the Nguiu-Darwin ferry, Kangaroo Island ferry, and the Whitsunday and other island ferries in QLD; regional ferries like the Port Phillip Bay one; and then the ferries within each city, like the Sydney Ferries network, the CityCat and CityFerry in Brisbane. JRG 00:49, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Trams. ☻ Fred|☝ discussion|✍ contributions 04:19, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

All eyes here

Hi all. There's been talk of taking the Australia article to WP:FAR due to an apparent need for my references. The article has been maintained in remarkably excellent condition since it was promoted almost two years ago (diff), but the standards have risen since that time. If anyone has the time and inclination, please turn your attention to the article and help stave off a potential WP:FARC.--cj | talk 06:25, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah a few of the older Australian FAs have come to some attention. I'll look at the main article when my assignments are done and see what I can help out with. Orderinchaos 08:01, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Of the older Aussie FAs, Shrine of Remembrance is probably most behind the newer standards – in fact, it's nowhere near them. As for the Australia article, Steve has done a great job sourcing some sections.--cj | talk 04:35, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

1886 in Australia, etc

All the xxxx in Australia articles - as part of the History and Australian projects - I was merrily tagging as WP Australian and history project - as articles, and came across a random tag of 'List'.

I believe that the years can be considered as articles/quality rateable - as some are clearly stubs by lack of information - and some are clearly start by the contents. However, I seek the opinion of others on this merry ship of australian project editors who might have either policy or opnions to help on this issue SatuSuro 02:22, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

For those who do not want to scroll all the way to the top: 1886_in_Australia. My opinion is that the normal year articles (like 2005) are not considered lists, and these are similar enough to be treated the same. Lankiveil 04:06, 21 May 2007 (UTC).
Only one article checked so far had text above the list info explaining something about the years events - 1914 SatuSuro 04:08, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Notability of Marketing Companies and Consultancies

This AfD for the article Out Now Consulting is attracting some interest, particually from editors who've not been around very long or contributed very little to WP. It's turning into an interesting debate about the notability guideline in the context of the benchmarks necessary for articles relating to marketing companies. This is particually important regarding notability given a large number of primary and secondary source material is resultant of their own Public Relations. I would encourage all editors to review the debate, and participate in the AfD to bring in additional viewpoints given the limited number of voices thusfar. Thewinchester (talk) 04:20, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Aussies by time period

I recently created the List of Indigenous Australians associated with European colonisation of Australia (which basically includes notable Indigenous people between 1788 - 1888) while cleaning up another list. I'm not convinced a list is the best way to connect these people. I have also made Category:Australian people by time period; can anyone come up with an appropriate category for this group of people? --Peta 04:27, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Proposal - Australian literature

I have listed a proposal for an Australian literature WikiProject with the Project Council. If anyone is interested please go here and register your support or add your comments. Thanks. xx baby ifritah

Newcastle Meetup

Newcastle Meetup
Customs House, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia Newcastle Meetup
Next: TBA
Last: 16/06/2007
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NEWC MEET ONE Date: 16 June 2007 | Time: 7.30pm | Place: Anatolia Turkish on Beaumont St, Hamilton | Please RSVP | So far: 4 †


East Timor

appologies if this is the wrong forum but could I recommend working on the East Timor pages. They have since 1975 and moreso 1999 been very influenced by Australians. There are so many over there/here now. I know its not an Australian page per se. What do you think? --Phenss 06:17, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Are you suggesting we should incorporate East Timor into WP Australia? (bit unclear here as to what you're raising as an idea) Orderinchaos 06:45, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
interesting concept as there is probably more content available both in Australia and Indonesia than there is in East Timor(definatley more editors), but I'm not sure it would be appropriate to place an independent country under the banner of another country's project. Gnangarra 07:17, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure if that was what the guy was asking, was just trying to understand what he was requesting. My own idea would be to set up a WP East Timor and sister it with the Australian state projects (while not putting it under WP Australia), but that would need committed editors and members on the East Timor side to keep that going. (I'm already in I think about 6 projects :P) Orderinchaos 07:25, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry for not making myself clear. No- I am not suggesting to incorporate it into WP Australia but I like the idea of setting up a WP East Timor (WP Timor Leste to be correct)and sistering it with Au projects. My suggestion was to try to get more people contributing to this article and anything Timor related. Cheers --Phenss 05:57, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

A plea for aid from across the Torres Strait

Your faithful neighbours in Papua New Guinea may hold the distinction of being the most under-documented english speaking country on enwiki.

In fact, PNG, with a population higher than New Zealand, has the distinction of boasting a total of 0 featured articles and 1 featured picture. Portal:Papua New Guinea has one contributor, and very few Wikipedians at the moment are making regular contributions to Papua New Guinean articles. Recently it was discovered several Provincial Capitals did not even have an article, including the third biggest population centre in the country, Arawa, a city which has had many Australian residents.

Papua New Guinea is a country rich in the things that make Wikipedia tick: amazing geographic features, natural phenomenon, incredible biology and botany, an incredibly diverse range of people, cultures, societies, religions, languages, political systems, settlements and of course, civil unrest and war. Many articles are stubs, and need massive expansion, many don't even exist and are incredibly important.

Papua New Guinea has no wikiproject to itself, but falls under the banner of WP:MELANESIA. Much work needs to be done, and many people in PNG don't have the internet access, libraries, education, or general ability to fill the gaps. Lets do something to make sure that when they do, the world no longer thinks that PNG is an image format.

Please? Aliasd 09:36, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that we need to do whatever we can to help those projects in our general vicinity get up to the standards we place on ourselves - earlier on this page was a discussion about East Timor as well. What we really need to do is hit the libraries, sites and research resources and get together a list of reliable resources for various purposes - history, geography, botany, politics, etc. One of the reasons WP Australia is so effective is that we have this accepted list we can call upon - the ABS, the federal and state electoral commissions, government websites, the Gazetteer, BOM and databases like Florabase etc. Also, checking foreign-language Wikipedias (German, Dutch and Portuguese in particular) for relevant sourced information that can be transwikied. Perhaps this should be an initial goal to assist with. Orderinchaos 14:46, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I've just spent a bit of time filling out articles on languages of Papua New Guinea. Particularly, Kuot language. If you're into languages, there is a LOT of ground to be covered here. MichelleG 04:04, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Orderinchaos. I'd like to see us doing a bit more to help in helping flesh out articles on some of her neighbours. I'd be interested in doing more work on these topics, and it's not as if as Australians we don't have the resources to improve a lot of these articles. I wonder if it might be an idea to start drawing up a to-do list (similar to the one we used years ago when there was still very major holes in Australian content) to highlight areas that need attention. Alternatively, I wonder if it might be an idea to support editors from PNG, East Timor, and the Pacific islands in getting localised WikiProjects going - as one example, the easiest way for PNG to get a featured article, as Aliasd requested, would be to get a local collaboration project going, which we can then do our best to help out with. Rebecca 03:12, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Wikiproject Melanesia is an existing wikiproject that PNG falls under the banner of, but most work is done by people who are outside PNG, as many people in the country have really poor internet, and lack other resources which are required for good editing of Wikipedia. Many PNG articles need experienced editors to research, verify and wikify them. I have been focusing pretty hard the last few days on illustration of PNG geography articles, as very few pictures exist, and try and fact check articles, when I can. Have a look at Port Moresby, Lae or Mount Hagen for some PNG city articles that really need some experienced editor's attention. Any one of these articles could end up being feature status, as enough information is available around the place to build up great articles. Most articles contain little to no verified facts and this really needs to be the focus of any PNG related wiki effort. Aliasd 14:28, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

ACOTF: Local government in Australia

Australian literature was Australian collaboration from 13 May 2007 to 27 May 2007

  • 6 contributors made 10 edits
  • The article increased from 8,927 bytes to 9,162 bytes
  • See how it changed

The new selection is Local government in Australia. Please help to improve it as you can. It was selected as the oldest nomination of three that were tied on 5 votes. --Scott Davis Talk 13:21, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

it bothers me

re Vahe Geokjian, bio where subject is in court on serious charges etc. do we have a specific tag for this? prob. shld be watched  ⇒ bsnowball  11:03, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Has been deleted several times under various names. The editor has been warned several times and contacted me by email where I advised him against re-creation. My thoughts are that regardless of spraying the word "alleged" around, it is still a breach of WP:BLP and possibly could be speedy deleted under WP:CSD#G10. -- Mattinbgn/ talk 11:43, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Articles such as this one really need references to back up their claims. A quick search at Google News shows the article has a ring of truth about it, but as it contains no references, it's best deleted. -- Longhair\talk 11:49, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
I have no doubt it is true, but look at earlier versions such as Vahe geokjian to get a sense where the motivation for this article is coming from. I suspect the editor attends school with Mr. Geokjian's son. -- Mattinbgn/ talk 11:56, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

After looking at those deleted articles we know about, and reading through them, I have come to the conclusion that Mr Smith is not interested in our policies or principles, but is just trying to attack Mr Geokjian and his son. I have blocked him to prevent, in the short term, further WP:BLP violations. Hopefully, when (if) he returns, he will view his actions in a different light. Cheers, fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 12:25, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

BJAODN

Although it's not an Australia specific deletion, the fate of BJAODN (Wikipedia:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense) is being decided at this MfD - all 64 pages of them were speedied yesterday citing GFDL violations (of deleted content without attribution) and are still deleted. Please make your thoughts known! Orderinchaos 15:02, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Student politics dispute

If anyone is so inclined, there is currently a dispute at Australian Liberal Students' Federation requiring further input. I've fully protected the article following edit warring.--cj | talk 06:21, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian music

A new project page is being setup. If anyone is interested in lending a hand, please come on over. —Moondyne 18:27, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Australian horse racing records

I was working on Arwon's article given his recent death. The article contains a statistic of his overall record which I wasn't able to verify. Does anyone have any suggestions of a good source whether online or in print that I would be able to verify. Capitalistroadster 04:20, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

The Racing and Sports web site has a searchable database of race results for all Australian and New Zealand meetings from August 1991. Free registration is required in order to use the database. The Australian Racing Board has a comprehensive list of links to most Australian Thoroughbred racing sites. The book Analysis of Champion Racehorses by Peter Pring (Sydney: The Thoroughbred Press, 1977 ISBN 0 90813300 60) contains the racing records of many horses prior to 1977. Incidentally, Arwon's racing record was sourced from the AAP obituary report. - Cuddy Wifter 02:36, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Cuddy Wifter for some useful links and suggestions. Capitalistroadster 07:01, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Gunns

Gunns is starting to look seriously like an anti-Tamar Valley Pulp Mill pamphlet. The opening photograph of a Eucalpytus regnans in all its majesty is particularly depressing, and it goes downhill from there, finishing with a references section chock full of "Wilderness Society" publications and Greens press releases. Does anyone feel like NPOVing it? Hesperian 02:59, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Damn, and there I was thinking "corporate Australia is evil, green not greed" was fully NPOV. :) Orderinchaos 03:55, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Heavens above, that's a bucketload of POV just waiting to explode. I've just tagged it into Companies of Australia so i'll action it tonight on my corporate cleanup patrol. The Gunns 20 article does not need to be on it's own, so i've tagged it for merging back into Gunns. I'll see what information I can dig up from this end. Anyone out there want to get down and dirty with Factiva or LexisNexis to see what they can pull up? Thewinchester (talk) 04:08, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Per above, here is a starting point for articles relating to the company. Thewinchester (talk) 04:27, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Pasha Bulker

The Pasha Bulker article has started - tho needs a bit of work - how do we get this thing into the news section? Nomadtales 23:48, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Anyone covering the floods in suburban Newcastle btw? Orderinchaos 04:29, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
I've commenced 2007 Hunter region and Central Coast storms--Melburnian 14:47, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm in Cardiff and have a few photos of local water damage but will probably be going for a walk today and taking more (after I've done some work to make a half fallen tree safer whilst waiting for the SES to cut it down). I intend to upload them to commons and will add them to my image gallery on Wikimedia Commons. I might empty my cameras and upload some photos before I go walking. --Athol Mullen 00:04, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

New template ATSBLink

Just a quick note that I have just finished the ATSBLink template, which is now fully documented and ready to use. This is designed to consistently link to accident and incident reports published by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, and covers all their reporting types from rail, air, and sea. If anyone has suggestions or improvments, don't hesitate to pitch in or get in touch. Cheers, Thewinchester (talk) 02:47, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

ACOTF was Local government, now Indigenous Australians

Local government in Australia was the Australian collaboration from 27 May 2007 to 10 June 2007

  • 3 contributors made 11 edits
  • The article increased from 5,205 bytes to 7,151 bytes
  • See how it changed

The new collaboration is on Indigenous Australians. Please help to improve it (and any related articles) however you can.

PS: I may not have internet access around the time the next selection is due. Could someone else watch out for it please, or it may be a few days late changing if I don't have access. --Scott Davis Talk 02:32, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Lake Macquarie

With the recent news from the Hunter region of the floods, etc., and the recent formation of a Wikipedia Meetup group from Newcastle, I was wondering whether there would be editor consensus to rename the WP Lake Macquarie (currently a dormant and relatively unused WikiProject) to either "WikiProject Newcastle" (or "WikiProject Newcastle, New South Wales" if necessary for disambiguation), or "WikiProject Hunter Region" to encompass the larger Hunter area - my preference is for the first one, but I would be happy with the third option. Having once asked to delete this project, I can now see there's a lot of use in keeping it and expanding it to include Newcastle and the other cities and towns in the Hunter Region in general, such as Lake Macquarie, Maitland, Cessnock, etc. I also notice that Orderinchaos is developing a WikiProject New South Wales, so there might be sense in just merging the project into that one - but I think there's enough editors either from that area or interested in editing that area to allow a viable WikiProject to begin. So the questions to answer are: (1) Should it be renamed, and (2) If so, what name should it be given? Thanks for your help. JRG 13:25, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

  • As I previously suggested on the Newcastle meetup page, I would strongly favour the inclusionist Hunter Region title. Renaming from Lake Macquarie to Newcastle would be a bit like having a wiki project for The City of North Sydney and renaming it to The City of Sydney - a generic Wikiproject Sydney makes more sense. I'd suggest Wikiproject Hunter but that might be a bit too ambiguous. --Athol Mullen 15:52, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Realistically, given the lack of interest in Lake Macquarie region articles for quite some time and the effective death of the project more than a year ago, I believe the project should be merged into a wider project on New South Wales outside Sydney and the Riverina (which both have enough momentum to proceed independently). The WP:NSW one JRG mentioned was one I actually hijacked - a defunct project on Outback NSW - but due to assignments and exams never had time to do anything with. I hadn't yet advertised it because it's still at the infancy stage of the life cycle. Orderinchaos 16:16, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
I think it'd be wise to upmerge into WP:NSW as well.--cj | talk 01:47, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
I've got some free hours on Friday (when all exams are finished, yay!), and may look into getting NSW happening irrespective of what decision is made here about the LM content - it'll help with coordinating the rest of the state. Orderinchaos 02:09, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

DJ's store listing

There is a small revert war happening at David Jones Limited regarding the entire listing of the DJs stores in the article. I am against it and have made my points clear in the talk page and have also removed numerous times, only to have it returned. Anyone else like to join in? Nomadtales 11:02, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I couldn't care less whether y'all choose to list the stores or not (well, that's not true; I have my own opinion, but I don't care to state it or act on it). I'll watch the page, though, in case the edit war flares up. fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 12:59, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
As you know, Nomadtales, I am mostly inclusionist, but I do not support a listing of David Jones locations on Wikipedia, as a line has to be drawn somewhere, and I don't want to set a precedent! Although, some stores are notable, due to historic reasons, or size, etc. If someone wants to find store locations they can quite easily find their way onto the site! Aliasd 13:23, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Steve Vizard

I've just had to nuke a large part of this article for WP:BLP reasons and an OTRS complaint. The article needs TLC from folk who really understand NPOV and verification. It's protected for now - but if we can get a number of people working on this and watching a decent re-write, I'll unprotect.--Docg 11:31, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Sold to the lowest bidder. Thewinchester (talk) 12:18, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Issue with this article is now resolved, major re-write has resolved the issues of the OTRS ticket. Thewinchester (talk) 13:05, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Template - functions

I just started a discussion on the furture options and direction of {{WP Australia}} at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Australia/Future#Template_-_functions. Please join the discussion, all thoughts and comments will help improve the template. Gnangarra 03:27, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism reported in The Daily Telegraph

An article reporting some vandalism to the Sydney entry appeared in the 5 June 2007 edition of The Daily Telegraph on page 11. The article is not available online so I have reproduced here. It reads:

Wikipedia hits Sydney
It's billed as the free internet encyclopedia that "anyone can edit" – which is exactly what happened to Wikipedia yesterday.
The chapter on Sydney began with the observation that "Sydney is full of knobs in fully sick pimped out cars" before returning to more general information.
While a Wikipedia spokesman was not available, a web page on the encyclopedia itself concedes its information is not always reliable.
"Due to its open nature, critics have questioned Wikipedia's reliability and accuracy," it says.

The vandalism that the article refers to was the result of three edits by the anonymous user 202.76.133.109 (diffs [2], [3] and [4]) on 4 June 2007 between 12:13 and 12:17 PM AEST. Then, some 2 minutes later, the anonymous user 206.248.136.57 removed the "is full of knobs in their fully sick pimped out cars" line (diff [5]). Finally at 12:23 PM, El C reverted the article back to its original state (diff [6]).

Hardly earth shattering news, considering some sort of vandalism occurs just about every minute of every day and most of it is reverted within a few minutes. However, the article raises a point that I'm sure many Australian Wikipedians know needs addressing, this is that Wikipedia needs an Australian spokesman. It really reinforces that fact that we need to a get m:Wikimedia Australia up and running. Cheers -- Ianblair23 (talk) 00:39, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Spokesperson.
(I wonder who they tried to contact? pfctdayelise (talk) 02:43, 5 June 2007 (UTC))
Hmmm, funny how the Telegraph was able to spot the vandalism during the few minutes that it was current. Makes you wonder about the identity of the vandal? WWGB 03:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I've just looked at the IP addresses in question, and i'll put it down to a case of lucky timing WWGB. The IP's in question are a block owned by Eftel's wholesale arm DFT, currently allocated to a Virtual ISP known as Beyond Disability located in the Mornington Peninsula. Their goal is to help their target customers "by bringing housebound physically mobility disabled back into the community". Seriously, just a case of lucky timing on the paper's part, but an inappropriate piece of reporting without providing context as to who was doing the edits. Any idea who wrote the story, as I'd like to drop something into their letters to the editor about it. Thewinchester (talk) 03:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
There was no byline on the article, just a general news item. WWGB 03:40, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Why does that not suprise me. Have also logged a request for 48hrs semi protection for the article to deter any others who may be inspired to vandalise the article (which has already happened once this morning). Thewinchester (talk) 03:47, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I've declined the semiprotection request, for now at least. Semiprotection shouldn't be preemptive, and the vandalism isn't really that bad. If it gets worse throughout the day, I'll semiprotect it. I suspect the Telly was scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one. Riana ⁂ 03:55, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

They forgot to mention he at least targetted Melbourne first (just had to add that since i was born in Sydney). The thing is that user has been doing continual vandalism since 10 October 2006, and yesterday was the first time he has had any message posted about it on his talk page. Maybe if he had received a warning much earlier he may discontinued after his City of Melbourne antics. Boylo 05:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Was a lot of this user's vandalism reverted by MartinBot? often this bot reverts blatent acts of vandalism, and no human goes back to place a warning, leaving really really blatent vandals unwarned. Aliasd 13:04, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Because I'm sure that a pageful of toothless warnings with lots of red circles and X-es makes vandal's knees knock in terror. Lankiveil 13:26, 17 June 2007 (UTC).
Human warnings are important because they are part of a process that leads a persistent vandal towards being blocked. Also, last warnings, in my experience, really do work, especially if you have warned the vandal previously. Gives them a feeling they are being watched. Generally vandals aren't very smart people. Aliasd 15:00, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Kerang train crash

started an article for this current event still very basic help needed. Hossen27 05:53, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Not so much information just yet. I've noted it in P:AU/N, using this ABC article as a source. It states there are 6 dead and 52 injured (12 serious, 40 minor).--cj | talk 06:21, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
You might consider the format of Violet Town railway disaster and Beresfield rail disaster for example. You might also like to wait a little while so it does not appear to be ghoulish. WWGB 06:26, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Goolish, try telling that to the people providing up to the minute updates on the Virginia Tech shootings. Did anyone else catch the Signpost article which had a video showing just how quickly the article expanded? Thewinchester (talk) 07:11, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I observed the VT updates too. WP is meant to be an encyclopedia, not a newswire service. There was so much cr*p on VT, reflecting wrong suspects etc. Record the accident by all means, but I still think it's better to wait until the facts are known, then expand the article into something that's "correct". Just my opinion ... WWGB 07:19, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I think so far we just showing the facts all sources are reputable and we are already gearing up for vandals and annons adding unsourced info. Hossen27 07:23, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I've tried to consolidate the info a bit. Orderinchaos 22:52, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Should this still be considered a current event? mabye its time to remove the {{Current}} tag? Aliasd 12:27, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Removed current event notice. It's still in the news here, but the accident itself has long past. -- Longhair\talk 12:31, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Economy of Australia

Britney-Boy (talk · contribs) has notified me via my talk page about an error in the Economy of Australia article, saying "Main export partners" and "Main import partners" in the "Economy of Australia" table are erroneously the same. Could you please change them? I don't know how. Could somebody with more economics knowledge than I please look into this and correct the data thanks? It's the infobox data that is incorrect. -- Longhair\talk 19:53, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Now fixed at Template:Economy of Australia table--Melburnian 01:14, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Australian collaboration of the fortnight

As I was without internet for five days, I have only just rolled the WP:ACOTF round from Indigenous Australians to Outback. As this will now have a short "fortnight" please work on it in any way you can. Thankyou to the people who contributed to Indigenous Australians, especially those watching to quickly revert vandalism during the collaboration. It was ACOTF from 10 June 2007 to 27 June 2007, slightly over a fortnight

  • At least 20 contributors made 110 edits, but some were vandalism and its reversion
  • The article shrunk by about 2000 characters, but is still 75kb long.
  • See how it changed

--Scott Davis Talk 12:22, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Paul Keating

Does anyone have a free image of Paul Keating to add to his article? JRG 03:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Its funny you mention this, because I am just about to open up channels with AUSPIC to see if they will provide pictures of all federal parliamentarians under a commons compatible license (I was thinking BY-NC-ND 3.0). Thoughts? Thewinchester (talk) 04:28, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm afraid that, for Wikipedia, images under such a license would still be considered non-free content. In order to be used freely on Wikipedia, the images must allow for commercial and derivative use. Appropriate licenses, such as CC-BY-2.5, may be found at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags/Free licenses. Good luck in you effort with AUSPIC, however. --cj | talk 04:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, i've been boning up on image licensing issues in the last 30min or so. I've asked Auspic some very open ended questions to better gauge their interest level and response to the specific licensing issues. The issue of commercial use and no derivative works is obviously going to be the stumbling block, so let's see what they respond with and take it from there. I'm trying to see if we can wangle images of all Federal Parliamentarians past and present too in this request, really going for the big fish. Thewinchester (talk) 04:57, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
If I recall correctly, Adam Carr had informal correspondence with them in the past and they were happy for their works to be used for educational purposes (ie, non-commercially). Hopefully they release them freely this time round. Perhaps mention that the Dutch Government did as much.--cj | talk 05:28, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks very much for doing that. Even if they say no at this stage, asking now may help them in the future. JRG 10:00, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Census Data

The Australian Bureau of Statistics releases census data tomorrow morning. Any strategies on how to go about changing some of the current info that will become outdated, or which pages may be affected? Recurring dreams 13:20, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

List of Wikipedia pages with external links to *.abs.gov.au. Hope this helps. -- Longhair\talk 13:29, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Great, thanks for that. Looks mostly like pages on local governments and suburbs. Recurring dreams 13:34, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

It appears that links to 2001 Census QuickStats are now dead! (see the link at Muswellbrook, New South Wales) Not sure if this permanent or not, but it is a bit of a pain! -- Mattinbgn/ talk 23:54, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Further, it does not appear that data based on Urban Centre/Locality has been released yet. -- Mattinbgn/ talk 00:13, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Gah, what a mess. Any chance someone might be able to contact the ABS and find out a) if the old links are coming back, and b) when the new locality information will be up? Rebecca 00:59, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Consider me contacted :) Actually, I don't have access to the page either, but I'm going to try to contact someone who might be able to help. Confusing Manifestation 01:22, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Addendum: Someone is looking into it now, if/when I hear back from them I'll let you all know. Confusing Manifestation 01:25, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Addendum #2: Try the 2001 data again. It's supposed to be available to external visitors now. I still can't access it, because they've blocked all internal access to the site in favour of making it easier for everyone else to access it. If you still have problems, I can pass them on. Confusing Manifestation 01:38, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) That works (see link), thanks for that. The links above and many others will still need to be changed from the old domain to make links that work. Whether this is worth doing at this stage, seeing as the urban centre/locality data can't be too far away, is another question. -- Mattinbgn/ talk 02:29, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm a touch confused. Isn't the link CM pointed to the urban centre/locality data? Rebecca 02:34, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
  • It's the same data, but a different link than the one that was used on the article. For Bargara, the link on the article is this and the link provided by CM is this. -- Mattinbgn/ talk 02:41, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
  • (edit confilct) It seems the "state suburb" area is different from the UC/L area - the area covered by Tocumwal, New South Wales for example is quite a bit larger than the town area from 2001 - see here. I do not know if "state suburb" is replacing UC/L or if it is an additional breakdown of census data. -- Mattinbgn/ talk 02:37, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I was able to look up 2006 data for my suburb as a statistical local area now. Capitalistroadster 05:59, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) LGAs and SDs have been released, but not Urban Centre/Locality data. The LGA articles could all be updated now but for towns it seems we will need to wait. Not sure what information on suburbs has been released to date. -- Mattinbgn/ talk 06:42, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm trying to nut it all out, and the explanation seems to be roughly located here, but I haven't quite worked out the specific differences between "State Suburb" (which, incidentally, isn't on the list - only "Suburb") and UC/L. Confusing Manifestation 06:40, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks for taking the time to look at this. It seems the first part of Rebecca's question has been answered, in that we now know where the 2001 data is. Do you know where we could find out the answer to the second question; When the 2006 locality data will be released? It appears that looking at the list at your link above that it will be eventually. Thanks again for your help. Mattinbgn/ talk 06:51, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
There doesn't seem to be much difference between "State Suburbs" and UC/L for inner city suburbs. I've tried a few suburbs around Sydney and there doesn't appear to be any difference at all between 2001 and 2006. JRG 07:40, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
For the WA wheatbelt towns and so forth "State Suburb" seems to have *replaced* Urban Centre/Locality. I don't know if this is universal though. Orderinchaos 21:46, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


Hello Wikipedia, going by the release date for the last set of Urban Centre info (2003) we won't see the latest set released until sometime next year. State Suburbs correspond roughly to the boundaries of the suburbs/localities, whereas urban centres roughly represent the limits of actual urban development. - Aucitypops 02:20, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification - this makes quite a bit more sense now. This brings the question of what to do now - do we keep the 2001 data until next year, replacing all the prior links, or do we shift from using urban centre figures to state suburb figures, and update it to 2006 now? Rebecca 05:59, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest that for now we just fix the links so they point to the new location of the 2001 data, then try to work out whether it makes more sense to be referring to the "State Suburb" or the "Urban Centre" info on a more long-term basis. Confusing Manifestation 07:20, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree, I think this the way to go, at least until we know if and when the "Urban Centre" data will be released. No time to start like the present. -- Mattinbgn/ talk 11:52, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
If that's what you folks want to do, I'm happy to go along. I wonder if it might be possible to get sort of some checklist of the articles we need to get changed. Rebecca 12:25, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
The list provided by Longhair above is a start but I'm not sure if there is a way to narrow the list down to dead links. If we can narrow it down then a page could be created with the list of links needed to be replaced and then marked as complete when done. I am working through my watchlist at the moment, which isn't really systematic but it is a start. -- Mattinbgn/ talk 12:42, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Gippsland floods

Folks,

Has there been an article created on the 2007 Gippsland floods. Capitalistroadster 06:21, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't appear so, but I think it could be notable enough for an article. While we're on the topic of new articles, however, has anyone thought of creating an article on Howard's new plan for Central Australia? Rebecca 06:54, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
It should certainly be noted in Indigenous Australians, but I'm not sure it requires its own article. A more general article on Indigenous affairs policy might be appropriate though.--cj | talk 07:41, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Information should go into Severe storms in Australia for now. However, it might be reasonable to expand the 2007 Hunter region and Central Coast storms article into a "2007 winter storms in Australia". --cj | talk 07:41, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Anonymous Australian Wiki Editor in Headlines

Found this news article this morning and posting it here for those interested. MSN News and its in more detail here Wiki News Boylo 02:15, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Categories

In my brief walk through the oz project categories I have happened upon yet another marvel (that is not a comic):-

[+] Cyclones in Australia
[+] Australian cyclones
Anyone for comment as to action upon this delightful duplication - and while I am at it - the article Severe storms in Australia seems to have an astonishing lack of link to cyclone articles - as we do not have an australian climate project I have brought these observations here, considering the perth weather at the moment, sigh SatuSuro 05:10, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

PM infoboxes

Hi all, Joseph has started adding religious affiliation to PM infoboxes again as minor changes and minor corrections, do Australian wikipedians wish to review this consensus? I have no strong opinion on the issue but it seems a bit sneaky waiting until people forget about it before going against a consensus decision... Alec -(answering machine) 11:06, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

If the person's religious affiliation has been mentioned and their identification in a particular religion has been prominent (for someone like Kevin Rudd, for example) then it should definitely be included in the article; but the infobox is not really the place for it to be put as well. JRG 12:15, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Actually, it appears to be User:Homagetocatalonia who entered the PMs' religion. I think it is not relevant to their role and favour its removal. WWGB 12:17, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
My apologies to Joseph for getting that wrong, I was only going by today's edits and didn't go any deeper into the history of the articles. Alec -(answering machine) 13:02, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
My purpose to add religious affialiation in the Australian PM is to know the Australian people what is the religious affialiation of each Australian PM from Barton to Howard. Thank you.--Joseph Solis in Australia 09:18, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
Some information being added is simply ignorant. Billy McMahon, for example, would NEVER have described himself as "Anglican". Church of England, perhaps. The Prime Minister's religion, in the context of Australia's secular society, is no more relevant than whether he was left or right handed. WWGB 09:35, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree. A consensus was quite clearly reached on a previous occasion not to include that information (as it's really impossible to boil most people's religious convictions down to a single word, among other reasons), and I see no evidence to indicate that that consensus has changed. Lankiveil 12:44, 3 July 2007 (UTC).
Also agree. Rebecca 21:15, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Commons - new category

I have commenced creating and population a new commons category Wine regions of Australia this whole area has been previously neglected. Please assist by tagging images into the various regions and make them subcategories of this or just tag the images into the category and I'll do the rest Gnangarra 09:36, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Men at Work is new ACOTF

Outback was Australian collaboration for slightly less than a fortnight from 27 June 2007 to 8 July 2007.

  • 5 contributors made 11 edits
  • The article increased from 8,805 bytes to 9,987 bytes
  • See how it changed

Thankyou to those who helped.

The new collaboration is Men at Work. Please help in any way you can, and consider nominating any other articles you feel could be successful as intensive collaborations.

Thanks. --Scott Davis Talk 14:33, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

new graphical timeline

Hi all, I know I've really stuffed it up but I was hoping someone might be able to help me, I have created Template:Timeline Queensland Premiers which is based on Timeline Australian PM. While I can put in the grunt work of inserting the data I have obviously not got the technical knowledge to know why it has not worked. I have tried not to change any of the script other than the info. Any help would be hugely appreciated. Thanks, Alec -(answering machine) 12:52, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't know too much about these fancy plotting scripts either, but I ran a diff comparison on the Aus PM timeline and your QLD premiers one: it looks like the difference is where you have included space characters in the colour definitions - terms like "No Affiliation", "Continuous Ministry" and "Morgan-Browne Coalition", as you can see from the error report. The PM timeline uses underscores instead of spaces, e.g. "United_Australia" and "Commonwealth_Liberal". --Canley 13:23, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
OK, I tried that, it seems to have worked, or compiled at least. There was also a space after the gray definition (id:canvas value:gray (0.5)) and the WAR definition was missing. It's still not quite right, my browser renders the links off kilter with the text. --Canley 13:30, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Beerenberg

Anyone want to have a go at completely rewriting Beerenberg Farm to meet WP policies? I would if I knew where to look. Might be a job for the SA team :) Orderinchaos 21:25, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Done, but could do with a bit more work. --Canley 07:49, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Nope, it's good enough to survive afd (after god knows how long). Good work. Thewinchester (talk) 07:51, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Australian film history site

The ABC reports that an Australian film history site will be launched today ABC "Aust film, TV archive launched"

The Australian film industry is rolling out the red carpet on the Internet, offering unprecedented public access to the country's cinematic history. The industry will today launch a big online archive of newsreels, advertisements, TV shows and movie clips covering more than a century of Australian film-making. It includes everything from the world's first feature film Ned Kelly to current big screen releases.

It is at australianscreen.com.au although it wasn't working when I checked it out. Hopefully, it will be a useful resource. Capitalistroadster 02:18, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, hopefully it will help us improve the current state of Australian television articles, and prevent them from being regularly put up at AFD. Recurring dreams 05:18, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Here's a direct link. It's now up and running Melburnian 13:39, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Sockpuppet accustaions against WA editors

As discussion as erupted without actual evidence that a number of Western Australian editors are being accused of sockpuppets. So ten have been implicated including myself. The discussion started at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Elonka 2 Gnangarra 03:54, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

To clarify, only Orderinchaos, DanielT5 and Zivko85 are implicated. We all trying to maintain the benefit of the doubt. It goes without saying that all us at this noticeboard will be very, very surprised to hear of this incident.--cj | talk 04:00, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Explanation from Zivko on his talk page.--cj | talk 04:01, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Apparently, myself and twelve others (so far) posted in RfA Orderinchaos and RfA#2 Elonka: Ageo020, Captain panda, CJ, Cometstyles, DanielT5, Garion96, Gnangarra, IronGargoyle, Jreferee, Orderinchaos, Ozgod, PeaceNT, WJBscribe. -- Jreferee (Talk) 03:46, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

This comment to me is an accusation, whther its relevant or not to the discussion it been laid Gnangarra 04:07, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think Jreferee intended it to be such – afterall, he mentioned himself. Still, I don't think it's at all relevant, and I said as much.
For completeness: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Alleged sockpuppetry by Orderinchaos.--cj | talk 04:13, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Moreover: Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Orderinchaos.--cj | talk 04:18, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm afraid that it's not looking good. I've gone over the CheckUser results in detail (as the only Australian CheckUser), and I can't see any conclusion but that by reached by Mackensen as to Orderinchaos and Zivko85 being sockpuppets. I've explained things in a bit more detail on WP:ANIWP:AN, but as usual, I have to be a bit careful about details because I don't want to give future sockpuppeteers any hints. Rebecca 04:42, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Just fixed your wikilink Rebecca for those playing at home in case they get lost. Thewinchester (talk) 04:47, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Orderinchaos responds.--cj | talk 05:04, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I've declined his unblock request with some regret. For those at home, I want to reaffirm that the CheckUser results were not consistent with "letting friends use his computer". He'd need to come up with a much better explanation for how these edits could have been performed by anyone else, and I'm not sure how he could. Rebecca 05:15, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I'll admit, I expected more detail in his explanation, but I'm not ready to accept sockpuppetry just yet (blind hope, perhaps). I'll await further explanation.
By the way, this has reached the blogosphere.--cj | talk 05:19, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

A bunch of us have been on IRC attempting to work out a resolution to this mess for the last hour or so. I'm relieved to say that I'm increasingly convinced that the other editors were probably merely meatpuppets voting to support Orderinchaos in person, and not his sockpuppets. I've posted a more detailed response at WP:AN. Rebecca 07:15, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/AfD

Do we really need this page? It duplicates Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Australia and now that the latter includes sections for MfD, TfD and Deletion Review, we only need to add a section on CfD to make them identical? We now have tools, thanks to John Vandenberg that makes it easy to tag AfD discussions and include them in the sorting page. The subpage of this notice board always lags behind now and is a pain to update. I do not think we would want to transclude all the discussions into the Notice Board but we could give a prominent link to the deletion sorting page. What do folks think? --Bduke 01:32, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

It would be best if some clever wikicode could automatically keep the two lists the same. I suppose a bot could do it. Yes I agree there is no point have two lists for the same purpose and one should be removed. :: maelgwntalk 04:11, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Agreed, soely because of the constant maintenance that it has and would continue to require. Even I forget to add stuff there at times. Having said that, it does serve a useful purpose so if anyone has any ideas of how to presenting the information here in a way which does not require constant maintenance, it would no doubt be appreciated. Thewinchester (talk) 04:18, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Pity you couldn't have a bot reading DSA and plonking the thing in the right format on that page automatically. Orderinchaos 04:23, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
How hard would it be for someone to compile a wikibot which could be tasked to do something like this? Do we know anyone with the requisite skills who could? Thewinchester (talk) 04:27, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Bot_to_maintain_AfD_listing_on_Australian_noticeboard Giggy UCP 04:32, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Maybe John Vandenberg is the person, but I recall seeing somewhere that he was rather "off air" for a few days. --Bduke 05:11, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
I swore I saw him comment on an AfD overnight regarding a perth shopping centre, maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me ;) Thewinchester (talk) 05:27, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

As an experiment I have set this Notice Board up to point to the deletion sorting article. What do think? This might clarify whether we need a bot or just delete it. I'll leave it as this for about 24 hours unless anyone feels so strongly that they revert it. To revert just point to "Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/AfD" not "Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/AfD2". --Bduke 05:25, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

You want a bot that just updates Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/AfD with the content in Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Australia, I could do that, but the bot would only run once a day. --Chris g 09:31, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but updates it in its current format. Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Australia transcludes the current AfD discussions and summarizes the MfD, TfD etc discussions. Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/AfD provides just a list with links to the articles and to the AfD discussions. Once a day would be fine, in my opinion. Those of us who currently update it raely get it even that up to date. --Bduke 10:25, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Once a day would be fine - we manually update it less frequently than that as it is. Orderinchaos 12:38, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

So I changed it to the state it will be in when the bot is running. I commented out the edit button for AfD (so if someone wants to move the sections around then they would want to put the edit button back in) and made it show the list again (as I envisage it will work). See WP:BRFA for progress. :: maelgwntalk 04:35, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Brilliant. I seem to have started a hare that is going to save several of us a lot of effort. Thanks, Chris G. --Bduke 11:37, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Can you please change the bot so it doesn't remove everything immediately once a discussion is concluded. It's better that the listing on AWNB stay for a day or so so that people can see the outcome. JRG 13:42, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

copyright warning

Australian photographs which date from 1946-1955 which had been thought to be public domain might have to be deleted, as they are not public domain in the US, where wikipedia is located, see Template_talk:PD-Australia#Restored_US_copyrights. For example: Image:1951 jubilee celebration.jpg, Image:CampMountainTrainSmash1947.jpg, Image:BrisbaneTramsAdelaideSt1954.jpg --Astrokey44 02:33, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd be a bit hesitant about acting on this just yet, as the note on that page was pretty brief, and I'm still not sure why he claims the legislation he cited has that effect. He may be right, but I'd like to see it actually confirmed by someone with a solid grasp of US copyright law, rather than by a French chemist. Rebecca 03:59, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
It seems to be confirmed by [7] which says that if it was copyrighted outside the US on 1 January 1996, then copyright remains in the US for 70 years after death of author. --Astrokey44 04:12, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the link. This clarifies things quite a bit, as far as I can see. The section you've quoted is true - however, it isn't relevant to the images we're talking about, as all of these images were in the public domain (and not copyrighted) on 1 January 1996. The relevant section of that page (Works Published Abroad Before 1978 Without Compliance with US Formalities) states that works published abroad prior to 1977, and in the public domain in their home country, are also in the public domain in the US.
In footnotes, it also explains the situation that the French guy was referring to re: the Uruguay Round Agreements Act. As I read it, it states that, to have the copyright restored, the work needed to still be in copyright in the country of publication - which was not the case here. I can see how this would be a minefield for a lot of copyrighted works (particularly for Wikisource), but I'm still not seeing how this has any effect as to the sorts of images we're using, which have been public domain for decades, and which in most cases were likely never published in the US. I could have missed something, but I wouldn't panic until someone explains why they believe this actually changes the status quo. Rebecca 08:15, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
It is relevant as the photographs we are talking about (1946-55) were not in the public domain in Australia on 1 Jan 96: only those from 50 years before this date were - prior to 1 Jan 1946. How is a photograph from 1950 in the public domain in 1996 when it has not been 50 years since it was taken? It isnt just the french guy, Lupo made a similar comment at commons:Template_talk:PD-Australia#Copyright_status_in_the_U.S. --Astrokey44 09:54, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
It's PD under Australian law as the legislations wasnt retrospective, Australian government images sites like the National Archives already acknowledge that the images are PD, official emails have previously been release on here, I'll find and link. Gnangarra 04:15, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes they are PD in Australia, but not in the United States, which is where the image is being stored --Astrokey44 05:33, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Oh great, another little project/reason for all the copyleft fanatics to go on a deletion spree. Lankiveil 06:13, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't get pessimistic yet. I'm not seeing how the French guy came to the conclusion that he did (nor did he explain how), and reading the page Astrokey linked above reaffirms for me the likelihood that he may have been mistaken. Rebecca 08:15, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Once an image is released into the Public Domain it cant be reversed, Australian copyright legislation is explicit on that. The concern would apply to protecting images sourced from the US, where the image was first published in the US and any of those conditions applied. Images from Australian sources and first published in Australia have Australian copyright laws applied, so if you take an image off the NAA website that was first published in Australia in 1951 then it became PD in 2002 as the legislation at that time was 50 years. Provided you can show the source as Australian aka a link to the actual page then it doesnt matter if the image has been later copied to a US server. Gnangarra 08:48, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
from Australian Copyright Council As a result of the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), the period of protection for most material has been extended. There has, however, been no revival of any copyright that expired before 1 January 2005under the old rules. Gnangarra 08:57, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Creative Commons

The above discussion started me reading further into the copyrights laws, http://www.copyright.org.au/pdf/acc/infosheets_pdf/g094.htm this page has a rather disturbing breakdown of what is provided/allowed by the use of Creative commons licenses, anyone who uploads media to Wikiprojects should read this and be aware of their rights. 14:14, 21 July 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gnangarra (talk • contribs).

They mostly focus on the marketing spiel that CC use to push their licences, and their legal criticisms are confined to the NC and ND varieties, which of course we don't use on Wikimedia projects anyway. That said, people should heed their advice to read the legal codes of the various licences before using them, and understand what they mean. --bainer (talk) 01:57, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
I know we use attribution and attrib/share a like, which have even less restrictions on usage than Non Commercial and No Derivatives. Gnangarra 04:57, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Couple of stub merges

I've proposed the following stub merges:

  • Gosford-geo- and Wyong-geo- into one for the Central Coast
  • Lake Macquarie, Newcastle and Port Stephens into Hunter region (this allows us to use the new type for Cessnock, Maitland, Dungog and Gloucester articles as well).

Feel free to comment on the above proposals at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals/2007/July Orderinchaos 09:00, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Australian television is the new collaboration

Men at Work was Australian collaboration from 8 July 2007 to 21 July 2007

  • 10 contributors made 35 edits
  • The article increased from 3521 bytes to 10164 bytes - almost three times longer
  • See how it changed

Australian television is the new collaboration of the fortnight. Please help to improve it in any way you can. Thanks. --Scott Davis Talk 12:26, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Men at Work was upgraded from being rated stub-class to rated B-class as a result of the collaboration, too. Well done. --Scott Davis Talk 16:04, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Mistaken mention of Wikipedia in The Australian

In Tribunal hit for Wikipedia ruling, the article describes Armeniapedia as "a Wikipedia website". At least I hope it's a mistake on The Australian's part, rather than the tribunal court's part! (And they deride Wikipedia as being unreliable...) Andjam 05:39, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah a few picked up on it - one I know of (where I first heard of it) was here. Orderinchaos 05:41, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
The mistake was at the magistrate level (check OIC's supplied link for a an onward link to the case transcript). I was on the phone Friday afternoon to both the report behind the story to help set them straight and also to the Registrar for Magistrate McInnes in Melbourne informing them of the mistake. I'm still waiting for The Australian to publish a correction, and I would have hoped it was done by now considering that when I put it all in an email to the reporter that Media Watch waa copied in on the email. Thewinchester (talk) 01:55, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-07-23/News and notes.--76.203.126.39 00:10, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Multimember electorate layout

I was wondering if someone could point me to a good example of a multi-member electorate page, particularly a lay out of the chronological list of members. --Roisterer 23:24, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

The Eye (UK Parliament constituency) page (and probably many other UK articles) show it could be done. Blarneytherinosaur gabby? 00:08, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

It's not bad, but it's a bit clunky - as I recall, we've generally done those sort of pages in the style of Electoral district of Frome. Rebecca 02:58, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Another one is Electoral district of Balmain, where I tried to show how members succeeded each other (or could have), although in Electoral district of East Sydney the parallel streams are over too-long a period for this to be completely effective.--Grahamec 03:40, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. The fruits of your suggestions can be found at Electoral district of Northern Territory. --Roisterer 02:11, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

{{PD-Australia}}

Can someone clarify the implications of the change made to this template please? Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:47, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I have reverted the changes. The added template does not pertain to many of the images it is used upon, and its accuracy as to the copyright of the images that it claims to refer to is rather dubious. We have a template that we know to be, as it currently states, correct. I'd rather not add a whole of extra information in that could very possibly be a misunderstanding (or that has at least not been justified). Rebecca 05:16, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
a discussion was taking place at Template_talk:PD-Australia#Restored_US_copyrights, every thing I can find still indicates that if copyright for photographs expired before 1st January 2005 its PD, even the US legislations indicates that. The was my last comment in the discussion, and the editor who changed the template hasnt responded to the information I provided with sources. Also note that the same issue is occurring at Commons as well. Gnangarra 05:19, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Gnangarra's argument is compelling. The reversion was correct. Hesperian 07:29, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Great work Gnangarra and Rebecca. This looks to have been a classic case of well-meaning copyright paranoia. --Nick Dowling 10:00, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't cheer yet. The discussion on Commons clarified things to some extent, and I can at least see where he was coming from. I'm not certain that either Gnangarra or the French guy is right, and I don't think either them or us have the knowledge to be making a final call on this. I wonder if it might be an idea to get some good advice on just where we stand as to the impact of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act on the copyright of Australian images in the United States - perhaps by getting in touch with the foundation's legal counsel or the Australian Copyright Council. In the meantime, though, I think we should act cautiously - deleting a bunch of images on the basis of an understanding that we're not sure is correct seems to be a bit hasty and unnecessary.
However, regardless of the result, please do not add the template on that talk page to the Australian public domain template, as it does not pertain to the vast amount of images with that tag. If it is determined that this is going to be a problem, we may need to create a seperate tag - preferably one that is clearer as to the actual detail of the problem. Rebecca 10:38, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
In complete disregard for for what is expect of an admin and a total lack of good faith User:Physchim62 has reverted Rebecca's edit and protected the page. Gnangarra 01:27, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I have unprotected the template. Physchim62's changes - even going beyond the matter of whether he is or is not right on the matter of post-1946 images - essentially broke the template, adding a "this should be deleted" tag to every Australian public domain image. This would have left the possibility of having a ton of indisputably public domain images deleted because of one admin's sheer stubborn incompetence. Once the post-1946 issue is settled, if he is indeed right, he needs to create a new template for those images, instead of screwing around with the main template. Rebecca 01:50, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Whether or not the copyright is valid for 1946-2005 or not (I'm inclined to think it is - wasn't the US-AU Free Trade Agreement supposed to fix up copyright discrepancies between the two countries?), this is starting to show the absolute copyright paranoia and ignorance that is rearing its head in Wikipedia nowadays. To delete every since Australian public domain image would be a nightmare and is completely unnecessary. This really has to stop. While this is not a criticism of any editor involved in this debate, I think there are far too many Wikipedians who think they know everything about intellectual property law when they really don't have a clue. Determinations of this sort should be done by editors with a background and degree in IP law or the Foundation's legal advisors. JRG 02:35, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
There is a bit of a mentality of that atm. I'm personally tired of having to undelete images which clearly fit Wikipedia's fair use criteria when I hit certain articles and write rationales just because some bot decided a month ago it should be deleted. The poor politics guys keep having waves of deletionists attacking non-free photos of politicians on the most spurious grounds, and I think some spend more time defending those than writing articles. Orderinchaos 03:33, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree that we should seek legal advice, and also that there should be a separate template for these images. --Astrokey44 10:24, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
The current discussion on this issue seems to be dominated by Bush lawyers, so some proper legal advice is clearly in order. It seems that this is a case of well-meaning people getting confused. --Nick Dowling 11:22, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm tempted to add another meaning to that page. Fred ☻ 15:54, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Bush lawyers? I suppose that's why you're attempting to discuss copyright law on a general notice board! U.S. copyright law on an Australian notice board at that. Pots and kettles to all of you! Physchim62 (talk) 20:42, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
A complete lack of WP:AGF from the above user if I ever saw one. I agree with Nick Dowling, this question really needs to be referred to someone (suggest Foundation legal) for a clear answer on the matter. As noted by ors, the wide reaching implications of this if infact true would be unacceptable. Thewinchester (talk) 22:45, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
You could always start by posting at Wikipedia talk:Copyrights.... Physchim62 (talk) 22:58, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
You do realise the irony of the above suggestion? Orderinchaos 02:34, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

HSC English

I read in the Sun Herald yesterday (unfortunately I don't have the article any more, and I can't find it online) that they've released the syllabus for the 2009 NSW HSC English course, and there's one text there that has 2,409,188 pages for students to browse through. I'd love to know more about this (especially what module they plan to put it in - probably Critical Study of Texts, what articles if any they'll be focusing on, and how they expect students to quote from an ever-changing text), but the article was very general on all the new texts, and didn't focus much on the specifics of any of them. I also can't find any relevant information on the Board's website. Confusing Manifestation 10:29, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I've posted the article from the Sun-Herald at Wikipedia:Press coverage, although it doesn't say much about how wikipedia is to be used as a text. Interesting though. Recurring dreams 11:25, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm actually a little confused now, as the article states that "[t]he contents of the new list are being kept a heavily guarded secret by the Board of Studies NSW, which refused even to reveal details about how the long selection process had been conducted", and yet the contents of the (draft) list are then spelled out. I'm going to send an email to the BoS Customer Liaison Unit to try and get some clarification. Confusing Manifestation 23:37, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Hopefully they'll be using only en.wikipedia.org , rather than www.wikipedia.org as reported, as it is for English. (Hmm - I wonder if la.wikipedia.org would have made an interesting change from Virgil for Latin). I'd imagine that they'd have to choose a specific version (or maybe a couple of versions) of article(s). Andjam 23:40, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
What's the unit of study now? I can totally see how you can use Wikipedia in an essay about "change" ("The more we change, the more we stay the same. Discuss with reference to two recent edit wars") or "journeys" ("Much can be learnt from the experience of a journey. Describe what you learnt while page-hopping on Wikipedia"). --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:08, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Official response from BoS: "We haven't released it yet, we don't know where the paper got it from, it will be out soon." Watch this space. Confusing Manifestation 04:37, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

The new HSC English text list for 2009-2012 has now been released by the Board of Studies. It is located here. WWGB 01:24, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, looking at the first document, Wikipedia is a text in Module C: Texts and Society, in Standard course Elective A: The Global Village. Pages to be studied include The welcome page, Main Page, Wikipedia:Community Portal, Wikipedia, Wikimedia, Wiki, Wikipedia:How to edit a page, Help:Contents, with details about specific sections to be given in July 2008. The annotations document gives a brief overview of the angles that may be covered, and seems to be pretty good (in that I can't see anything there that may suggest acting contrary to WP policy). I'm currently thinking that it would be good to have Wikimedia Australia up and running in time to contact the BoS and discuss some ways we might be able to help (and I'll make a post on meta:Talk:Wikimedia Australia in a minute to reflect that). Confusing Manifestation 02:33, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Federal election in Australia - use of wikipedia by politicians and their offices

Hi all - We did of course have some issue with the editing of wikipedia by the staff of politicians in the past (even though some of the allegations were not robust or helpful [8] ). I suspect with the Federal election coming up, it may be that biographies of politicans are updated by well-meaning people who other editors might suspect have a conflict of interest. For example recent changes to Ken Ticehurst indicate single issue editors contributing: AusBrian (talk · contribs) and Webbze (talk · contribs) - the latter user's talk page illustrating a concerted effort to upload images of the Member for Dobell including in a jet (although one image uploaded does remain). I don't think any of us want to see Wikipedia featured in the news for the wrong reasons. It would be nice if the politicians could stick to YouTube, MySpace, ... sites which encourage self-promotion - and perhaps they will. Just a suggestion that all editors with an interest in things Australian might like to augment their watchlists to help combat editing which may be associated with a conflict of interest and produce less than encyclopaedic articles. Regards --Golden Wattle talk 00:31, 25 July 2007 (UTC) (still really retired but back for an occasional visit)

Often it's not so much POV-pushing that's the problem as puff pieces (some of them by regular wikipedians, which I found surprising) which are long on curriculum vitae from vanity sources but short on neutral third-party coverage. Or maybe it's me with the problem. Andjam 03:08, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I suppose we can just keep an eye on Special:Recentchangeslinked/Candidates of the Australian general election, 2007. —Moondyne 03:55, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion - I picked up one hoax article through that link Gary Gray (Australian politician) - cleared of hoax material and nominated for CSD as empty--Golden Wattle talk 00:37, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
There is a tonne of clean-up to do -I picked up another two, one had sort of been attended to (Nola Marino- now nominated for speedy as promotional guff) but the other included quite defamatory anon edits - Richard Marles--Golden Wattle talk 00:51, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Wallabies jersey

I was wondering if anyone could get a photo of a wallabies rugby jersey. Maybe someone here owns one and could take a picure? For example something like this or this. It's not vital to the Wallabies' article but would be a good addition to the strip section. - Shudde talk 01:15, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Phil Edman - admin help needed

Help is needed at Phil Edman (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs). I have protected the page. It had in fact been deleted before under AfD. he is a candidate in the federal election. There is unedifying eidit warring going on. (The same eidtors are alos vandalsiing the ALP article. I have to go - can somebody please take over. Thanks --Golden Wattle talk 06:21, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see the notability of the subject and think the article should be deleted. Being a Local Government Councillor and pre-selected candidate is not generally enough to assert notability. The main thrust of the article appears to be to attack the subject over his drunk driving convictions with little or no content actually about the subject himself. I don't think it can be speedily deleted under WP:CSD#G4 because while I can't read the deleted article, the content of the AfD suggests the previously deleted article is substantially different to the current version. If it hadn't been recently protected I would nominate the article for deletion and salting. -- Mattinbgn/ talk 06:53, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Deleted as WP:CSD#A7, WP:CSD#G4 and WP:BLP violations. will salt if recreation occurs Gnangarra 07:32, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Sydney Harbour Photographs

The Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority Regulations 1999 (NSW) restrict the taking and subsequent use of photographs for commercial purposes. The Regulations prohibit any use of a camera for commercial purposes in a public area unless authorised by the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority. “Public areas” are defined as any part of the Sydney Harbour foreshore that the public is entitled to use and include Luna Park, the Rocks and Circular Quay, Darling Harbour, Woolloomoolloo, Pyrmont, White Bay, Rozelle Bay and the Australian Technology Park. For further information, contact the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority by phone 02 9240 8500 or see the website: http://www.shfa.nsw.gov.au.

Sometimes I should just stop reading the various copyright laws, as I read this any photo uploaded that covers the subject taken since 1999 cant have a free license because that permits commercial use, that would then place the photographer in breach of the regulation. Any other thoughts and comments. Gnangarra 13:09, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
The Regulations only prohibit the use of a camera for commercial purposes. Most WP editors would not be taking photos for Wikipedia for commercial purposes, and it's only the subsequent use that would be a problem - and how are they going to trace you for commercially using the photos anyway? I really wouldn't worry - there's no regulation of the subsequent use of the photographs despite what the website says, and nowhere does it say that the copyright to the photographs is vested in the SHFA or something like that (which is a situation where we would run into problems.) Let's stop the copyright paranoia and forget about it - We have enough trouble getting photos in Australia without things like this. JRG 13:19, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
This article provides some interesting insights. --Melburnian 13:32, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Quote from that article:
"As an indication of how seldom this restriction is invoked, the Permits page of the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority does not include any photography permit forms. You have to go to the <business.gov.au> website and search for "Film and television producers" forms. Then download the "Application to conduct film or photo shoot…" PDF for the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority (Form 33 + Form 42).
"So relax. You only need to worry about SHFA permits if your photography requires a film crew, portable generators and a couple of semitrailers. Otherwise the law is, as far as the general public is concerned, "more honour'd in the breach than the observance"." Orderinchaos 13:46, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Table in Northern Territory Legislative Council

In the process of creating the Northern Territory Legislative Council article, I added a table to try to present some electoral information. However, as one can see, creating tables isn't my strong point. If anyone can come up with a way to better illustrate the information I have in the table, I would be pleased to hear about it. --Roisterer 10:11, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't look too bad to me. A semi-related question though, what is with the Maori thing? Was there a special provision allowing "only whites and Maori" to vote, or was it restricted in some other way? Lankiveil 13:24, 29 July 2007 (UTC).
The table looks fine. Maybe a map could help? - 52 Pickup 13:41, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
The thing with Maori being able to vote is probably a relic of the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902. --bainer (talk) 13:52, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I presumed that the Commonwealth Franchise Act was responsible. It's the sort of topic (Maori voting rights in Australia) that cries out for an article. --Roisterer 23:42, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
Your wish is my command. Lets hope it doesn't come up for AfD! I still haven't been able to find why an exception was Maori, however. Lankiveil 10:26, 30 July 2007 (UTC).
I should do more wishing. As for "why", my guess (without any sources to back this up) was that it was in some way related to the mooted federation of Australia and New Zealand. I might raise the issue at the Wikipedia:New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board (if it hasn't already been raised). --Roisterer 22:47, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Maybe it could be listed in Wikipedia:Unusual articles. It could do with a parent article, though I guess Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 is pretty good. Andjam 03:08, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Attention needed on Alan Jones page

Alan Jones (radio broadcaster) has become bogged down in reverting between myself and an anonymous editor who seems to be determined to make Jones' recent criminal conviction the main focus of the article, e.g. introducing him as "radio broadcaster and convicted criminal" and repeatedly introducing weasel-wording to turn one journalist's attributed opinion into an unattributed statement ("it is believed..." - cf WP:WEASEL). Further discussion, and plenty of it, on the article's talk page.

I'm no fan of Jones, but I can't see this fixation as anything approaching NPOV; I would appreciate input from other editors.--Calair 09:08, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Hello, I'm the "anonymous" editor with the IP address 203.217.41.202 that Calair refers to. The section on Alan Jones' criminal conviction is at the very bottom of the article, after many other sections. I think Alan Jones' criminality gets less prominence than other famous Australians who have attained criminal records, including businessmen, politicians and entertainers who were famous for other activities prior to their criminal convictions. Because it is already at the bottom of the article, I don't see the argument to reduce it further. Best wishes, 203.217.41.202 03:09, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Jones conviction is in the third paragraph from the top, not just the bottom of the article. WWGB 05:28, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
It's unfortunate that NPOV is sometimes bandied around by experienced wikipedians to preclude verifiable facts on the public record. πίππύ δ'Ω∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 05:14, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Some editors seem to have a particular interest in highlighting the salacious episodes in the life of a public figure. See what has been done to Glenn Wheatley for example. WWGB 05:28, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if you could call the Alan Jones page "salacious". Most of the negative findings on A.J were the verdicts of government inquiries, official investigations and courts of law. The incident that earned Alan Jones the criminal record has been reported in Wikipedia in a manner very close to the style it was reported in the newspaper. I don't think it's NPOV (thanks, πίππύ δ'Ω∑) or embellished in any salacious manner. It's just that a criminal conviction is never going to sound flattering for anyone, and I know Alan Jones fans will be disappointed that something unflattering is included. In the verdict, the judge called Jones' crime "a serious offence". If anything, I think the criminal side is downplayed in the article. Thanks. 203.217.41.202 07:10, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I can recall a discussion about 12 months ago as to whether it was ok to quote what Alan Jones had to say on his popular radio show immediately prior to the Cronulla riots (I imagine those quotes disappeared long ago). Prior to that, I can recall an experienced American wikipedian asking us to delete a quote attributed to John Howard about gun control because an American audience might draw the wrong conclusion as to his bona fides. Incredibly, there was some support for that view on this notice board (not sure what the upshot was). Both cases were eloquently argued on the basis of maintaining NPOV. Personally, I'm not going to die in a ditch about either omission, it just seems a selective use of NPOV: at best an amusing paradox; at worst, something slightly more sinister (a bit like doublespeak). πίππύ δ'Ω∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 07:49, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Sports team notability

There are a number of sports teams nominated at Articles for deletion. Is there any place where guidelines exist as to the notability or otherwise of Australian sporting teams? Capitalistroadster 03:10, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Most of the teams seem to be from the AFL, and there is some discussion about notability at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject AFL. A user was trying to create guidlines here, but I guess its only a proposal at this stage. Recurring dreams 03:20, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps consider this guideline, which includes teams. WWGB 03:23, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

AFD List on AWNB

Before the AFD list above was automated there used to be notes on what some AfDs were (particularly people) which was very helpful in deciding whether to comment on them. Can whoever runs this now please make sure that these notes continue to be put next to the AfD links instead of just listing them all without any explanation as to what any of the AfDs are about. JRG 05:04, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

It's a bit hard to make a bot describe something...I suppose with the name of the article, you can get some idea of the general area its in (Biographical, product, event, etc.), and then you can click the article link for more info. Sorry there's no other way :( Giggy Talk | Review 05:09, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, yes, there is a way - you can allow editors to edit the section again and someone can keep it up to date (like we used to do). JRG 05:26, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Donald Bradman FA drive - request for help

Hi. Two of the cricket WikiProject are leading a drive to get the Don to FA status. Help gratefully welcomed. We're both Poms, so some Aussie scrutiny would be particularly useful. Particularly, (re Popular culture section) I'm wondering if Bradman's name is popularly used by Aussies as a metaphor for excellence (See List of archetypal names), especially outside of the sporting world. If anyone has any RS for this, examples of prominent Aussies using it in this way, please do drop a line at the article talk page. Thanks. Whinging Dweller 09:15, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Articles and Google Earth

Google Earth has recently introduced a new display layer which links to Wikipedia articles. Any article which contains co-ordinates in the title bar (just within the article won't do the job) will place a marker within Google Earth at that spot - visible when the "Geographic Web" layer is turned on. Given this new exposure, it is worth making sure that you give accurate co-ordinates for smaller locations (towns and suburbs) and very precise co-ordinates for landmarks and buildings. The Google Earth layer apparently refreshes itself every 1-3 months (!) so it will take a while to see your improvements. For details on how to display geographical co-ordinates, see {{Coord}} - 52 Pickup 07:15, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Not sure if it is just the layers I have turned on in Google Earth, but it seems to me that Southern NSW/Riverina is fairly well covered but it is pretty sparse elsewhere in Australia. -- Mattinbgn/ talk 08:03, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Can someone demonstrate how to do it on The Strand, Townsville article please? I've tried a couple of times using the preview option and seem to be getting it wrong. Cheers, Alec ✉﹌ ۞ 11:16, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Looks like it's been done now. For more info about Wikipedia in Google Earth, see this FAQ - 52 Pickup 13:10, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Announcing the birth of...

Template:Infobox Govt Agency, a new baby infobox template weighing in a 3.25kb, born to proud parent Thewinchester and delivered in the birthing suite by Orderinchaos. Infobox and parent are doing well, and the parent is already showing off the newborn in locations as far away as the United States. We look forward to watching this infobox grow into into a healthy template. Thewinchester (talk) 14:35, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Any Canberrans free next Thursday afternoon?

I've posted here because I know not everyone reads wikimediaau-l. Next Thursday (August 16th), I'm meeting with a member of the Canberra Convention Bureau to get some ideas towards the possibility of bidding for Wikimania 2009. While I don't mind going alone, I thought it might not be a bad idea to have someone else there as well, to make sure I didn't miss anything. If you're interested and available, drop me an email over the next couple of days and we can have a chat. (And just a little spam here: don't forget to sign up for the Wikimedia Australia chapter on meta at m:Wikimedia Australia.) Confusing Manifestation 13:36, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Template madness

For those of you with extensive watchlist with a lot of suburbs/towns, this is firstly an apology for filling it. A US editor without bot approval made 1,597 changes to Australian articles which consisted solely of changing {{Mapit-AUS-suburbscale}} links to {{Geolinks-AUS-suburbscale}}, with an eventual aim of having the Mapit redirect deleted per consensus reached in other locations (mainly the US and Canada). I reverted these changes as I don't think bots should be driving consensus, rather the other way around.

The history in point form:

  • 20 Dec 2004 - created as Mapit-AUS-suburbscale, and developed substantially by User:Nickj.
  • 5 Apr 2006 - moved to Geolinks-AUS-suburbscale by User:Docu, a US editor - no discussion on talk page.
  • 10/14 Apr 2006 - documentation added by User:Lucanos and User:Stephen.frede, two NSW-based editors
  • Some development since to accommodate new facilities as well as the coord template. (changelog)

As at 9 August, 2028 instances of Mapit-AUS-suburbscale, and 413 of Geolinks-AUS-suburbscale excluding self-references. Due to extensive development by Australian editors, the template is quite different from its cousins in the US and Canada.

What should we do?

  1. Leave as is (as we have done thus far)
  2. Move Geolinks- back to Mapit- and redirect Geolinks- to Mapit- so the 413 articles will transclude the template appropriately.
  3. As per 2 but convert fully to Mapit-
  4. Abandon Mapit- and convert to Geolinks- fully.

My personal feeling is that #2 is the most appropriate course of action, but I wanted to ask here before making a major move to a template on the principle that two wrongs don't make a right. Orderinchaos 08:17, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm totally confused about this one. One template redirects to the other. They do exactly the same thing! Does it really matter which name is used? (I think Geolinks is the OS standard but it doesn't matter because they both work anyway.) This mornings work was an exercise in futility. The only thing I see that could need to doing is to make sure all scales (as in different templates) that exist in one template have appropriate redirects from the other. :: maelgwn - talk 09:42, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Tell me about it. :| Yeah, if you redirect a template to another working template, the former works basically as the latter. That's why I think it would be more efficient to have the template where it's most used, and have the lesser used one redirecting, but I just wanted to seek the community's opinion. Orderinchaos 09:50, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
If we use Mapit more here, then it should be the one that we keep (and delete Geolinks). It would make the conversion job a lot simpler as well. I for one am very used to using Mapit so I would prefer to keep it than using Geolinks. JRG 09:55, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Now that i've looked more I'd leave it because nearly all other templates use Geolinks. For consistency, Template:Geolinks-AU-streetscale should be moved to Template:Geolinks-AUS-streetscale and a redirect made at Template:Mapit-AUS-streetscale. :: maelgwn - talk 09:59, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for bringing that one to my attention! Didn't even know that one existed - seems it was created in early 2007 to replace some Coor templates on said articles and has fallen behind on development. Perhaps having one template and parameterising (that is, creating a "zoom=on" option or somesuch to change the values) would work better, so we don't have to change umpteen templates when, say, Wikimapia changes their input format. There's less than 250 transclusions. Orderinchaos 10:09, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Railpage Australia AfDs

Can someone please look out for these please - there appears to be an AfD war going on. The current AfD is the fifth one this month (I think) and the seventh in a number of weeks. Apart from continually speedy closing the debate, is there something that can be done to stop the multiple AfDs? I suspect they are being perpetrated by a number of trolls either who are registered on the RailPage site or who inhabit the aus.rail newsgroup. JRG 10:04, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Although i'm not neutral in this subject - being a Railpage user, and having made a few edits on the Railpage article - I would strongly lean towards the cause being one aus.rail troll. Check the sockpuppet list at the bottom of Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/The_Null_Device. Using different accounts,(I believe that The Null Device himself was cleared of sockpuppet allegations) this one user is responsible for Railpage AfD's 3 through 7, and I strongly believe - judging by the username - that they are responsible for No. 8, too. Johnmc 10:14, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
    • It would appear to be abuse of process to have it at AfD in such short succession and will probably be given short shrift. If it were me (I won't be participating), I'd make sure I stated as a comment immediately below the AfD nomination the dates and links of all previous AfDs and their result (the links are given nowadays next to the nom anyway). As for the wider question, I'll ask around. Orderinchaos 11:07, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
      • I've closed the AfD, protected the article, blocked the nominator and posted to WP:AN/I for a review. Gnangarra 11:16, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
        • Good. I think that your actions are entirely appropriate. For the record, I don't use railpage because their account creation process has failed every time I've tried but I've seen the rubbish in aus.rail and it's clearly abuse. --Athol Mullen 12:21, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
          • For the record until I closed an afd a while back (5 or 6 afds ago) I hadnt heard of either railpage or aus.rail. Gnangarra 12:32, 11 August 2007 (UTC)