Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 7

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global warming

If anyone in Sydney doesnt believe in global warming after the last two days ill be very suprised. Anyway, all the more reason to stay inside where its nice and cool, like in front of a computer contributing to wikipedia. The bellman 03:31, 2004 Dec 1 (UTC)

I have a job interview there in two weeks. I thought I'd be in for a nice cool change from the tropics for a few days. Then after I get off the phone, I read 42 freaking degrees, there goes that plan.--ZayZayEM 03:24, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Light bulbs

I stumbled across Lightbulb joke (university) today, in which Aussie unis are sadly under represented, so does anyone know any lightbulb jokes about aussie unis other than newcastle? The bellman 05:06, 2004 Dec 1 (UTC)

I don't think that joke just applies to Newcastle. AFAIC Australia doesn't have quite the same level of polarisation in students that other countries do.--ZayZayEM 12:44, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It is in reference to a specific incident in which an internaitonal fee paying student who handed in absolute crap (if memory serves, it wasnt even his own crap, he had downlaoded it off the web or something), so his lecturer failed him, he complained, and the admin, got it remarked by a different lecturer who (presumably under pressure from the admin) passed it. There was a big thing in the papers about it at the time. The bellman 00:49, 2004 Dec 2 (UTC) update: links be here (my memory was a little off) The bellman 00:55, 2004 Dec 2 (UTC)
Yeah, I remember it because it gave me the shits at the time. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:29, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

coming out of my searching for info on the newcastle plagerism case is a new google tool that i just found and might be useful to others - google scholar, it is meant to be used specificaly for searching peer reviewed papers, theses, etc. sounds like it could be useful to us. By the way, do people think that this newcastle plagarism affair deserves its own article, or just a heading in the UNCLE artile? The bellman 01:14, 2004 Dec 2 (UTC)

I read soemwhere it was meant to (have an option?) find only free full text articles (a godsend to any student with picky markers), but I can't seem to turn that on. Still great tool to compete with PubMed and ProQuest.--ZayZayEM 14:52, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Re the list of Uni light bulb jokes - I remember seeing one about Adelaide high schools a year or two ago, it had the Universities in it as well. Ah, here is a list of Australian Unis. Someone want to wikify this for me - it's after midnight here... Alphax (talk) 14:22, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)
I added some of those in the list above. I tried to use ones which were somewhat particular to that university. --bainer 23:48, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Here is one about Perth high schools:

Light Bulb

Geography olympics

This was placed in the page header by an anon, I've kept it in case anyone is actually interested. T.PK 02:26, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Attention Aussie Wikipedians: For those with a sense of the world, that is, those of you good with geography, please participate in the Geography Olympics to give Australia a respectable score.

mmm... wikispam, almost as tasty as real SPAM. The bellman 01:06, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)
E AI, that's freaking more dificult than i thought it would be. I should be doubly ashamed since my mother is a geography teacher. The bellman 01:12, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)
I have two High Distinctions in geography. I scored 2/10. (I used a map to rectify my tragedy so that the rest of Australia need not be tarnished by my abysmal performance - I still only managed 9/10). Seems it's reaching the news [1].

--ZayZayEM 03:32, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Damper

Damper is on VFD - help save it! The version original put up for deletion is quite different to what is there now, so it should be safe, but you never know. -- Chuq 05:40, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

7 Keeps, 2 Extreme Keeps, and 1 Keep Keep KEEP, versus 1 Delete. I think it's well and truly safe now. T.PK 08:05, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
No deletes now... - Aaron Hill 09:51, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

Australian Federation

It's my view that we need, as part of the Australian history series, a specific entry on the history, and process, of Federation. Trouble is, I'm not really sure what such an article should include. Does anyone have any ideas? Lacrimosus 09:06, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Firstly, the article should really be at Australian federation, instead of Federation of Australia. The latter makes it sound as if it's about Australia itself. It shouldn't be too hard to get a good article on federation - starting off with the early ideological rumblings and causes, through the Tenterfield Oration and the official conferences, then the people's conferences and referendums, and finally, to January 1, 1901. Ambi 12:18, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

12th Man

I've just reverted this edit by User:Aggie0083 : http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=12th_Man&diff=8137313&oldid=8133576

Hopefully he'll leave it alone, but this guy could start causing a problem. AFAIK even if it is copyrighted (does he mean "trademarked"?), it would in the US only. Internationally, '12th man' is a generic term, and it hasn't stopped Billy Birmingham from releasing his CDs. -- Chuq 04:50, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Murray River is new ACOTW

The Murray River is now ACOTW.

ACOTW has sort of shifted to Monday nights. We might run an extra long COTW over Christmas/New Years to restore order? Or possibly run this COTW for only 6 days depending on enthusiasm? --ZayZayEM 12:43, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Select Committee on Reserves (Reserve 43131) Bill 2003

I was hoping that we could add to this new report that has been released in Western Australia. I have lots of links to information, so we really have no excuse not to be able to work on this article. Not only this, but it's a high visibility article (especially in WA) and the media may pick it up. You have a good chance of having your work quoted, cited, mentioned by the media! Now wouldn't that be cool? hint hint...

I've made a start on Select Committee on Reserves (Reserve 43131) Bill 2003, but would appreciate some help on this one. Mainly because I'm also working on the btreive article, which is totally unrelated but I'm not sure how long I'll have access to my btreive book! - Ta bu shi da yu 12:43, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Red_Ensign

Does anyone know if we had one of these? The bellman 12:43, 2004 Dec 11 (UTC)

From 1954 Australian's used one, details are here [2] --nixie 22:11, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

ACOTW overhaul

ACOTW is getting an official pruning policy for 2005. Akin to the footer on the main WP:COTW page. See User:ZayZayEM/Sandbox for the new look. (the to /Removed section will obvioulsy be removed)

Every two votes an article receives will give it two weeks on the board for proposal.

Articles that are currently on the board have the following options :

  1. They have until January 3 (or another set date) to get additional votes to make their number even (either 1 or 2)
  2. All votes will be reset and counting will start from the date of the reset (which is probably a lot simpler)
Sounds good to me! I think you've officially taken over from me now :P Good work! - Ta bu shi da yu 06:38, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I think I'm going to go for a whole vote reset, this will be a lot simpler and hopefully not upset people too much.--ZayZayEM 11:32, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Viewing deleated articles

Voting in Australia is compolsory, so unless you want to get a fine from the AEC, go and vote :P The bellman 11:38, 2004 Dec 14 (UTC)

OK, I'm a sucker

I'm most definitely a sucker, but I've taken on another WikiProject: Wikipedia:WikiProject computers. If anyone has any flair with computers or knows how to research computer topics, I welcome them there!!!! We're still formulating policy. - Ta bu shi da yu 11:41, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Australian turpentine

Following a question on the turpentine page, I was checking a number of haz-chem data sheets and noticed that several search results gave Gum turpentine coming from .au domains. I've put in a redirect to the main turpentine page, but can anyone confirm that this is right (it could possibly be rosin), and is it a name that is more commonly used in Australia? -- Solipsist 15:12, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I seem to recall that my cousin used to use Gum turpentine to thin artists oil paints. I seem to recall it was to extend the working time of the paint or possibly it was just because it was higher quality than normal turps. Of course there is a chance I am remembering totally wrongly and it was another turps variety altogether. Martyman 21:35, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I've never heard of turpentine gum before, but research on google seems to suggest that turpintine gum, is rosin. In normal converstaion aussies call turpentine oil 'turps'. Also turpentine is the name of a native tree (not a pine - hard wood semi-rainforest) which i doubt trups oil can be got from, so i dont know why it has the same name (and its not a gum tree either, so turpentine gum cant refer to it). The bellman 11:01, 2004 Dec 17 (UTC)
I've now done enough net searching to convince myself that Gum Turpentine is just another name for genuine turpentine (eg [3]). The name doesn't appear to be particularly localised to Australia, but it might be that more genuine turpentine is manufactured in Australia and New Zealand than elsewhere (differential cost in the availability of crude oil vs Pine resin?) Some people are also using the name 'Gum rosin' for rosin produced from pine trees.
I was in a hardware store the other day - and I use 'turps' quite often - 'turps' is Mineral Turpentine. I have no idea what Gum turpentine is, but it could be Turpentine oil, from the tree... or maybe not... oh well... Alphax (talk) 13:54, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

1999 Australian republic referendum

Can someone please go through 1999 Australian republic referendum and NPOV it - looks like a monarchist has been through it with a sledgehammer. PMA 23:22, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Added Australian Suburb Mapping template

Folks, I've added a new Australian mapping template based on the stuff the Americans have been doing (and which will soon be added to all or most of the RamBot articles). This template only needs a longitude and a latitude, and you can see an example of it here. The template itself is Template:Mapit-AUS-suburbscale, the discussions the Americans have had about their new templates are here, and an example of it being added to an American town is here. Please feel free to expand / update / modify the template as you see fit. It would be great to see all Australian Suburb articles include this type of information (which is why I thought it better to mention it here, rather than just on the Sydney Suburbs WikiProject page). All the best, -- Nickj 04:21, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Nice idea, but I would prefer the Ausway maps over Sensis/Mapquest (the latter of which has no data at high zoom levels in Australia), at least for Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane, (which are all mapped in Melway style) - nothing better frankly :P
Main page Example long/lat URL
What though is the difference between the 'street map' and the 'suburb map' - they're the same thing, just with different websites and different starting zooms. Seems redundant to me. The aerial photo is nice though. T.PK 04:35, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Fair enough! This is the benefit of using a template, that it can easily be changed once in one place ... I've ditched MapQuest (couldn't zoom in very far), added Ausway (as "Street Map 1"), but I've kept Sensis (because it lets you zoom in much further than Ausway does), and renamed it "Street Map 2". Yes, I know, two street maps, which is redundant, but they've both got good points, so they're complementary. The Americans also include a topographic map, but I don't know if such a thing is available for Australia. If it is, or if there are any other resources that should be included in this template, please feel free to add them in. All the best, -- Nickj 06:53, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
A quick update: You can get an approximate longitude and latitude for just about all Australian suburbs from this list. The figures should be pretty close (within 1/2 kilometer), although you might have to adjust them a little bit to make sure they're spot-on to the suburb's centre. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 05:59, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Asbestosis - Compensation and Liability Disputes

A VfD after a revert war on asbestosis. Anyone think they could do anything to this, given what James Hardie has just done? Alphax (talk) 04:23, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)

Public Domain images

These are all over 70 years old, so should be OK in both Australia and the U.S.

Kylie Minogue

What have we got to do to get this to featured article status? - Ta bu shi da yu 01:37, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You might want to read the earlier objections - apparently the writing was considered fansitish, from memory. Ambi 15:49, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Newcastle Earthquake article

I've done an article on the 1989 Newcastle earthquake, you guys can take a look and make changes as you see fit. Also, if you're doing an article relevant to Newcastle, you can put it in the "Newcastle, New South Wales" category. Cheers! BigDan 14:49, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

I've been meaning to do that for ages - nice article! I might have to go expand it a bit soon. :) Ambi 15:49, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

ACOTW is broken, please fix it!

I'm talking about two things here:

  1. The "click here to add..." link is gone
  2. The page has been severly neglected.

Oh, and I'd like to add Hutt River Province (if it's Australian); compare with Sealand, which has only 5 citizens, but a much better article. Alphax (talk) 15:19, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

I've cleaned up the template to add a new nomination. Try the link at the bottom of the page. T.PK 16:05, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Sorry about the link. There is always the "edit section" and "edit page" buttons. I am waiting for a few more people to vote before a new ACOTW is chosen. Especially as not much has happened to Bert.--ZayZayEM 04:47, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • REMEMBER EVERYONE HAS TO CAST VOTES AGAIN FOR ACOTW

Can I ask when Sunday, January 4, 2005, 20:00 (AEST) is? I assume it's meant to be January 9? T.PK 11:00, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • maybe?
  • On another note, I'm going to work in Japan in a few months (and therefore am busy organising a lot of forms, clothes, items for that), and have recently been suckered into Anarchy Online's free subscription campaign - so if someone else would like to take over ACOTW it would be nice.--ZayZayEM 03:04, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Referendums in Australia

I've created a number of articles under Referendums in Australia. There's a basic format for each referendum, with links to the questions, and an article about each question. If anyone would like to help fill in some of the referendum sections, there's a great link at the bottom of the Referendums in Australia for references, however it doesn't go into much detail about the whys and wherefores of each referendum.

Please use the discussion page Talk:Referendums in Australia to cover any issues with the series.

i will do some work on it. Xtra 13:36, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Australian placename convention

Question: If I find an Australian city, place, town etc. article which does not have the state/territory in the title, should I move it? Alphax (t) (c) (e) 03:29, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

Generally yes, as the standard is usually [place], [state] (i.e: Box Hill, Victoria or Mascot, New South Wales), instead of just [place].
There seem to be quite a lot of uniquely Australian placenames that are not positioned in a State/Territory. Looking back at the archives, the "standard" seems to only be widely accepted for suburb names, and ambiguous names. --ScottDavis 05:56, 2005 Jan 9 (UTC)
We had a vote HERE, and so this did become an (official?) policy. A notice still needs to to be penned for the wikipedia:naming conventions (places) page.--ZayZayEM 07:12, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I thought I'd had a look at the archive, but only found the discussion, not that formal vote. I better rename a few pages I made today, having followed option 2 rather than the winning option 1. Thanks. --ScottDavis 09:55, 2005 Jan 9 (UTC)

I've also been slapped over the wrist for trying to rename Lake Albert to Lake Albert, Africa and disambiguate it from Lake Albert, South Australia. Any comments? --ScottDavis 09:55, 2005 Jan 9 (UTC)

I think its okay the way it is. There is only two articles called Lake Albert, and the African one was just lucky to get in first. As long as the dismabiguation notice at the top of that page remains, and only two same-named articles exist I don't feel an additional disambig page is needed.--ZayZayEM 04:44, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'm happy with Xtra's disambiguation. Stan said Google is a good source to identify which one is most significant. It was interesting that Yahoo put 3 each of Africa, South Australia and NSW in the top 12 (plus one each for Alaska and Ontario and two for Albert Park Lake in the top 20), while Google was much stronger biased towards Africa. --ScottDavis 11:03, 2005 Jan 10 (UTC)

Well, Renmark and Renmark, South Australia were merged, but the SA one is now a redirect. What should be done in cases like this, where the State/Territory article is a redirect? Alphax (t) (c) (e) 05:33, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

Inland water transport

The Darling River article links to Paddle steamer which is very USA-centric. The Murray River article links to steamboat, which is slightly UK-centric. Neither article says anything about Australia. I don't feel confident to attempt to merge these pages or add significant Australian content. Is anyone aware of an Australian-centric article that covers a similar space? I may be able to contribute some photos taken at Echuca last month. --ScottDavis 13:18, 2005 Jan 10 (UTC)

The two boats mentioned in the Murray article (Mary Ann and Lady Augusta) were paddle-steamers. I don't know why I linked "steamboat" instead -- possibly because, as you say, the "paddle steamer" article is so US-centric. The "steamboat" and "paddle steamer" discussion pages suggest the two articles shouldn't be merged (but that duplicate content should be reduced) so I think Australian stuff should be added to "paddle steamer". If there is going to be a lot of content, or if there were Australian river boats that weren't paddle-steamers, perhaps a separate river transport in Australia article would be worthwhile. Geoff/Gsl 21:30, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The trouble with creating new articles is that they tend to overlap (some Murray River#Mythology could also fit in Ngarrindjeri). It might be better to just expand the Murray River#River transport section, and try to add some Australian content to Paddle steamers. I guess a new article would be useful if we wanted to try to list all existing commercial boats or something. There have been significant non-steam vessels such as the Murray River Queen, too. I'd also like to add a bit about transport across the river as well as along it - bridges are significant, and the public road ferries/punts are quite unusual I believe. Transport should also mention contemporary houseboats and tourist rides. --ScottDavis 00:08, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)
I don't understand your mythology comment. This myth, in various forms is common to more than just one langauge group. And on furtehr information that has come my way since writing that bit, outside of the Murray-area (extended to the creation of all rivers on a cross-country hunt).--ZayZayEM 07:14, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Geoff attributes the detail and names to the peoples of Lake Alexandrina. The Ngarrindjeri live there, and upstream as far as Mannum. --ScottDavis 07:38, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)
I didn't contribute any of the mythology stuff. I wrote some of "river transport" and "water storage". As far as overlapping articles goes, I don't see that as a problem. If there's an article on Australian river transport (covering, say, the Murray, Darling, Murrumbidgee, etc.) then there is nothing wrong with summarising the Murray-relevant material in the Murray River article. Geoff/Gsl 09:50, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Ooops! Sorry to you both - it was ZayZayEM! My point is still that the dreamtime stories of the Ngarrindjeri could be on their page as well as on the Murray River page. --ScottDavis 12:44, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)
Yes, it was me. Also note, it was me who raised concerns as to your suggestions. the story is far beyond a single language group, and is probably best left in this article (or in an article of its own)--ZayZayEM 08:28, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Fine - again sorry for not attributing the work to you the first time. I won't be copying any of it across, and won't be adding anything about dreamtime or mythology, as I don't feel I know it myself. That's why I READ encyclopediae, not write them :-) If you know more, please add it to the Ngarrindjeri or any other articles. This conversation has drifted from river transport and paddlesteamers, where I do hope to be able to contribute further. --ScottDavis 11:33, 2005 Jan 12 (UTC)

How to maintain lists of postcodes

Should they be ordered by Name or Number? I'm trying to do something with List of postcodes in South Australia, but there are quite a few duplicate entries. What should I do? Alphax (t) (c) (e) 08:23, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

In my opinion, these should have been deleted and redirected to a page that describes the Australia postcode format, with an off-site link to the actual postcode index. I believe there may already have been a vote to do this, but it was rejected (check the pages' talk page and whatlinkshere page) -- Chuq 06:10, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'm certain there was a VfD vote, but somehow, they survived. They should all be deleted as they are exact duplicates (essentially) of the List of X suburbs pages, just sorted by postcode, rather than by suburb/locality name, and some of them have no links either. Why have two sets of pages to do the same thing? Compare List of Melbourne suburbs/List of localities (Victoria) with List of postcodes in Victoria. TPK 07:51, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Law

Is there any interest in kicking off WikiProject:Australian law? Our product in that regard, so far, is woeful. Any takers? User:SilasM 13 Jan 05

You're telling me. I don't know how much help I'll be - I suspect I'll be substantially more so in a year or two, but I'll certainly try, and I'd be prepared to dedicate a fair bit of time to it. Ambi 04:07, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
i may be able to give some assistance. Xtra 04:16, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
My inspiration is the remarkably readable Oxford Companion to the High Court of Australia (ISBN 0195540220). Compulsory reading. One suggestion I have is that someone might do a bit of an examination of the good things that have developed in Wikipedia re other jurisdictions (esp the USA. I haven't looked at the UK materials), and come back with a list of, say, three or four things that are worth emulating. Now that some people have starting pecking away at descriptions of the courts and what they do, we might as well finish that off. After that, I'd be most keen to see a systematic burst on the big High Court cases. I am very new to WP, but am a relatively senior legal practitioner, so I think I can best assist by helping people find relevant content. SilasM 05:31, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There's really quite a few things we need, not necessarily in this order.

  • articles for the courts
  • articles for the High Court and Supreme Court justices
  • a template for articles on pieces of legislation, and a to-do list of important laws to point people in the right direction
  • a list of important High Court cases (per the American example), to give us something to work from - note that we can follow the template established by the US Supreme Court WikiProject, or at least use it as an example. I'd go dig both links up, but wiki is ultra slow right now. Ambi 09:02, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

i will write some basic articles, giving background info on all the High Court Judges. Xtra 09:53, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think that the best article we have is Australian constitutional law. Each of its subtopics deserves expansion in articles of their own, as do each of the cases to which the author referred to in footnotes. SilasM 02:42, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I will start on an article about Australian anti-terrorism legislation, and my current collection of resources is here, in case anyone has anything further they could point me to. SilasM 03:44, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

IRC

So far, there's a couple of Australian editors who regularly congregate in the #wikipedia IRC channel. It'd be nice, though, to see a few more Australians on there - might help getting things really started again. So what about it, TPK, Somebody in the WWW, Xtra, Silas, ZayZayEm, Alphax, Nickj, and others? Ambi 04:22, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

how do you get onto this IRC? Xtra 04:24, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  1. Get a client, such as mIRC.
  2. Install it.
  3. Connect to FreeNode (it'll be in a drop-down box if you use mIRC).
  4. Join the #wikipedia channel.
  5. Voila (or drop me a note if you have any problems). Ambi 04:59, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Don't use IRC. Don't plan on (then again said the same about Mozilla)--ZayZayEM 06:17, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • I have occasionally checked out the IRC channel. There is usually no useful discussion in there so i rarely go in there. Somebody in the WWW 09:17, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Latham

Who would have guessed this time last year hey? The bellman 12:25, 2005 Jan 19 (UTC)

Ya :( more's the pity. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:22, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Municipality of Strathfield

Can someone have a look at this and tell me if I should add any material? I'm trying to focus on issues relating to the whole municipality, not just Strathfield. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:22, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)