Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Australia

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[edit] Australia

This comprehensive article provides a really good overview of contemporary Australia. It comes in at 37kb (right between Cambodia and South Africa). The writing is good and the facts are well sourced, I fully support its promotion to a featured article--nixie 05:49, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • Support. C'mon 'Straya, vote now! Harro5 07:30, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support The sentence with were a commonplace of mediaeval geographers appears to be missing a word after commonplace. I don't know what to replace it with, but other than that, it's great! Tuf-Kat 08:14, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
    • Is a commonplace becoming unusual? Perfectly cromulent word: "A common or ordinary topic; an opinion or statement generally accepted or taken for granted; a stock theme or subject of remark, an every-day saying. Slightingly: A platitude or truism." This article is very well-written. Bishonen | talk 21:44, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • I thought perhaps commonplace was what you call a group of mediaeval geographers. As in, look at that! It's a huge commonplace of mediaeval geographers in their natural habitat! Seriously, though, I've never heard the word used that way. In any case, the current wording is clearer, to me at least. Tuf-Kat 22:20, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support - good stuff. Pity they are going to lose The Ashes this year ;) (Commonplace "... n. 1. b. Something that is ordinary or common".) -- ALoan (Talk) 10:42, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Well ALoan, if they lose to lowly Bangladesh like they just did, England might win! :)  =Nichalp (Talk)= 17:57, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support Thanks to nixie's hard work, this article is now one of the finest in Wikipedia and should be recognised as such.-- Cyberjunkie 11:28, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Support — Excellent work.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 17:52, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object — This is a great article, except for the images. I think that a lot of them are misplaced, or should be moved off to sub article of Commons to make place for more evocative images of Australia.

** NewParliamentHouseInCanberra.jpg - There are no other images of historical Australia in this section, and thisimage has litle to do with the history of Australia at all. This should instead be moved to the Politics section.

Done, and added a lithograph from Flinders book to the history, unfortunatly most historical images are tied up with convulted copyrights by way of the Naional Archive.

** Image:Ac.johnhoward.jpg - I think instead of this image, the photograph of the Parliament house itself would be better suited. I tend to dislike photographs of individual people on country articles, it tends to make one person stand out above the entire country itself.

I didn't like him there either
  • Image:Map of Australia.png - I think there are much better maps of Australia available than this one. For example, the map of South Africa that is used on South Africa is much more informational than this one.
Actually there aren't, and I'm no cartographer. If someone would like to make one or reccommend a good map making program this can be changed. As far as I can tell the map on South Africa is a copyvio from here [1], along with several other images of dubious copyright, which isn't really acceptable on a FA. I have made sure all images in this article have GFDL compatible copyrights.
The map is actually from SSA, Statistics South Africa. All the other images are of clean copyright status, they're just miscategorised.

** Image:Australian $10 note 1988.jpg - This is a good image, but I don't think its the best image to illustrate the entire Australian economy. what about a photograph of the skyline of Melbourne or Sydney?

Changed to Brisbane skyline since its the fastest growing city.

** Image:Australian population.PNG - This is frankly quite ugly and might be suited for the demographics sub-article, but I think a photograph of a diverse street scene would be more effective and visually interesting. What about one of the Vietnamese-store lined streets in West Footscray in Melbourne?

The graph is gone, but there's nothing with free copyright available on the commons, If you've got something please add it.--nixie 02:29, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm more than happy to support this fantastic article once my concerns over the images are addressed! Páll 22:40, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I like the changes, but I still think that this article needs more images before I can offer my support. There are so many iconic images of Australia, there must be something to fill up all this image-free space. Opera House? Harbour Bridge? The Bush? Something? Páll 04:03, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In fact, I still maintain my oppose. The images in the history section have nothing to do wit the history. How does a photograph of Uluru relate to the history of Australia? Páll 19:18, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • Images in the hisory section have been adjusted again, 1. captain cooks ship (discover and bicentennial), 2. Port Arthur (convicts) 3. Anzac Day (which I think should definately stay in the article as it demonstrates living hisotry)--nixie 02:24, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Support! Barbequed prawns for all! Average image quality on WP overall is low. The textual quality here, however, is excellent. And while people are talking about images, how about some pictures of Melbourne? It's Australia's best city after all. --bainer (talk) 12:30, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Support however I've two questions/comments:
1. The date of the first human habitation is estimated to be between 42,000 and 48,000 years ago when a period of massive ecological change, believed to be a result of human action, occurred although there is a footnote referring to this, I highly doubt that this can be accurate. 2. The agriculture and natural resources sectors contribute 3 and 5 per cent of GDP and make up the bulk of Australia's exports. this is a smaller nitpick, but as far as I know, there are traditionally 3 economic sectors - agriculture, industry and services. That Australia's industry sector encompasses the expoitation of natural sources should be mentioned, but within a paragraph on Australia's industry sector (that is currently missing). Themanwithoutapast 03:46, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Point 1 is more than likely possible. Agree with point 2 and 3. - Ta bu shi da yu 05:12, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • 1. When the Ingidenous Australians arrived they started burning everything, they used fire very effectively for hunting, and turned forested areas to grassland, they also wiped out the megafauna- they're very significant ecological changes. 2. There are way more that 3 sectors that make up GDP, in Australain data the typical breakdown is ag, mining, services, morgages and manufacturing, what makes it more confusing if you look at the raw data is that with the standard error in collecting the data it all adds up to more than 100%. The fact that mining has related services is of little consequence since all industires have related services many regional towns in Australia wouldn't exist if there wasn't an associated mine or agricultural area, better material for discussion in the Economy of Australia article.--nixie 04:27, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • 1. okay - if that is really correct, it should be either explained in the footnote or in the text - otherwise it is really confusing as it stands now. 2. Yes of course Australia has more than 3 "sectors" of economy - but the undisputed, traditional categories are: the primary (agriculture) sector, the secondary (industry) sector and the tertiary (service) sector - every branch of a country's economy should be classified within these three - that's the standard in talking about a country's economy (short overview of the 3 sectors).Themanwithoutapast 13:32, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
        • I'm well aware of the high-school economics break down of an economy, the fact is that Australia extracts alot of minerals (a "primary" activity) and ships most of it unprocessed overseas, so mining is pretty much classed as a primary activity here.--nixie 13:41, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
          • First, this was just a comment, not criticism that Australia's minerals exploitation activity is mentioned. However, because this article will be a FA, it should adhere to common standards to make it comparable to other articles. The high-school economics break down as you call it is still the traditionally used break down of a country's economy - as long as this does not change I suggest to use it and describe Australia's economy in this way. Themanwithoutapast 14:39, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
            • I have, mining is a primary economic activity.--nixie 14:40, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Excellent, excellent article. One thing, though - a few of the captions tend to use some poor grammar. I also disagree with the objector above about more images - it has just enough, and any more would start to overwhelm the text. Ambi 07:33, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. There is nothing on race relations, not much on immigration and nothing on Aboriginals. I'm sorry, but until that stuff gets added this is not a neutrally written article. - Ta bu shi da yu 05:10, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • This article is a summary and I don't think that it should have an extended section on race relations, or the problems with immigration, there are other good articles that do that.
  1. Added a desrciption of Aboriginal and TSI culture
  2. There is a description of the genocidal policies toward Indigenous Australians, added a link to the Stolen Generation
  3. I added back info on the 1967 referendum (it keeps getting lost)
  4. I added native title
  5. I also extended the demographic information on the disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians
  6. I added the following sentence Racial inequality is an ongoing political and human rights issue for Australians, I don't think editorial comment on the current governments policies and action (or lack of it) toward reconcilliation are necessary. (Apartheid gets about a pragraph in the equivalent South Africa article and most of it is about the ANC.)
  7. Immigration is mentioned, both in history (I added an explicit link to the white Australia policy) and demographics;
  8. I have added some info on mandatory detention of illegals, once again editorial comment is not necessary or NPOV.
  9. I have added explicit mention of multicultual policy since the end of the white Austrlaia policy.
  10. I am not qualified to make comment on the extent of racism in Australia, and I can find no recent publications that discuss it.

I think I have addressed your concerns, so unless you are going to make some other suggestions as to what is specifically missing and that can fit within the framework of this summary article then your objection is otherwise inactionable.--nixie 02:17, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • Support - looks OK to me. Alphax τεχ 06:07, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)