Template talk:Largest cities of Australia

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  • Can I just note that AussieLegend's adjustment to this template is a vast improvement on its accuracy. Cheers to all.--VS talk 02:29, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Recent changes

This template has undergone a number of changes over the past two days. VirtualSteve took exception to Albury-Wodonga being listed as Albury in New South Wales.[1] He was quite justified in doing so because Albury is not the "core city" of Albury-Wodonga. Albury and Wodonga are two independent cities in two different states that just happen to be close to each other. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) refers to them as "Albury-Wodonga" for statistical purposes only. It also refers to them independently[2][3] because they are independent as Local Government Areas of Australia (LGAs), as cities in their own right[4][5], and because they are governed under, and subject to, the laws of different states.

VirtualSteve's changes were reverted without explanation by NuclearVacuum.[6] After a discussion with VirtualSteve on his talk page[7] I edited the table to include the correct information. Finding identical issues with Canberra-Queanbeyan and Gold Coast-Tweed, I changed those too. I also changed "Core City" to "City Name" because it's an imprecise term. As I've explained, these places have no "core cities" per se. The fact that Albury, Canberra and the Gold Coast are mentioned first in the name is not an authority that they're the core cities. They're mentioned first only because they're the larger of each pair which has nothing to do with being a core city.

After these edits, João Felipe C.S changed the template to place the images in the middle of the table,[8] which had the unfortunate effect of making the table look lopsided so I reverted the changes. In an attempt to get the images back into the middle of the table he has edited the table to replace the accurate information with the imprecise terms[9] so I've again found it necessary to revert the changes. He made similar changes at Australia,[10]. Those had the effect of unlinking from this template, making it an orphan and therefore of little value. This has been corrected and Australia once again uses this template.

While a side issue, placing the images in the middle of the table also makes this template inconsistent with the other country specific templates listed at Category:Templates of city populations. Even Template:United Kingdom cities, which uses 4 images rather than 2, places its images at the sides as per every other template listed.

In summary:

  • The cities listed have no core cities and should be listed by name as per the citation;
  • Defining a core city is WP:OR because there is no authoritative reference that defines the core city;
  • "City Name" is more accurate than "Core City" in this template; and
  • Placing images in the middle results in the table being lopsided and inconsistent with other templates.

In line with the template as it stands now,[11] I've changed the link for Newcastle. Newcastle, New South Wales is about the Urban Centre/Locality that covers most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie LGAs. The Newcastle referred to by this template includes both of those LGAs, as well as the Cessnock, Maitland and Port Stephens LGAs.

(Talk:Australia#Cities by population table should also be referred to for other comments that may be relevant)

--AussieLegend (talk) 00:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)