Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Indigenous peoples of Australia

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to Indigenous Australians. Spartaz Humbug! 08:29, 2 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Indigenous peoples of Australia[edit]

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Indigenous peoples of Australia (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · peoples of Australia)
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Deletion may sound like a drastic option, but, having just discovered this article in the course of trying to track the many articles relating to Indigenous and/or Aboriginal people in Australia (partly to create a style guide), I see many problems here.

  • All of the difficulties of dividing the peoples into different types of groups.
  • It lists only a handful of those in List of Australian Aboriginal group names (which outlines some of the problems with divisions).
  • The groups in this list are a mix of endonyms (the name as used by the people themselves), exonyms (names used by one group for another, and not by that group itself) and demonyms (terms for people from specific geographical areas), with no explanation or differentiation.
  • Not only the types of divisions, but the spellings have multiple variants.
  • An article purporting to cover such a broad topic but only delivering a miniscule selection is worthless. The only way I can see to keep it as it is is to put quite a lot of work into adding a lot of material and sources, changing the lead to reflect some of the difficulties of grouping, and for each group covered, properly explain its origins and place in the criss-crossing hierarchy of groups. As it exists, it is not conveying reliable information which leaves the reader anywhere near fully informed on the topic.
  • It may be better done in sections within one of the main articles?

Laterthanyouthink (talk) 01:50, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep - The article is sourced and I don't see any actual justification in your nomination for deletion. What you've described are issues with the article that can be fixed by editing the article and AfD is not for cleanup. Per WP:BEFORE, "If the article can be fixed through normal editing, then it is not a candidate for AfD." This discussion should therefore be procedurally closed. --AussieLegend (✉) 05:01, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - though I agree with Aussielegend it should be able to be fixed with editing realistically, it started as a meaningful attempt to address the 300+ Aboriginal countries that made up Australia but its been replaced by List of Australian Aboriginal group names along the way its also started to gain some of the aspects of a WP:POVFORK. -- nuke and start fresh. The first sentence of the article sums up all of its problems There are several hundred Indigenous peoples of Australia; many are groupings that existed before the British colonisation of Australia in 1788, its still an unresolved issue that First Nationas people have their own unique identities, cultures, knowledge, and Countries across all of what is Australia. Upon colonialisation they were lump with a generic identity by the colonialists, to have done otherwise would have invalidated the concept of terra nullius, its why for some Indigenous Australians isnt liked as it perpetuates everyone as being one generic group ignoring their diversity... Gnangarra 06:03, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Why not merge and redirect then? "Indigenous peoples" refers to both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders so Indigenous Australians would be the appropriate target in that case. --AussieLegend (✉) 06:51, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with the redirect, the content could be merged elsewhere or used in part to form a more appropriate article its a topic area thats probable best discussed in a broader way via rfc, wp:awnb than afd Gnangarra 07:10, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks AussieLegend and Gnangarra. Having just educated myself slightly more about the nature of and criteria for the deletion, I should probably done a merge proposal instead. I would be happy with a redirect. However, adding the hotch-potch selection of groups included in this article (compare with Indigenous Australians#Groups and communities and Aboriginal Australians#Aboriginal Australian peoples), it's going to be challenging knowing what to include in each of those sections too. As a side note, Torres Strait Islanders barely feature, although I do recall reading somewhere that they tend to refer to themselves by island or area of origin. (I'm too tired to think about this properly now, but will go through it all again another day.) Laterthanyouthink (talk) 08:30, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yep its a complex issue, I appreciate that you're trying to unpack and address the issues. Gnangarra 09:25, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Australia-related deletion discussions. Grahame (talk) 03:20, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Whatever problems the article may have, the notability and sourcing are clear. Doctorhawkes (talk) 06:32, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Doctorhawkes, if you look at the notes I've made on the citations (which are very sparse), you will see that they all have problems. In fact, Only one statement (about Mokare) is actually sourced, in the whole article. And as mentioned above, notability is covered in other articles (which have their own issues but are better sourced, and can be worked on to create better coverage). Also, issues with "Indigenous" vs "Aboriginal". Laterthanyouthink (talk) 07:16, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Vorbee - short answer, yes, IMO. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 04:57, 25 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - although they may be able to identify aspects, the complexity of the subject and issues have not been grappled by most editors above - the whole issue of what to do with materials about people who were here before the europeans were, is that the project, the categories, and the terminologies have never been really properly reviewed. There is a need to have a review, rather than deletions... JarrahTree 09:46, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per WP:REDUNDANTFORK. I agree that the topic is notable. However, the articles Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal Australians, Torres Strait Islanders, List of Australian Aboriginal group names, etc, do a better job than this article. I do not agree that this article is sourced - there are no sources at all for most states, and SA and WA have sources only for one piece of information each. The information included for each state seems quite arbitrary, as does the info for each group named - for some it's only a language name and area, for some a notable person or two, for others something the group is famous for (a strike, traditional dances). It reads to me like a student project - produce something with information about Indigenous peoples from each state of Australia, but with no criteria for what information to include, and no requirement to include all the groups within each (or any) state.
It would require a huge amount of work to decide on what information should be included for each group, to edit the entries to include that information, and to provide sources for each piece of information, etc. I don't see anything worth merging here (the few sourced facts are already included in relevant articles), and I don't know that a redirect is necessary, though it costs nothing - so a redirect to Indigenous Australians wouldn't hurt. RebeccaGreen (talk) 11:33, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • There seems to be a significant number of inbound links, although they might be driven by two navbox templates. This article is so incomplete as to be useless - it asserts there are several hundred groups, then lists 33 of them, sometimes using past tense. I'd expect it should at least list all the groups in the state-based subcategories of Category:Australian Aboriginal peoples. The two template uses could be changed to List of Australian Aboriginal group names and see what other inbound links there are. I think rather than disrupt the much longer list in List of Australian Aboriginal group names by merging the paragraphs here to it, I'd check whether there is content here that should be added to any of the identified 33 group articles (unlikely given the sourcing comment above), then delete this page if it doesn't have any other use. --Scott Davis Talk 13:41, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I noticed that too, ScottDavis, and have just changed Template:Indigenous Australians (slightly differently to your suggestion - the Indigenous category seemed more appropriate for the Peoples heading, as the Aboriginal list does not include Torres Strait Islanders, and the list article was included underneath anyway). I'll have a look at what this does and what the other template has too (might be later). Also - not sure about leaving "half-caste" in that template? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 02:04, 23 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
p.s. Also just changed Template:Ethnicity. Back later to look at the rest. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 02:16, 23 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I have looked at a few of the others, and removed the hidden target of a piped link - readers were being taken to this article by clicking on words such as Australian Aboriginal or Indigenous Australians, both of which were sensible targets for the text. --Scott Davis Talk 03:02, 23 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Laterthanyouthink, I am not familiar with templates of this type, what they are used for, or the criteria for including articles or categories in it. I see that "half-caste" is included as "Half-caste (deprecated term)", and links to Half-caste#Australia. It is a very significant term historically, as that section makes clear - the categorisation and legal definition were the basis for the Stolen Generations, and control of people of Aboriginal descent in reserves. So I would not recommend removing it from this template without discussion. RebeccaGreen (talk) 09:57, 23 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
therein lies the rub - the term is of historical context, but some editors are offended by the term - to separate the nature of 'reporting' the issues in the encyclopedia is one thing, to explain to offended parties what and why we are doing things - is exactly why I suggested above (lost in the extended discussion) that there are a whole lot of terms and usages that require review - and a central point for discussion is created and maintained - some articles might come and go - but something like at the Indigenous project - so that more recent joiners to the conversation can see what has already been explored... where kind older/longer term editors might dig up the recurrent issues in links, so we dont have to re-invent the wheel over terms all the rest... JarrahTree 10:58, 23 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly {{Indigenous Australians}} should have Blackfellas and Half-caste moved into a separate group/list, "Informal and historical terms". Mitch Ames (talk) 12:17, 23 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
On a related note, on {{Indigenous Australians}} the "Languages" (plural) group should perhaps be "Language" (singular) because Avoidance speech, Loanwords into English, Placenames are not languages (e.g. set list), but they are "language" (topic). Perhaps they should be moved into a different group/list. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:18, 23 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
True, thanks RebeccaGreen. I actually (wp:boldly) added the "(deprecated term)" after "half-caste" to the template just to make it clear that it was not in use today, for those who have no idea of the history and wouldn't click on the link, and because it stood out as out-of-place in that list. Mitch Ames' suggestions sound reasonable, but I'll have to come back to this when I have time and a functional brain again.
Just an update for ScottDavis and others - I started working my way through the other links earlier, and so far have found very few with any good reason for linking to this page, and have changed or removed them from the articles accordingly (running into a few other "interesting" other items along the way). I'll carry on tinkering with these as time permits. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 12:45, 23 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Also, meant to add, JarrahTree, I see your point, but still think that this article in particular has little value. I am trying to chip away at a few little things and over time will become more familiar with what ground has already been covered, I hope. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 03:32, 24 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ethnic groups-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 04:29, 25 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 04:29, 25 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Rebecca Green. An undoubtedly notable topic, however the content is already much better covered at List of Australian Aboriginal group names. --RaiderAspect (talk) 11:11, 27 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I (and ScottDavis and perhaps others) have now gone through all of the links to the page, and found none which were not better linked to Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal Australians or List of Australian Aboriginal group names. Those left are all links to user or project pages, or in the "See also" list. Although I proposed the delete in the first place, I now think that merging to Indigenous Australians possibly makes more sense, because that way the history of the page is maintained? Either way, I still see no sense in keeping this page. Apart from the massive task of attempting to improve it (which, if it hasn't been done in 13+ years of existence, I predict is unlikely to happen now), the problem of overlap remains. What would actually be in this article that is not covered by others? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 03:54, 28 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
p.s. And just discovered another little gem, hidden in another article: List of indigenous peoples#Australia. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 04:13, 28 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the credit - and dealing with a few articles I had skipped as needing less-trivial fixes. I'm still not convinced there is anything in this article that would be lost by its deletion. I suspect the paragraphs were created from the relevant group articles, so there would be nothing new here to merge back to them. I don't mind if it becomes a redirect, in case someone decided to try to find something that used to be in it.
The other list you found has three "main articles" which are clearly needed to fill in the spaces between the central desert and the south, west and east coasts (but Tasmania gets included). It mentions Australia's external territories, but does not make comment on any indigenous/pre-contact inhabitants. --Scott Davis Talk 11:07, 28 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I don't have a problem with merging to maintain the page history, but I don't think any content from it should be added to the other articles unless/until it is well sourced. RebeccaGreen (talk) 12:06, 31 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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