Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 39

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Australian rivers moving

Some have moved to redlink dab pages and I have proposed moving them back to where they were- see Talk:Castlereagh River (New South Wales) Crusoe8181 (talk) 10:58, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Help cleaning up BLP issues on Paralympic articles

Kurt Fearnley, David Griffin (swimmer) , Michael Milton and Matthew Cowdrey are a few articles about Australian Paralympians that could really use a little help in fixing up issues to make them compliant with WP:BLP. If they were one or two sentences, I would just remove the information… but they need probably a half hour worth of work either tracking these citations. Any help would be very much appreciated. :) --LauraHale (talk) 07:44, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

I check the articles besides a couple of unsourced results there isnt any actual issues in these articles. Though the Matthew Cowdrey article needs attention as it lacks inline citation, primarily from one source though a number of other possible sources are in the long list of EL's Gnangarra 01:08, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Brian P. Schmidt

The Talk:Brian Schmidt redirect needs to be deleted by an administrator, so that Talk:Brian P. Schmidt (Australian Nobel prize-winner) can be moved there.--Grahame (talk) 06:12, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Category:Ancestral denial in Australia

Thoughts? Many Australians of indigenous or convict heritage fit this category which I have just created, and an article (better written by someone with more skills than me) on the subject would seem not to go astray. I thought it useful, others may not agree, so I report it here Crusoe8181 (talk) 11:03, 3 October 2011 (UTC) (no indigenous heritage, 43.75% convict heritage)

I have big doubts about the viability/usefulness of a category like that. I think any categorisation of living people as "ancestry deniers" could be a potential WP:BLP infringement. It also seems a bit like overcategorisation. I'd say incorporating a section into Convicts in Australia or Racism in Australia wouldn't go amiss. IgnorantArmies 11:12, 3 October 2011 (UTC) Note: my previous edit summary should have said "response" instead of "redirect"...stupid autofill! IgnorantArmies 11:14, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
Crusoe - With you as the leading example, I don't think many Australians deny any Aboriginality or convict past these days. In fact it is more often now a badge of some pride. The emphasis must be on the past. Your opening sentence above should have read "Many Australians...fitted this category...", and any members placed in this category must have the relevant ancestry VERY well documented. I see it as of some value in showing a reality of Australia's past, but a lot of care will be needed. Even for Con Colleano, it's not obvious to me that he really denied his ancestry. Just didn't always share it all. He had a stage persona for performances. Many entertainers do that. HiLo48 (talk) 11:22, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
From what I've read of Colleano, he seems to have adopted the Spanish persona to further his career than to have denied his ancestry. As something of an amusing aside, there's a story in a biography on him suggesting that Hitler was quite a fan - obviously not aware of his actual ancestry.[1] Hack (talk) 08:07, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Fire departments

I have just put this nomination up - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fire_departments_of_Australia - I cannot believe how poorly contextualised most articles about fire and bush fires in Australia are done - this is another example of how neglected this subject is if such a category can exist like this - it is never used in Australian context - bit like Australian state libraries cataloguing railway subjects as Railroads in Australia - sticking to L of C catalog rules and ignoring local context and usage SatuSuro 12:38, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Also I am somewhat intrigued that the following articles remain unchallenged in their universally creative locator/identification:
  • Country Fire Authority
  • Country Fire Authority appliances
  • Country Fire Service
  • Country Fire Service appliances

I suppose the creators must be so sure that universally across the global realm of knowledge every one will know the difference as to one being in SA and the other in Victoria ? SatuSuro 22:24, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I just came across {{Fire services in Australia}} which seems a little skewed towards NSW and Victoria. Hack (talk) 04:10, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
little skewed is putting it mildly re the template and articles in general SatuSuro 10:27, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Aboriginal colours

is being used on a number of articles relating to Aboriginal Australia (eg Charles Perkins). As you may guess, it is derived from the Aboriginal flag but has been altered, presumably to avoid copyright issues. To me it seems meaningless and unnecessary to present what is effectively an original work of art. Any thoughts? Hack (talk) 04:06, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Per WP:ICONDECORATION, icons should not be used in infoboxes. Considering this particular icon is "made up" ie. it does not officially stand for anything, it should not be used at all. Its basically the equivalent of using the Boxing Kangaroo Flag for Australian sporting articles. IgnorantArmies 05:05, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
tell that to soccer article creators in other national projects and see the resounding silence and inaction in response SatuSuro 10:26, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
Just noting that I've moved this file to correct a spelling error and to improve the filename, since it has been flagged for upload to commons. The original filename is now an obsolete redirect that I've nominated for deletion. --AussieLegend (talk) 00:16, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Croweaters

All Croweaters—and Sandgropers, Gumsuckers, Cornstalks, Bananabenders, Taswegians and all Territorians—are invited to help develop an article on one of Australia's most venerable state nicknames at User:Yeti Hunter/Sandbox. Cheers, Mattinbgn (talk) 01:47, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

It seems this information could be used at List of Australian state and territory slogans. --AussieLegend (talk) 04:01, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Andrew Wilkie (and Nick Xenophon) - indiscriminate and narrative text

There are some problems with the Pokies and Precommitment sections on these two articles. The writing style is problematic, as it's starting to become a little narrative, and, with the latest addition of text, we're becoming indiscriminate and leaving the scope of the article.

I have the same problems with Nick Xenophon. That article hasn't benefited from any outside editing, and the section relating to pokies needs some work.

Therefore, I'd like to invite some input. I've started a discussion at the talk page. Any input is welcome. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 02:40, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Proposal for Christmas/New Year break

I wanted to propose a drive that aims to remove WP:AUS articles that have cleanup tags from 2007 and earlier. If that is too ambitious or results in a list too long, maybe we could aim for 2006 and prior. That would mean no article has been tagged for more than 4 or 5 years respectively and would go along way to maintaining project articles. If someone who knows how to generate such a list so a count can be done to ascertain which year we should aim for that would be handy. Any support for this? – Shiftchange (talk) 08:37, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

According to this list – in either CSV format or in tables there are 24819 articles with a tag. Doing a bit of excel magic, I think we have:
  • 3 from 2003,
  • 5 from 2004,
  • 18 from 2005,
  • 531 from 2006,
  • 2896 from 2007,
  • 4254 from 2008,
  • 6139 from 2009,
  • 8901 from 2010,
  • 5336 from 2011 and
  • 1186 with tags without any dates

Yes, I know that adds up to >24819, but some articles have tags from multiple years. So 2007 or earlier is about 3400 articles. If we start now, we might be able to do it by the end of the year! Checking the years 2003 and 2004, they are the "potentially dated statements" tags, that were probably placed much later. But here they are, anyway. 2006 onwards is when we get into the tagged by month groups. The-Pope (talk) 16:56, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for calculating those figures, however there doesn't seem to be much interest in the idea. – Shiftchange (talk) 03:10, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Having just finished the great WP:URBLP backlog elimination drive, I learnt a couple of things about motivating people to help out.
  1. You basically can't. Unless they agree that the task is worth doing (which might be a problem for some of these non-essential/low-priority tags), they might do it for a day or so, but won't be there for the long haul. I would guess that 80% of 50,000 UBLPs were probably done by 20–50 people.
  2. Everyone works in a different way. I was convinced that using WikiProjects, sorting by topic or region etc would be the way to clear it all up. But there was just far too many topics that didn't have active WikiProjects, so it basically worked well for 10–20 projects, but failed to put a dent in a lot of other projects. The much more effective way clearing most of it was just a simple month by month approach, and then even letter by letter within the months. Split the task up into bite size chunks and it may be more appealing to some.
So, I definitely think that we should have a crack at it, maybe try a few months of 2006 first (WP:AWB is useful to generate some lists) – but the alternative is to look at clearing a specific "cleanup category", such as dead external links, or unreferenced or similar. Interestingly, the three months that have over 1000 articles in them, all have 80% of the articles in a single cat, so it was probably a bot run – from memory, dead external links, orphans and unreferenced. The-Pope (talk) 07:18, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't use AutoWikiBrowser so if you could make a list like this one and update it now and then I will chip away at it. – Shiftchange (talk) 12:44, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
I've made the page here, using the 40 articles from October 2006 as a trial run. Lets see how we go. The-Pope (talk) 17:07, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Category:Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2003

Category:Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2004

Northbridge, Western Australia

Some person has come along trying to edit-war a ridiculous section about Perth's nightlife district into the article, suggesting it's some kind of den of violent crime. Unfortunately I'm stuck with uni assignments tonight so can't stay on long – can others have a look? I'm open to being disagreed with, as I trust the people here to apply Wikipedia's policies correctly. (Discussion occurring on the talk page there as well.) Orderinchaos 10:03, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Just noting that the guy is back, and edit-warring again. Orderinchaos 07:37, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Minor unprotect request

Crossposted from WT:AUSPOL; could an admin please unprotect Thomas Ashworth so that I can create the article on this politician? It appears to have been salted in relation to someone else entirely a few years ago. Frickeg (talk) 12:21, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks. Frickeg (talk) 12:45, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Elaine Niles death

Fred Niles wife was reported on radio today (within last hour) as having passed away. A few eyes may be required to prevent vandalism. Regards- 220.101.24 talk\edits (aka 220.101) 01:43, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Page updated. 220.101.24 talk\edits 02:04, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Anna Bligh

The article requires protection as IPs won't stop adding Alan Jones commentary "calling for Bligh's scalp". They have indicated on my talk page that they will continue to re-add it consistently. Timeshift (talk) 10:15, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

WP:SOAPy text on Rob Oakeshott

I've started a discussion at Talk:Rob Oakeshott regarding the addition of WP:SOAPy content on that article. The issue at hand is whether polling on the issue of his decision to support the ALP should be included in the article. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 04:02, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

The Oz going behind a paywall

Given the recent reports about The Australian online newspaper about to be hidden behind a paywall,(I'm not 100% sure that it will affect old articles) should we start finding out if we can get a bot to run and archive as many pages as possible before we lose access? Most of the bots I've seen are more related to fixing dead links than archiving existing links. I think that there are about 3000 links in mainspace, some will be duplicates, some may already be archived but it is probably too big a job for humans. Does anyone know if this is possible to do? The-Pope (talk) 14:52, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

No idea, sorry. I'm manually doing articles I've worked on ([2]). I guess the lesson is to archive every source at the time it's used. --Mkativerata (talk) 20:55, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
I contacted the Australian and was told that past articles will not be charged to view. – Shiftchange (talk) 03:31, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Robert Doyle

See here for a story on the Wikipedia article about Robert Doyle. May need some watching. – Mattinbgn (talk) 01:09, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Protected by Alison (talk · contribs) here – Mattinbgn (talk) 01:16, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Category:Illegal immigration to Australia

This is a newish category – and potentially a useful one. However, much of the stuff in it at present appears to relate to asylum seekers. As I understand it, asylum seeking in Australia is not illegal even though some of the means of entry may be considered so. I am just wondering whether there should be some other category for some of these articles. Maias (talk) 23:47, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, a very sensitive political area, as some of those articles will tell you. If the category's contents were restricted to purely illegal immigration, maybe it could be useful, but you're right, someone with a political barrow to push has loaded the category with asylum seeker content. Is it worth arguing the merits of every entry in the category, or should it just be deleted as a tool for POV pushing. I lean towards the latter approach. HiLo48 (talk) 01:31, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Why should Tampa affair be there? It was not illegal. The only mention of "illegal" in the article in the context of the refugees is "falsely claiming to be refugees in order to gain illegal entry into the country". This a POV category that should renamed to make it NPOV or deleted. --Bduke (Discussion) 02:56, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. Seeking asylum is not "illegal", but people who don't know that (or pretend not to know) are going to put "boat people" articles in there. While I think that it could potentially be useful I think realistically it's only going to be used for POV pushing. Deport it. Lankiveil (speak to me) 11:00, 24 October 2011 (UTC).
Delete it. Category:Immigration to Australia is not exactly overloaded, and this new category looks like it'd be pretty contentious. Nightw 11:16, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
I've nominated it for merge/deletion here. Nightw 02:25, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Is a magistrate a judge?

Category:Australian judges contains some magistrates such as Pat O'Shane and Murray Farquhar. I have next to no knowledge of the legal system but my vague recollection from high school legal studies was that a magistrate is most certanly not a judge. Do magistrates need separating out of this category? – Mattinbgn (talk) 01:50, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

The great reliable source dictionary.com says a judge is "a public officer authorized to hear and decide cases in a court of law; a magistrate charged with the administration of justice." I think that is accurate enough. A federal magistrate – none of whom would have been around when you were at school – is essentially a judge, being appointed under Ch III of the Constitution. But of course O'Shane and Farquhar are not federal magistrates. For state magistrates the distinction is probably one not worth drawing, but if one needed to be drawn, I would say that because they carry out judicial functions, they are judges. Perhaps we could avoid the problem with a separate category for magistrates and putting magistrates and judges under a parent category "Australian judicial officers"? --Mkativerata (talk) 02:00, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
I would broadly agree with Mkativerata. I've always thought of magistrates as judges. They certainly exercise Judicial powers, and normally are administered in the same way. I would be tempted to lump them all together with judges, but from a legal standpoint, Judicial Officers would cover Judges, Magistrates, Masters and the other assorted people who exercise judicial power, but don't have the title judge while doing it.VeryRusty (talk) 08:59, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Outreach Oceania

We're doing an outreach effort to Oceania, with an early focus on Micronesia. Details can be found at Outreach Oceania . We have an itinerary set and airfare paid for. We've talked to local colleges and we'll be going there as our primary form of outreach. We're intending to do secondary outreach to local GLAMs. We'll be going to Majuro in the Marshall Islands, and Kosrae and Chuuk in the Federated States of Micronesia from January 27 to February 16.

We'd be really keen to have another Wikimedia Australia member attend and participate in these outreach efforts. Ideally, we'd like some one is keen to help and who can be self funding in terms of airfare and help with some of the lodging costs (round trip airfare costs between $1,500 and $2,300 from Cairns) or some one has a specialised skill set that would be really beneficial for us to have along when we make a funding pitch to WMF. (One of our participants is American. Hence, funding sought there. The other two are myself and User:Hawkeye7.) If you've teaching experience, conducted wiki workshops, have experience working with GLAMs, that would be really great.

It is a big ask, but if you have the time, going along would be really great. The islands we're visiting have small populations of between 2,700 and 25,000, so there is a great opportunity to make a big impact. :) If you're interested, please get in touch with me via e-mail, on IRC at #wikimedia-au connect, or on one of the talk pages for the project. If you have general questions about the project, please feel free to ask on list. --LauraHale (talk) 01:40, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Steve Vizard

Was previously the subject of an OTRS complaint, mainly related to undue weight given re legal proceedings. The section was significantly pruned but since then the legalese has crept back in. Some of what's there is repetitive and some is contradictory. And there's way too much detail. Grateful if someone could have a look. Moondyne (talk) 13:37, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

You're invited to the Canberra WikiMeetup on 20 November 2011

Hi! We're having a Canberra Wikimeetup on 20 November 2011 at Siren Bar in Gunghalin from 2pm to 4pm. It's mostly just a chance to chat with other local Wikipedians, get a chance to go a different sort of bar (which is reasonably kid friendly, serves real food, and has non-alcholic options), and, if you're interested, learning more about what Wikimedia Australia and local GLAM projects are that happening. We'd love to see you and any Wikipedia/Wikimedia/wiki loving friends you have there. --LauraHale (talk) 07:27, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

related Sydney meetup

And we're organising a meetup for Sydney on Friday or Saturday evenings. Wikipedia_talk:Meetup/Sydney#Nov 18-19. --John Vandenberg (chat) 00:20, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Planning at Wikipedia:Meetup/Sydney/November_2011. --John Vandenberg (chat) 12:42, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Jack Lang

Some random has moved Jack Lang to Jack Lang (Australian politician) and returned the disambiguation page after a couple of years. The Australian Jack Lang is far more notable than any of the others - would someone with admin buttons mind reversing that? Rebecca (talk) 14:43, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

From what I can see, Jack Lang was moved to Jack Lang (New South Wales politrician), then to Jack Lang (New South Wales politician), then to Jack Lang (Australian) and finally to Jack Lang (Australian politician), all on 3 July 2011 so as to differentiate between our Jack Lang and the current French politician. The last move was as the result of this request at WP:RM because the editor making the initial moves got stuck. It wasn't until 23 July that Jack Lang (disambiguation) was moved to Jack Lang. There appears to have been no discussion. --AussieLegend (talk) 15:58, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Whilst I think that there should have been some discussion, I think many, especially those in the northern hemisphere, would argue that an Australian state premier from the 1930s is not more notable than a current French politician who was a Minister and a member of national parliament for over 20 years. The-Pope (talk) 16:23, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
He's hardly just a state Premier: he was one of the most prominent figures in Australian politics from the 1920s through to the early 1950s. Rebecca (talk) 04:17, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Has there ever been a proper WP:RM on this matter, either back in 2009 or now? If so, I'd be happy to revert the moves back to reflect the consensus there. But I don't think it's so obvious a case, as The Pope says above. NSW's Jack Lang is or course a giant of our political history. But the French Jack Lang operates in a bigger pond, and I understand his prominence there outweighs even the fairly significant political positions he has held. Still, in any future RM, I'd be open to supporting the NSW Lang being the primary topic. The fact that his page view statistics outweigh the French bloke's is quite telling. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:26, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
I think that although there's a good case for Aussie Jack to be the primary topic, there's also a reasonable case for French Jack (albeit not as strong). Consequently, having the disambig page as the first port of call best serves all readers. -- saberwyn 02:30, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
I tend to think that the Australian Jack Lang should be the primary topic - he's a more significant figure in Australian political history than more than a few of our prime ministers. However, there should definitely be some discussion somewhere (I can't even remember where we briefly mentioned it - possibly here a few years ago - so the person who moved it wouldn't have seen a discussion anywhere forming consensus). Maybe this should go to WP:RM? Frickeg (talk) 10:50, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
This is the very brief discussion... Hack (talk) 11:30, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Fore those who havent noticed

Trove contents are now found inside Google searches SatuSuro 11:32, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Hector

Just wondering whether Hector (cloud) and Hector (storm) are about exactly the same phenomenon. Maias (talk) 05:57, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Almost certainly. I would retain Hector (storm), merge anything useful from Hector (cloud) and create a redirect or request a speedy delete. - Shiftchange (talk) 09:47, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Just when... in case you missed this move proposal

Talk:Cattle Cecil the bull would have taken serious exception. Cheers Crusoe8181 (talk) 08:52, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Gosford Glyphs

The user draft User:EvanyEmlins/Gosford Glyphs by a newbie could use some local assistance with sourcing, and copy-editing too as it is currently written as a research paper. John Vandenberg (chat) 09:59, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I've visited the Gosford Glyphs. There's a very nice ancient Egyptian hieroglyph for a 14 pin, dual-in-line integrated circuit there. I'm pretty sure they don't date back to the fourth dynasty. Sourcing this information is rather complex because most of the sources are, quite frankly, loonies who believe in magic crystals (somebody actually found a lost crystal ball at the site!) and the like. Rex Gilroy, a cryptozoologist, is the "authority" on the hieroglyphs which, of all the actual egyptologists in the world, only he seems able to understand. The more reliable sources seem to indicate they were most likely carved by a returned WWI digger who lived in the house that used to be about 200m south of the site. Unfortunately he didn't really understand them, which is why the cartouches are rectangular, rather than curved. It also seems likely that some of the glyphs have been re-carved since then, and possibly added to (which explains the integrated circuit), including in 1964 and later in 1985, when a man was caught red handed by the NPWS, who has his chisel on display. All in all, there aren't (m)any reliable sources that confirm these are anything other than, a probably unintentional, hoax. --AussieLegend (talk) 14:15, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Great. It sounds like the article will be very interesting if we can find sources which tell the 'story'. We should get some photos of this. Do you have some photos? I've asked about this photo, which is the only Flickr photo I can find - its not very good. More discussion over at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ancient_Egypt#Gosford_Glyphs. John Vandenberg (chat) 00:21, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
I agree with the comments left by User:AnnekeBart: these 'hieroglyphs' are a hoax, and if we're to have an article on them (and there's a case for this as they seem notable) the text on the user page is totally unsuitable. I felt like putting my tin foil hat on about halfway through. Nick-D (talk) 06:57, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
Heh, Rex Gilroy. Enough said. Lankiveil (speak to me) 12:01, 8 November 2011 (UTC).

Article on Jimbo in today's SMH

'Technology can topple tyrants': Jimmy Wales an eternal optimist. WWGB (talk) 06:19, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

WikiAcademy in progress in Brisbane

Peter Marsh, Vicki Epstein and Carmel Williams learning how to edit Wikipedia and upload images to Wikimedia Commons

Hi Australian Wikipedians,

User:John Vandenberg and I are currently conducting a WikiAcademy in Brisbane. It would be great if interested Australian Wikipedians could look at the userspace drafts being created and do categorisation, image inclusion, and other work on them? These are all new users so please be gentle!

Here is a list of the known drafts so far:

Thanks, Lankiveil (speak to me) 03:15, 31 October 2011 (UTC).

Two more

Made a few edits to some of these articles. George Bedbrook I think exists already. Outside of that, WP:BLP may be something to discuss or remind. Maybe point out this text to help. The John Martin article is one I'd really like to see have those issues fixed as it likely won't get past the incubator with those issues… but can take a look later and try to get it all cited so it doesn't have the problems.  :) --LauraHale (talk) 04:54, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I've created Wikipedia:GLAM/SLQ/October 31 so we can watch the related changes at [5] John Vandenberg (chat) 12:47, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/Jack Venman is started.

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/1907 Sydney bathing costume protests and Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Justins Park‎ have been declined. John Vandenberg (chat) 10:54, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

sportswomen without a living status

Australian sports biographies by DOB

The following Australian sportswomen don't have Category:Living people or a date of death: Kathrine Le Mesurier , Leslie Boardman, Lily Beaurepaire , Marie Toomey , Marjorie Cox Crawford, Mischa Merz, Sylvia Lance Harper. John Vandenberg (chat) 21:41, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I suspect Leslie Boardman was a male. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 22:51, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
Thanks ;-) --John Vandenberg (chat) 01:06, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Mischa Merz appears to be very much alive - at least as of 2 October 2011 according to her blog. Maias (talk) 02:18, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I've compiled a list of all Category:Australian sportspeople, resulting in the chart of biogs by dob. Of the 14760 biogs, only 1457 do not have either Category:Living people or a date of death (Nearly 10%). And only 694 bios dont have a DOB either (A bit under 5%). I have identified a sport for most biogs. If someone wants for e.g. "all cricket biogs without a dob" I can give send the list by email or dump it on a wiki page. John Vandenberg (chat) 08:22, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I've popped this into a new category commons:Category:Wikipedia in Australia statistics. Has anyone created similar statistics of Australian content on Wikipedia? This analysis of Wikipedia content is very interesting (see also the next page), suggesting that sports is one of the largest groups of content on English Wikipedia. John Vandenberg (chat) 02:21, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I used to like Vegemite....

Some extra eyes, comments etc would be appreciated at Talk:Vegemite. Back in February an editor added unsourced content to the article. It was challenged and eventually removed in July. He added it again in September and it was again removed. Since then there has been a never-ending discussion on the talk page about addition of the content. The editor doesn't want to cite what he wants to add and even made it unclear what he actually wanted to add, making it daman near impossible to discuss anything. Still, he's managed to add 7,400 words to the page, mainly about why this or that WP:SYNTH is acceptable, when all he had to do was supply a single citation, which he refuses to do despite numerous requests. I've been trying to assume good faith but it has gotten to the point where I've lost all patience. He's turned into an SPA and even ignoring him hasn't worked. When we did, he pulled the old "talk to me or I'm going to add the content" trick.[6] He's continuing to go on about his WP:SYNTH and it's pretty much impossible to understand what he really wants. What I really want is to close the 10,000 word, mostly single sided discussion but I can't do that. --AussieLegend (talk) 11:08, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

I've read over the discussion, and commented further on the page. From what I've read so far, I must commend you for not losing your cool despite the convoluted nature of the discourse, the repetitiveness of certain arguments being used, and the continued questioning of your education and level of competence. You might be interested in this blog, which apparently quotes the talk page word for word, although some comments have been altered. IgnorantArmies 12:27, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Seconded on all counts. AL, have yourself a beer or a Tim Tam or whatever helps you unwind, it looks like you've earned it. (But maybe not a Vegemite sandwich.) --GenericBob (talk) 13:37, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. After your comments, maybe I'd better not say what I really wanted to do. I expect there will now be a lull of a few days while Blue Horizen compiles his next post, which will probably just reiterate what he said in the last one although, hopefully, the content that has been added might cause something new to be generated. The worst thing about this is that Coles have started selling Vegemite flavoured chips and I really like(d) them. The nearest Coles is 20km away but my daughter lives right across the road from one in Sydney, so she brought me a dozen packets two weeks ago and now I don't feel like eating them. I don't have any Tim Tams but I do have a nice bottle of 15 year old port. :) --AussieLegend (talk) 06:08, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Electoral district article name change denied

Hi, i'm posting on the Aust noticeboard and wikiproject ozpol to see if there's much local support in moving a challenge to an article name change result that said Electoral district of Croydon (South Australia) should remain, rather than assume the name Electoral district of Croydon, as the only current non-abolished seat of that name. I must say it's rather interesting that the only ones who support a change are those I recognise as Australian political contributors - Frickeg, and Miracle Pen, and me. The closed discussion is here. Discussion would be best had there rather than here so that discussion can remain centralised. Thanks. Timeshift (talk) 05:14, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

PM visits to US

Australia–United States relations. I'm sure KRudd (as PM) went more than once.  ?? Moondyne (talk) 14:34, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Bizarrely, the list of visits by PMs to the US contains a couple of entries for PMs who didn't actually go there. Hack (talk) 14:44, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Sydney's historical population

Some eyes etc at Talk:Sydney#Historical population would be appreciated. After Vegemite I'm just not up to it.... --AussieLegend (talk) 09:50, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

SA Government considering changing its law on suppression orders

This story is likely to be of interest to editors who were involved in the discussion(s?) a while ago about whether these suppression orders applied to Wikipedia articles. The story mentions that the changes to the law seek to take the impact of social media into account without providing any details on this. Nick-D (talk) 07:01, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Portal deletion discussion

Please see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Television in Australia. — Cirt (talk) 20:02, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

There is a proposal to move this to Gibbon Wakefield, apparently because he is called this by the Canterbury Centennial Historical and Literary Committee. This is remiscent of the strange mistake of calling Walter Burley Griffin Burley Griffin, as in Lake Burley Griffin.--Grahame (talk) 00:59, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Australian television

There is a proposal by WP:WikiProject Television to merge WP:WikiProject Australian television into it. Though the current setup appears to make WikiProject Australian television a subproject of WikiProject Australia instead (especially the current banner). See WT:WikiProject Australian television 70.24.248.23 (talk) 08:09, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

A standardized infobox for federated states

Good day. Two years ago, some users tried to merge all infoboxes of sub-federal states into {{Infobox settlement}}. Consensus ruled that doing so would not be a good idea because the sub-federal infoboxes purposefully do not include some of the features of {{Infobox settlement}} and do include other fields, such as the number of seats in the federal legislature and the date of joining the union. In those respects, the three infoboxes {{Infobox U.S. state}}, {{Infobox province or territory of Canada}}, and {{Australia state or territory}} are very similar to eachother, but they put fields in a slightly different order and look slightly different. In the interest of standardization, would you be interested in jointly creating {{Infobox federated state}} to make sure that the infoboxes for states, provinces, and territories of the U.S., Canada, and Australia all keep a common design? I think that the differences that currently exist between the three templates are small enough that we could come to an agreement about how to resolve them. In order to keep replies in one place, please reply at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States#A standardized infobox for federated states. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 19:48, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Proposed change of Australian category name

Australian Wikipedians may be interested in this discussion: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 November 26#Category:Australian organised crime figures. WWGB (talk) 01:35, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Featured article review for Fauna of Australia

I have nominated Fauna of Australia for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Brad (talk) 06:07, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Indigenous Australian categories

I've been meaning to start a discussion on this topic for a while, and I thought it would be best to take it here where people might be more familiar with the subject matter (perhaps a double-edge sword?) before hastily going to CfD (that's "D" for "discussion", by the way). Anyway, here goes: Category:Indigenous Australian people is the only cat in the broader Category:Australian people by ethnic or national origin that does not follow the form "Australian people of xxxxxxian descent". A reasonable number of people in the related categories are not generally considered "Indigenous Australian", rather "of Indigenous Australian" descent (Andrew Walker and Jason Gillespie spring to mind), and it is for this reason that the vast majority of subcats in the Category:People by ethnic or national origin are in this format, rather than "yyyyyyian xxxxxxians". Category:Indigenous Australian people is in itself a mess, and should be cleaned up to a uniform standard regardless of this discussion. Formats used are "Indigenous Australian", "Aboriginal Australian", "Australian Indigenous" and "Australian indigenous. These should all be standardised to a single form – I would favour the form used in this category ie. "Australian xxxxxxxians of Indigenous Australian descent". A touch more wordier, but would have the added benefit of standardising two or more categories, as well as dealing with the problems outlined above. I know that this is a topic that a number of people get "rather touchy" on, to say the least, but I look forward to hearing people's thoughts before I (likely) take this to CfD. Cheers, I♦A 14:14, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

  • Firstly there is a recognised difference between Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islanders, all formal/official/legal formats use the term Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders when identifying Indigenious Australians, people can be recognised as being decendents of one or the other or even both. The correct comparison would be to Category:Cheyenne people and the broader Category:Native Americans where "Americans xxxxxxians of Native American descent" doesnt exist either. Gnangarra 23:09, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
    • What Gnangarra said. Rebecca (talk) 01:07, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
So you're suggesting Category:Aboriginal Australian people and Category:Torres Strait Islands people? I♦A 03:46, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
As above, my main problem is that a number of people in the above categories do not identify as Indigenous and are not identified as such by the wider community. I know very well the differences between Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders (and Tasmanian Aborigines, as a matter of fact), and the lack of subcategories for these two groups is not really what I wanted to deal with here. I♦A 04:03, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
People who dont identify themselves as and are not identified by the wider community as such are WP:BLP WP:N and WP:V issues and have nothing to do with category naming, yes a subatt of Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders within Indigenous Australian category structure is appropriate. Gnangarra 04:12, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
You can have people who can be verified as being of Aboriginal descent who either do not consider themselves Aboriginal or where it's unclear whether they identify as such eg Robbie McIntosh. Hack (talk) 13:35, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
for WP:BLP if a person doesnt condsider themsleves as aboriginal, or its unclear then its a no brainer dont categorise them as such. Even for someone who is deceased it needs to be sourced to a reliable source. Gnangarra 15:39, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

GLAM in Australia

If you haven't seen it, what Australians have been doing GLAM wise is November. :) If anyone is doing anything this month, please share on the December newsletter. :) It is a great opportunity to share what you're doing. I'd love to see the MilHist contributors generally write what they are doing in relation to Australian content into the GLAM newsletter, even if it isn't specifically in the context of GLAM work. :) --LauraHale (talk) 14:17, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Naming convention for government departments

Do we have a naming convention for government departments? An editor has been moving articles from [[Department of <foo> (New South Wales)]] to [[New South Wales Department of <foo>]] citing a naming convention that I can't find. --AussieLegend (talk) 15:14, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Prefer the former - the department, not the state, is the key identifier. Orderinchaos 15:37, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
That's what I thought. With the reorganisation of NSW departments there are are plenty that don't even need the "New South Wales" disambiguation. --AussieLegend (talk) 16:02, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
E.g. Department of Transport... DoT (NSW) and DoT (WA) makes more sense than NSW DoT and WA DoT in naming terms, as the key element is that it is a dept of transport and the secondary fact is where it is located. Orderinchaos 19:13, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
The naming conventions for government departments are at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (government and legislation). Graham87 03:14, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for that. It would seem that [[Department of <foo> (New South Wales)]] is the correct format and, in the case of departments such as Department of Education and Communities, no disambiguation is needed. --AussieLegend (talk) 07:23, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I've come across a similar oddity: Government of Victoria (Australia), even though the website (down the bottom) states it as "State Government of Victoria", is the wiki page the right name or not? Wikipedia:Naming conventions (government and legislation) states to "Use official names in article titles...", in light of this should "Government of Victoria (Australia)" be renamed (and redirected) to "State Government of Victoria"? And if not is the "(Australia)" needed, as Government of Victoria (like "State Government of Victoria") redirects to "Government of Victoria (Australia)"? Liamdavies (talk) 14:45, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

  • Following on from this, a bunch of RMs have been started:
  1. Talk:New South Wales Department of Health
  2. Talk:New South Wales Department of Trade and Investment, Regional Infrastructure and Services
  3. Talk:New South Wales Department of Premier and Cabinet
  4. Talk:New South Wales Department of Attorney General and Justice
  5. Talk:New South Wales Department of Planning
  6. Talk:New South Wales Department of Primary Industries

—Jenks24 (talk) 08:05, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

A query re ' newsworthiness'.

Howdy, all. I'm wondering what makes an event newsworthy enough to make the very selective 'In the news' section of this noticeboard? I would class the ALP national conference adding same sex marriage to their policy platform - but also effectively ensuring it doesn't pass when debated by making it a conscience vote - as newsworthy, myself. Or will it meet that standard when legislation is drafted and debated and rejected/passed by parliament? I assume there's a link somewhere explaining this, but I couldn't find it. Thanks in advance.  :) Colonel Tom 07:20, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Tom. You can nominate items at WP:ITN/C (there are instructions on the page, but feel free to ask if you have any questions). Also see WP:ITN#Criteria. Personally, I don't think it being added to the ALP's platform would be enough to get on the main page (they can be very selective) – if it is passed by parliament then I think it would get on the MP (but it being rejected would probably not be enough). For example, Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010 was on ITN when it was passed. That all said, nominate it if you want – the worst that could happen is being told "no". Jenks24 (talk) 08:02, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
Any news which is nationally significant and has a specific article that has been updated with the news is appropriate to add to the In the news section. It might appear selective but its just because few editors contribute to it. Feel free to help out. I can't see a link to the ALP national conference. It's possible that subject is notable but we don't appear to have articles on past ALP national conferences. If you want to create that article, writing a headline for this section is one way to bring it to the attention of other Australian editors. - Shiftchange (talk) 10:35, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Virgin Australia Holdings.

Virgin Australia's parent company Virgin Blue Holdings has officially changed their name to Virgin Australia Holdings, [7]. I have requested a page move at Talk:Virgin_Blue_Holdings#Page_Move_request_to_Virgin_Australia_Holdings if you wish to participate. Sb617 (Talk) 11:15, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Port Denison, Western Australia

A murder or murder-suicide took place at this coastal town a few days ago, it was all over the Perth media - I removed a section about it, but the article (a) needs to be monitored and (b) probably does need a single line about it which doesn't violate WP:UNDUE or WP:NOTNEWS. I'm away all day. Orderinchaos 21:34, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

RecentChangesCamp 2012

Just a reminder RecentChangesCamp 2012 is coming up soon! :D Please consider attending. :) It is a great opportunity to network with you fellow Australian and Kiwi wiki mates. :) Invite all your wiki friends. :) --LauraHale (talk) 09:44, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Content Creation Workshop in Brisbane

Today a workshop is happening at the State Library of Queensland. See this page for a list of articles now existing in the Userspace. - Slqworkshop1 (talk) 00:56, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

No mention of "Australia" in Australian place infobox ?

See Template_talk:Infobox_Australian_place#Include_.22Country.22_field.3F. PamD 09:56, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Use of the office holder infobox

Any feedback regarding Talk:Tanya Plibersek#Predecessor/Successor in infobox would be welcome as it may have implications for other articles as well. Thanks. --Elekhh (talk) 08:10, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Paul Glasson

Could use some watching for potential npov/promo/WP:COI issues. Dl2000 (talk) 03:38, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Craig Thomson finds us useful, it seems

Apparently Thomson copy and pasted wikipedia articles for his post o/s trip reports.[8] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roisterer (talk • contribs) 23:48, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

PNG crisis

While I don't want to have this project look like the colonial overlord, we may have a role in helping create and maintain an article on the PNG political crisis. I can't find an article and there does not even appear to be an ITN request yet! -- Mattinbgn (talk) 03:59, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

What would a new article be called? December 2011 Papua New Guinea Prime Ministerial crisis? lol Hack (talk) 05:42, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
From what I've read just today, this issue began earlier than December. "Crisis" is a hard word btw. Also, this should appear in AJPH very shortly and other such political journals. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:49, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
We used "crisis" in 1975 Australian constitutional crisis. So it seems perfectly valid for this situation too. HiLo48 (talk) 06:36, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
The trouble has been brewing for a couple of years - there were a series of confidence motions against Michael Somare through 2010 and 2011. This article offers a pretty good run-down of the troubles up to November. Hack (talk) 06:08, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
I don't think the no confidence motions count. Tony Abbott throws them around quite frequently. HiLo48 (talk) 06:36, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
True but with the fluidity of the party structure in PNG, it's not always a foregone conclusion - two PMs have been dismissed after no-confidence motions. Hack (talk) 06:58, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
It might be worth relevant comments being copied over to WP:PNG because while it is pretty inactive, it will be where people are going to be looking for discussion on the topic. Hack (talk) 07:43, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Monuments

Would anyone be interested in being the Australian lead on implementing Wiki Loves Monuments? If so, please get in touch with me and I'll get you connected with the most useful European contacts to help you try to get started and try to assist you in finding more Australians to help.  :) --LauraHale (talk) 20:19, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

This is already underway. - Bilby (talk) 21:09, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Prigi Beach asylum seeker sinking

Surely this tragedy requires an article. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 22:30, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

It could get a listing on List of shipwrecks in 2011 even if nowhere else like Prigi Beach boat disaster. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:25, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Australian women on Wikipedia and other projects

Hi. :) I mostly edit in sports so my exposure to a wider Australian editing community can at times be rather sad. :( Thus, I'm looking for help. :D There is a conference coming up and before it starts, we want to get a better idea of the participation of women on WMF related projects. We've started documenting Australia here. Can people please edit the section to include information on female Australian administrators, Arbs, project coordinators, oversighters? And help identify areas where Australian women are editing content and project wise? What Australian women centric content and projects are done particularly well and what are not done particularly well? That would be really useful and much appreciated. :D --LauraHale (talk) 12:04, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Did you mean meta:WikiWomenCamp/FAQ? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:28, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes, that was embarrassing. :( --LauraHale (talk) 00:53, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
I think I may be the only female Australian woman to have been an arbitrator and oversighter, if I recall rightly. There's quite a few admins, although at least a couple have quit due to harassment. No bureaucrats. Rebecca (talk) 15:33, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Australian sport article help

Several articles related to women's sport in Australia were nominated for speedy deletion today. They survived that, and I tried hard to quickly add content to try to make them a bit more WP:AFD proof but not my best effort ever. (I didn't want to spend the day trying to improve them.) Some of them were subsequently tagged again, and I cleaned it up again. One of those articles was then tagged again. Admittedly, this is not my best work by a long shot… but if anyone has the time and inclination, can you please help improve Women's billiards in Australia‎? There are a large number of sources in Trove to work with. I just am stuck a bit. Help please? --LauraHale (talk) 10:53, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

    • I dont see the multiple tagging of the articles and the editor explained their reason for tagging them, its a valid reason too many stub articles that are way too specifc considering parent articles on the sport in Australia dont exist. Womens sport in australia has always struggled to gain coverage, even trivial coverage in the media non-mainstream sports suffer even worse, I really think its a case of focusing on what can be saved and let the rest go. Gnangarra 15:58, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Given the paucity of mainstream media/google coverage of women's sport outside of the Olympics/Comm Games or recently the netball/basketball/hockey teams, I think your best bet is to line up really good offline sources such as books, journal articles etc first that cover the topics in detail, not just brief mentions in major papers (note I haven't actually checked any of your articles, so if you've already done that, then great). The WP:GNG states that notability means SIGNIFICANT coverage in INDEPENDENT reliable sources. The Significant means more than just a reporting of results and the independent means not written by the club/league/association etc. This can be tough, because often the only people documenting minor sports are those heavily involved in it. The other solution is to greatly expand the "parent" article with a big women's section in the Billiards in Australia and redirect the Women's billiards in Australia to it. If it ends up getting too big to just be a section then split it out later. Good luck. The-Pope (talk) 16:07, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Capricorn Coast

An enthusiastic new editor has recently expanded the Capricorn Coast article considerably. I was hoping some other Australian editors could keep an eye on it. Some of the references don't appear to be reliable and the I just noticed the infobox should be changed to a region one so that the Towns in Queensland category doesn't automatically get added. - Shiftchange (talk) 02:38, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

I've fixed the infobox, as well as a lot of other stuff, but the article seems to include a lot of OR and does need input from other editors. --AussieLegend (talk) 09:54, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Victoria

There's a proposal at WT:NCGN to put a naming convention in place that would either see Victoria (Australia) moved to Victoria, Australia, some other title, or keep it as is. Nightw 09:27, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

For those with short memories - it has been all done over before - an example would be: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Australian_Wikipedians%27_notice_board/Archive_21#Victoria - other examples of this probably exist as well SatuSuro 11:43, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Why no mention of $200 commemorative coin?

Can anyone tell me why there is no mention of the $200 coin anywhere, not even in Australian commemorative coins? Should we at least add it as a commemorative coin, because it is technically legal tender? IBE (talk) 12:51, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

In fact, it has always been mentioned at Coins of the Australian dollar since its first version, added on 4 January 2007, even originally including an image that presumably had copyright problems. Mark Hurd (talk) 16:59, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I missed it before, perhaps from trying to search everywhere too quickly, and expecting it automatically to be listed as a commemorative coin, rather than a collectable one. Thanks. IBE (talk) 19:23, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
What's the difference between a "commemorative" and "collectable" coin, and why do we need two articles to cover the topic? Lankiveil (speak to me) 05:19, 1 January 2012 (UTC).
I think Coins of the Australian dollar#Collectable coins, though, refers to coins specifically produced for collectors which, although not released directly into circulation, can still, technically, be used as legal tender. Nonetheless, every coin is collectable to someone. Shall we, then, merge Coins of the Australian dollar into similar articles, on the grounds of redundancy to, for example, Coins of Australia et al? The current title of that article is also a bit misleading; I'd expect it to discuss variants of the $1 coin but it instead it seems to discuss several coins. ClaretAsh 02:55, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Attacks on (not by) Australian icons

A foreign terroourist at One Mile punched a koala today. It might be wise to watch out for Attacks on koalas in Australia. --AussieLegend (talk) 08:50, 3 January 2012 (UTC) ;)

Drop bears will avenge Crusoe8181 (talk) 08:56, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Are you sure that the koala didn't provoke the tourist? Incidently, several editors have asserted in a currently-ongoing Arbitration Committee case that they consider calling someone a 'koala' to be more offensive than the C-word... Nick-D (talk) 09:02, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Hmmm. I've never had stewed koala. Does anyone have a recipe? --AussieLegend (talk) 09:14, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Koala rendang? Orderinchaos 09:21, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps, but as Portia in the Merchant of Venice stated- The Koala tea of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes... Crusoe8181 (talk) 09:41, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
well, in my experience calling someone a 'koala' means they 'can't be shot at or exported'. Peacemaker67 (talk) 13:08, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Port Adelaide state by-election, 2012

Would you mind weighing in here? Frickeg (talk) 07:26, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Australian road under deletion

The roads people are back at it again, they have started a deletion discussion without notifing the Australian project. Bidgee (talk) 03:58, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Now they have tried the outback tracks without discussion (e.g. Sandover Highway). I've undone the changes since there was no dicussion, zero, nil, zip. Template:Infobox Outback Track didn't even get any discussion and has been tagged for speedy deletion (they didn't even notify the creator). Bidgee (talk) 16:51, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
Seems like a pattern. Have to watch these guys like a hawk. :| Orderinchaos 16:58, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
Is there a reason the functionality of {{Infobox Outback Track}} can't be incorporated into {{Infobox Australian road}}. IOT is only used for 11 roads and it seems a bit silly to have a separate template. --AussieLegend (talk) 17:03, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
Probably. Will have a look later - adding a "track" type would probably do it. Orderinchaos 05:54, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
Is there a reason the functionality of {{Infobox Outback Track}} can't be incorporated into {{Infobox road}}, per that logic? --Rschen7754 07:23, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes. I think we've already established the weaknesses of Infobox road with regard to basics such as "from" and "to", which are the first two fields of the track infobox. Incorporating it into IAR simply means we switch "via" for "fuel supply" and add a permits field. Orderinchaos 13:54, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Category:Environment of Australia by state or territory

I have created Category:Environment of Australia by state or territory. The category and its subcats will need populating. I have made a bit of a start. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 06:19, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I object to the depopulating of Wilderness in Australia for a start (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Tasmanian_Wilderness_issues_and_politics for an example) - it should be the other way around - wilderness categories or articles could be part of the the larger environment category.... a more useless and grey category that could almost include anything SatuSuro 07:20, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
When I came across Category:Wilderness Areas of Australia it was empty so I put it up for deletion. It should have contained Category:Wilderness Areas of Tasmania but it didn't. I now realise that there is a reason to keep Category:Wilderness Areas of Australia, namely to contain the Category:Wilderness Areas of Tasmania. Is there wilderness areas in other states or territories.? If so there would then be a really good case to keep Category:Wilderness Areas of Australia. The IUCN has about 70-80 Strict Nature Reserve/Wilderness Area classifications. If these get articles they can be placed in Category:Wilderness Areas of Australia. Incidentally Twinkle removed the CSD notice from Category:Wilderness Areas of Australia when I had done a subsequent edit. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 08:00, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for that, sorry if I came over a bit defensive of the mess that is the articles that relate to the south west of Tasmania - otherwise it is great to have a more or less retired editor helping fix up the ever backlogged Australian category system... thanks SatuSuro 12:12, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

11th Anniversary Melbourne Meetup

Hi All. There's a meetup this coming Sunday (15th January) as an informal get-together to celebrate the 11th Anniversary of Wikipedia. Pizza and drinks provided. Details can be found at Wikipedia:Meetup/Melbourne 17. Regards, Steven Zhang Join the DR army! 20:12, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Solution for the Infobox Road debacle

After reading the recent long, long TfD, a thought occurs. What about creating a new base-template on which regional roads templates may be built; similar to how {{Infobox music of}} is used as a base template for regional music templates. ({{Infobox roads of}} perhaps?) The downside is that it may be perceived by the roads people as going against their globalising policy (a return to regionalism). However, if done right, it should iron out the wrinkles from trying to squeeze every predominant road system into one template. Plus, the obvious benefit is that the various templates will be both standard in format while allowing for regionalisms. Admittedly, this idea is very alpha and will need a bit of work to expand. ClaretAsh 14:48, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Something like this should be discussed at WT:HWY, where the "roads people" will actually see it. --Rschen7754 19:08, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
No, that's not the way to do it at all. We'll get this template up and running and then nominate Infobox road for deletion. The roads people can find out about it then. --AussieLegend (talk) 19:26, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
Let's not antagonise them. We're already as much a thorn in their side as they are in ours. Perhaps this can be a peace offering? ClaretAsh 00:50, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
To help keep this discussion on a civil and neutral standing, I've relocated it into my userspace: User talk:ClaretAsh/Roads. That is, neither at WT:HWY nor here. Please continue the discussion there. ClaretAsh 00:55, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
I think you're well-meaning, but I had a look and it's just those who voted in the minority at the TfD rehashing their arguments. If they have an actual solution, they can come to us with it, but until then, it just looks like argument for argument's sake and most of us are pretty busy people trying to do the right thing by the encyclopaedia rather than by a bunch of obsessive nerds from overseas who will never be happy unless we back down anyway, which is not going to happen. Orderinchaos 13:35, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

News sources list

Some review of Wikipedia:News sources/Oceania for current sources and links would be helpful, especially now that the previous "America and Oceania" news source list was just split. Dl2000 (talk) 23:59, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I've done my best to fill it out with appropriate sources. Orderinchaos 16:51, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

another

Another new article that would benefit the viewing by other editors for their opinion and or scrutiny - British colonisation of Tasmania - already dealt with in other articles - SatuSuro 13:18, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

New article Dingo scalping

New article up on this form of bounty-hunting, proceeding from South Australia's 1912 Wild Dogs Act which sought to eliminate dingos as a threat to expanding livestock farming. Might be of interest to anyone covering economics, ecology, and Aboriginal relations. There are a smattering of pics online, so I'll try and check to see if there are any non-copyright pics unless someone beats me to it (since I'm not familiar with how Australian copyright photos work on Wikipedia). MatthewVanitas (talk) 16:18, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

This really should be merged into Dingo#Control measures. --AussieLegend (talk) 17:42, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
Any photograph from before 1st January 1955 is out of copyright. See [9]. --99of9 (talk) 07:35, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
I see no reason for this new article in view of the existence of Dingo#Control measures SatuSuro 08:42, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree, merge it. Nightw 13:04, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Broadway on the Mall

Broadway on the Mall has been nominated for deletion . This may be of interest to some people on this noticeboard. --LauraHale (talk) 07:06, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Western Australia Roller Derby

There is a new Australian contributor working on Western Australia Roller Derby. Can some one help improve this article? :) --LauraHale (talk) 08:57, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Or, as I posted at WT:WA, is it notable enough to bother trying to save? The news contributor could also be accused of being a WP:SPA with a WP:COI username. Yes, it has some coverage, but so do quite a few diamond wedding anniversary couples, top students and cats stuck in trees. It's an amateur social league that happens to be a bit obscure, but a bit sexy and a bit "cultish" given the movie. I asked on the actual talk page - will any reliable source publish regular race results or team profiles, other than the slow-news-day puff pieces designed to show a few girls in tight shorts on skates. Redirect to Roller skating in Australia or Roller derby in Australia IMO. The-Pope (talk) 10:21, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
There are 34 sources that mention it in the Australian newspaper database. I think the article meets WP:GNG. Diamond anniversary couples are great. I assume there are 30+ sources about them? And the diamond couple are mentioned individually, and for different events? The sources are there. And regular bout results are not necessarily published in a newspaper. It sucks. And the articles I've looked at have done more than show girls in tight shorts. Rather, they focus on the athleticism involved. Also roller skating =/= roller derby. The information and its sources wouldn't find in Roller derby in Australia. It would probably be better off to move to Roller derby in Western Australia if a move was insisted upon, because there are definitely enough sources to get the topic past WP:GNG. --LauraHale (talk) 11:13, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I think that the various state roller derby leagues are notable. The sport seems to be sort-of semi-professional now, and attracts a reasonable amount of media coverage (especially given the media's general reluctance to cover women's sports), so meeting WP:ORG shouldn't be a problem. Nick-D (talk) 11:17, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

A search on Newsbank in Australian only papers for "WA Roller Derby" has following total results:

by Year

  • 2011 (54)
  • 2010 (3)

by Source

  • Midland-Kalamunda Reporter (Perth, Australia) (7)
  • Weekend Courier (Perth, Australia) (6)
  • Mandurah Coastal Times (Australia) (6)
  • Fremantle-Cockburn Gazette (Perth, Australia) (6)
  • Advocate (Ellenbrook-Swan Valley, Australia) (5)
  • Southern Gazette (Perth, Australia) (4)
  • Eastern Reporter (Perth, Australia) (4)
  • Guardian Express (Perth, Australia) (4)
  • Hills Gazette (Perth, Australia) (3)
  • Stirling Times (Perth, Australia) (3)
  • Canning Times (Perth, Australia) (2)
  • North Coast Times (Perth, Australia) (2)
  • Melville Times (Perth, Australia) (2)
  • Western Suburbs Weekly (Perth, Australia) (1)
  • Joondalup-Wanneroo Times (Perth, Australia) (1)
  • Wanneroo Times (Perth, Australia) (1)

The stories aren't always the same. There are different papers doing different writeups for the same and different events. There are at least three separate articles on the fact that there appears to be only one male referee in the WA Roller Derby. (Which as a CRDL fan, I find weird. I don't think I've seen a female ref at our bouts.) Notability here is really clear. Article needs improvement to fix the tags that say it reads like an advert. --LauraHale (talk) 11:39, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

It's probably worth noting that most of those newspapers are from the same publisher. Are the articles actually different for each area? Hack (talk) 11:58, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
Can't say I see any decent coverage in that list - it's all local community papers. But if others see it differently, then that's why we get to choose what we watchlist, and this page has now dropped off mine. And for those who think I'm only in favour of Aussie rules and cricket articles being included, I don't like most of the sub-WAFL/SANFL/VFL league/club articles either. Only a select few actually have decent printed sources (almost all of which are COI to a degree as it's only those involved in the club who bother to write up the history) and most end up being a free webhost for their annual results and lists non-notable award winners and the occasional bit of juvenile vandalism. But I also understand if some of you think that most of the people on Wikipedia:WikiProject_AFL/Players/ToDoSingle are just as non-notable! Good luck with the article and all the "sort-of-semi-professional" roller derby articles - and I'll keep an eye out for Australian Lingerie Football League too, once it gets a couple of online articles, it will be here for good! (maybe it's too late - http://www.foxsports.com.au/fueltv/local-version-of-lingerie-gridiron-to-debut-in-australia-with-ladies-football-league/story-fn6u5607-1226137310916) The-Pope (talk) 12:41, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
Generally I've found that the roller derby leagues that get off the ground (by which I mean that they've managed some interleague bouts and run a regular local competition) then they'll technically meet the GNG - mostly because the media finds it interesting enough to run the occasional story in the state paper. It's one of those things where the unusual nature of the sport gets coverage, while other sports miss out - although I like roller derby, so I guess I can't complain. The GNG will produce some interesting results form time to time.
I don't imagine that there would be enough to start a Roller derby in Western Australia article, simply because I doubt that there is enough coverage on that particular topic (as opposed to individual roller derby leagues in WA) to get through. I guess it depends a bit on how one reads that the "topic has received significant coverage". - Bilby (talk) 12:54, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
It is tough to complain about newspapers having the same publisher in Australia, where you can enumerate all the publishers in the country on your left hand. The sport of Roller Derby has become extremely popular in Australia both as a participation and a spectator sport. Three years ago the Canberra Roller Derby League was skating in parking lots; now they are skating to sell-out stadium crowds, and sending players off to international bouts. Media coverage is now mainstream and national. I have no doubt that the Western Australian league will be as successful as its East coast counterparts. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:45, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
WARD's already successful - they pack out the venue most bouts, their bouts are usually covered by local if not state media, and I believe they've sent competitors overseas as well. Rebecca (talk) 11:59, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Rats in the Ranks

I've had a stab at giving this wonderful Australian doco some representation on wikipedia, but I'm not that familiar with film templates and other editing approaches. It would also certainly benefit from more detailed content. I'm just saying ... ;P Colonel Tom 12:49, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

  • I have added an infobox and some basic formatting.Dan arndt (talk) 06:13, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to remove a reference used in the Australian frontier wars article and associated material

I have posted a proposal at Talk:Australian frontier wars#Frontier History Revisited by Robert Ørsted-Jensen - not a reliable source to remove a reference and the material its been used to cite due to concerns over the reliability of this source. Comments from other editors on this would be great. Nick-D (talk) 06:13, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Worth a watch

Any australia day active editors might want keep a watch on Aboriginal_Tent_Embassy - might even need protection at some point SatuSuro 06:04, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Watchlisted. I also took the liberty of re-writing the rather odd account of events there. Nick-D (talk) 06:12, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
subsequent IPedits need close watch as well SatuSuro 06:22, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Aborignal Land Rights in Australia

A new page was created yesterday with a spelling mistake. Today it has been cut and pasted to Aboriginal Land Rights in Australia, which is still an incorrect title because of unnecessary capitals. Can an administrator please sort this? - Shiftchange (talk) 11:40, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I've moved the article to Aboriginal land rights in Australia but just needs an Admin to fix the mess created by the copy and paste move. Bidgee (talk) 11:57, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Done. But I would have been able to do it far more cleanly if you'd moved the "Aboriginal Land Rights in Australia" page rather than the version at the original title with the spelling mistake. Graham87 09:17, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
I done the page move in good faith. I know that it is preferred that the original article is restored and moved, however I didn't know that it was far more difficult to do. I take offence to your comment and I'll be unwilling to help you in future. Bidgee (talk) 11:02, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
I didn't intend to sound snarky ... I was just stating a plain fact. I honestly don't understand why you would be offended. Take this up privately, if you'd prefer. Graham87 03:59, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Wow. How many users know that restoring an article which was blanked as it was C&P (copy and paste) moved by its creator makes it harder to do a history merge? Well not many would. Sorry, but this is a public matter not a private one, you're an Admin whom assumed bad faith and even abusing the sysop tool (including another admin, when I see no such threat) by protecting the article which hasn't even had any moving wars. Bidgee (talk) 04:10, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
I was just letting you know that it would've been better to move the "Aboriginal Land Rights in Australia" article (i.e. the second title), in case you encountered a similar situation in the future. If I did not have the admin bit, I would've moved that article and made the title with a misspelling (i.e. the blank page) into a redirect. Re: the move protection: I was just reinstating it because all page protection flags are removed when a page is deleted. TBH I didn't see much point in the protection either, perhaps ask the original protecting admin? But I've removed it again. Graham87 04:26, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Australia Day Honours 2012

I'd appreciate some feedback and input on this list which I put together for the Australia Day Honours list, particularly regarding the layout and ultimate usefulness. I'd especially appreciate some help from people knowledgeable about the Australian military, as I suspect something could be done (with links if nothing else) to clear up the sometimes unintelligible military sections. Additionally, do people think these sorts of lists are encyclopaedically valuable? (They take a long time to make, but I could see myself maybe doing some more for past ones.) Frickeg (talk) 07:58, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

The list uses the word 'Grounds' when the usual term is 'Citation.' Your layout is very different to that used by Template:Honours_Lists; this is not necessarily a bad thing, but something you need to be aware of. Practice there is no make most or all of the personal names red links, on the assumption that they're going to prove to be notable. Ask about the military stuff at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:11, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for the "Citation" thing; I couldn't for the life of me think of where to look for that. "Grounds" was pretty much a placeholder until I found the correct term. I found the other Honours Lists to be very untidy and not terribly pleasing aesthetically, which is why I made the decision to tabulate the list, which I think will also make it easier to maintain. Frickeg (talk) 08:28, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
(Edit: And on the redlinks thing, while maybe everyone appointed AO might turn out notable, below that it's pretty much a case-by-case thing, and I think it's better to default to no link at the moment since the vast majority of people receiving, say, the OAM aren't notable and never will be.) Frickeg (talk) 08:31, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Now in mainspace. Would still appreciate feedback on the layout. Frickeg (talk) 02:45, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
A couple of points: (a) you need to address the relationship between Template:Australian Honours Lists and Template:Honours_Lists to avoid duplication and ease navigation (b) you need to run the thing through the disambiguator for those military ranks and (c) I disagree with the red-link thing, but I'll admit it's your call. Stuartyeates (talk) 02:59, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
(a) The templates actually existed way before I made the list; I see what you mean, but I'm not sure how to link them up (I'm not exactly great with these kinds of things). (b) That tool is a godsend, and I can't believe I didn't know about it before. Thanks heaps; I think I've got them all. (c) Just for some justification on the redlink thing: I have no doubt that you're right about some of these people being notable, but I could see just from the citations that the vast majority of them weren't. There were people honoured for running community soup kitchens and local singing groups and things - worthy work, of course, but not making them notable. The lists take long enough to make without trying to research whether every individual is notable or not. :) I do plan to come back and run checks on them from time to time and link anyone who has an article, though.
Thank you very much for your advice on this; it's something of a new area for me, as you've no doubt deduced. Frickeg (talk) 03:26, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

These? in notable's articles

My inclination is to exterminate on sight (on the grounds that our putative readership can read). Other's opinions? see Walter Campbell (judge) as an example Crusoe8181 (talk) 10:20, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't like it. It conveys much less than text describing the honours. Its the first time I have seen the ribbons. - Shiftchange (talk) 10:55, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Agree. As Crusoe says, people can read and don't need this (as opposed to an image of the subject actually being awarded with said medals). Secondly, FWIW, there doesn't appear to be a precedent in other encyclopedias. Also, do others feel that the inclusion of such images makes it seem as if we're putting the various notables on a pedestal? Honouring them rather than simply stating who they are and what they've done? ClaretAsh 11:02, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
They are commonplace: John Howard#Honours, Quentin Bryce#Honours etc. WWGB (talk) 11:06, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
There have been discussions about whether to include medal ribbons in articles on military people (including lots of Australians) at WT:MILHIST, and the consensus has (from memory) been to remove them. Nick-D (talk) 11:09, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
They look pretty meaningless the way they have been placed in John Howard#Honours, maybe as a small icon near where the award was given it'd add meaning but really its just a camp decoration for an article about a politician. Including medal ribbons in a military persons article makes sense as a reader can look at an image of the person in uniform and then visually identify what each are for. Gnangarra 11:17, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
These seem like a kind of insider talk. 99.99% of people won't know what they mean and the few that do will just feel cleverer. They don't inform. HiLo48 (talk) 11:23, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree with HiLo48. They don't belong in the articles as they are only in the article as pure decoration and not there to inform the reader. I have 20/20 vision and I can't even make out if I'm looking at a Queensland or New South Wales flag since the icons are small (I'm not saying they could be larger), so someone with poor vision isn't going to care about the flags and the ribbons, since they can't make out what it is, as well as those whom don't know what each one means. Bidgee (talk) 12:13, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
May I suggest that any discussion about their inclusion be escalated beyond this WikiProject's sphere. If the consensus from a future discussion is to remove them, it'll have consequences for the rest of the project, if only it be a new guideline being added somewhere. ClaretAsh 11:25, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately they are far too common in articles. They've even found a place in articles about fictional characters, like NCIS' Leroy Jethro Gibbs. There's even a special template for their use in US articles. --AussieLegend (talk) 12:21, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

As Nick-D says this has been discussed many times at WT:MILHIST, the most recent discussion being this one. NtheP (talk) 12:39, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
(ec) As Nick-D says, we've had a few rounds of discussion on this at MilHist and they've generally ended in stalemate, or with some grudging agreement to respect consensus on an article-by-article basis. Me, I think ribbons make articles look like a childrens' picture book, and have no place in an encyclopedia. The argument that some have used at MilHist, that they help people identify what people have done and where they've fought, doesn't hold water as the average person would have no idea what each ribbon means without the name next to it, in which case the ribbon is redundant. In any case the link in the award name takes you to a WP article that not only shows you the ribbon but, lo and behold, the medal itself! So any attempt to remove these or at least stop their spread will have my full support. Be aware however that there are some in MilHist who have equally strong feelings for the ribbons -- I just don't for one moment accept their arguments... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:51, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
Thanks to Ian for alerting me to this thread, since he knows I've made noises before about the matter. I don't mind these images being available at some centralised location or locations, but when articles become covered with colourfests, my impression is that it detracts from the dignity of the person and their achievements. A row of medals on a person's chest inspires respect; a medal farm in a textual article can cheapen the topic. Tony (talk) 15:12, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
The ribbon images do not aid a reader's knowledge of the individuals and are a visual distraction.--Melburnian (talk) 22:35, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
It seems to me that if we are to include these ribbons, they need to be presented in an encyclopedic manner; i.e. informative and comphrensive. In their current state they aren't, but I'm open to an alternative presentation that might be. Stuartyeates (talk) 22:45, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

My Watchlist just alerted me to the removal of the images from Keith Miller. The edit summary noted that there was "clear consensus" here to remove them. I don't see any such consensus. I see some comments that they may be unhelpful. I see some people calling for wider discussion. I don't think that the way they were presented at Miller's article (which is a GA) was unhelpful, meaningless, a colourfest or any other net negative. They are supported by good, clear text. --Dweller (talk) 10:18, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Strongly Agree!!! There has been zero attempt to canvass a consensus. Pdfpdf (talk) 10:29, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
must have misinterpreted all the above. So, revert my edits, by all means, (all have edit summaries) but perhaps add some lovely multicoloured very big text with an original typeface beneath each so our readership will not be distracted from them to the encyclopedic content. Regards Crusoe8181 (talk) 10:40, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
Pardon?
but perhaps add some lovely multicoloured very big text with an original typeface beneath each so our readership will not be distracted from them to the encyclopedic content.
Sorry, but I have no idea what you are talking about. Could I bother you to explain yourself please? Pdfpdf (talk) 10:46, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
Please include text explaining what medal the ribbon represents alongside it (as few people will have any idea what ribbon goes with which medal, or even that there's a relationship). However, I do think that there was support for removing the ribbons based on the above discussion. Nick-D (talk) 11:00, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
Hullo Pdf, once more unto the breach for us on this subject, eh...? ;-) Seriously though, this is the WP:Australia talk page, and a note was put on the MilHist talk page, so I think we can say there's been a fair attempt to canvass opinion. As Nick says, there seems pretty strong support from the above for dispensing with the ribbons. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:50, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
Idi Amin was wont to wear his medals in about 5 lines, but Australian convention is not to so do, so perhaps ensuring that the order of precedence is followed would be useful Crusoe8181 (talk) 11:15, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
The section in Miller's article includes a smashing, fully wikilinked outline of what each ribbon represents. --Dweller (talk) 11:28, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
Which is entirely the point. The awards are linked, so clicking on them shows you the medal and the ribbon, if you're that interested. So why bother with them in each individual biography? Further, wikilinking isn't citation. Still further, there's no need to have separate sections of awards and honours. Those that are for service above and beyond the call of duty are noted/wikilinked in the infobox, and detailed/cited in the main body of the article. All the rest is imagecruft and listcruft. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:50, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
Why include an image of a biographical subject? Is that imagecruft? I could describe what Miller looks like. The article goes into some detail of Miller's war record and his laconic brand of heroism. It's not inappropriate. And this is notpaper. --Dweller (talk) 12:04, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
I think that misses the point, mate. If I read an article on Keith Miller, I expect to see images of him there. I don't expect to see a picture of everyone who's had an impact on his life. Those people will be linked, and I should be able to see a picture of them there. Obviously his war service is mentioned, as it should be, and his awards are mentioned, cited and linked. That's enough. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:25, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
I see no problem with person who have military service have any recognition of service displayed, the problem I see that in non military articles they mean nothing and nothing that text alone cant decsribe. Gnangarra 10:40, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion

Use this:

Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) 1987
Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) 2000
Knight of Justice of the Venerable Order of St John of Jerusalem (KStJ) 1996
Defence Medal
War Medal 1939–1945
Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal 1977

and not this:

WWGB (talk) 11:27, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and we do not wear our medals in 2 lines as shown; we wear them in one line and if the recipient of a War Medal (or any other military service medal) has that medal shown on a second line BELOW (not alongside) those of higher precedence (particularly a civilian award as depicted above) that is an insult to the recipient Crusoe8181 (talk) 11:43, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
Happy for this to be implemented at Miller's article. --Dweller (talk) 11:45, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
I feel I should just point out that the ribbons above (in 2 lines) show the correct order of wear (when wearing ribbons as per above), the only time all of one's medals are worn in 1 single row is when you are either wearing 'Full' medals or 'Miniture' medals. --Nford24 (talk) 12:05, 11 January 2012 (AEST)
I have also noticed that most of the Ribbon Bars have been removed from 'notables' pages without puting in what medals were awarded (Example:David Smith (Australian public servant) - in this case the ribbons were removed which ment the article no longer implied that he was made a Knight of the Order of St John or that he was even awarded the QE2 Silver Jubilee Medal. --Nford24 (talk) 12:05, 11 January 2012 (AEST)
  • I think we need to distinguish that military personal, npn military personal should be treated differently as one expects to see a display of ribons in the info box of military pesonal. Gnangarra 10:40, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I've reconsidered my opinion on this. WWGBs idea above suggests the currant "medalfarm" could be turned into something encyclopedic. Perhaps the "Titles, styles, honours and arms" sections on articles about nobility could serve as inspiration for how medals can be presented. I'm not averse to WWGBs table being reversed and pushed to the right as a sidebar and, along with any further info, contained within an "Awards and honours" section. ClaretAsh 11:37, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
If we must have the ribbons, I prefer WWGB's suggested way of presenting them. I still don't think it's a good idea to include these sorts of decorations in non-military biographies, however. Lankiveil (speak to me) 01:16, 28 January 2012 (UTC).
I had a look at this section, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#A possible solution. -- PBS (talk) 00:20, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

WikiWomen's History Month

Hi everyone. March is Women's History Month and I'm hoping a few folks here at WP:Australian will have interest in putting on events (on and off wiki) related to women's roles in Australian's history, society and culture. We've created an event page on English Wikipedia (please translate!) and I hope you'll find the inspiration to participate. These events can take place off wiki, like edit-a-thons, or on wiki, such as themes and translations. Please visit the page here: WikiWomen's History Month. Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to seeing events take place! SarahStierch (talk) 22:12, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Sergeant A

Problems? Recipients of the Star of Gallantry should be notable; brought here in case there are concerns about having an article on an individual who, apparently, remains anonymous. Later recipients also remain anonymous. Crusoe8181 (talk) 10:54, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that he can be notable - all we know about him is the circumstances in which he won this medal. Without any background there's nothing to write an article about. The essay WP:MILPEOPLE (which is generally followed in AfD discussions) recommends that only people who win the highest medal for valour (the Victoria Cross for Australia here) should be assumed to be notable. Nick-D (talk) 11:06, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree. All the information in that article is in fact already included in Star of Gallantry, which is the appropriate place. This kind of anonymity with military honours is fairly routine (in fact, of the six awardees, only one is identified). Frickeg (talk) 11:11, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Pseudonymity doesn't necessarily imply non-notability. Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade is a pseudonym; since revealed but notable prior to the revelation. Pseudonymity just makes it MUCH harder to find and check sources, without which we can't write an article. Stuartyeates (talk) 03:11, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
  • This is a WP:ONEEVENT issue without other information to create an article there is anything else we can add tot he article. Gnangarra 03:56, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Without significant coverage in reliable sources the subject would not seem to be considered notable under WP:GNG. Anotherclown (talk) 10:00, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks, all. Regardless of WP:MILPEOPLE I think recipients of the Star of Gallantry should be notable; that essay refers to the American Navy Cross (just one such in US) with 6,300 recipients- the Australian one is rather more selective (six at last count) and I would continue to argue against deletion on those grounds. I was more concerned about the anonymity and the possibility he/she would be named, and whether an article can exist without any biographical detail Crusoe8181 (talk) 10:15, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Without the availability of references on people, it's pretty difficult to establish their notability, so it does seem to be the central issue here. Nick-D (talk) 10:20, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Indeed I think Nick is spot on here. No references means not notable in my book, hence my comment about WP:GNG. That is not to say that sometime in the future this individual won't recieve "significant coverage" in reliable sources (and if this does occur then at that time they would become notable). However, until then I think there is little to be gained in having an article on him. What we do know can be (and is) included in the Star of Gallantry article (where it certainly is relevant IMO). Anotherclown (talk) 10:30, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Sergeant A by virtue of being the first recipient does bestow a degree notability, the over riding factor is the lack of information to warrant a stand alone article. At this stage the person is notable for that one event and as per WP:1E coverage should be in the Star of Gallantry as thats the most appropriate way to cover it, time and circumstances may change that. I dont think that just(used way to lightly) being a recipient of the Star is inherantly notable but as an indicator of notability it'd be hard to ignore if more substantive detail is available, it quite possible that Private S(2008), Private S(2011), Sergeant P or Sergeant D may achieve notability while Sergeant A remains annomouse. Gnangarra 16:08, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Suggestion expand the recipient list in Star of Gallantry with as much information as possible. When information on these individuals enters the public sphere (as I believe it will, once they have finished their service and the operations they serve in have been wound up), they can be split into individual articles? Stuartyeates (talk) 22:45, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Seems like the appropriate way to do it. Anotherclown (talk) 09:33, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Someone has already merged the content of the article into the Star of Gallantry article. As there seems to be a consensus that 'Sergeant A' doesn't justify a stand-alone article at present, I've converted it into a redirect to Star of Gallantry. Hopefully one day we will learn his name - it seems a shame that members of the special forces are denied this recognition, though I do realise that it's regarded as being important to protect their safety and allow them to continue serving with their unit. Nick-D (talk) 10:34, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Gazetteer of Australia

The GofA id number is no longer accessible. Could a clever person tweak the {{Gazetteer of Australia}} template to use the Feature number. Last discussed here. If it can't be done the template should be retired. Moondyne (talk) 02:15, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I tried tweaking the template. It now wants the Feature number. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:59, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks Hawkeye. Moondyne (talk) 04:41, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Not quite there yet. The code needs to cater for the old style url with an id (and which still works, so existing usages continue to function), as well as the new style with a feature parameter. Moondyne (talk) 07:11, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Had to call in some expert help. Is it okay now? Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:31, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
All good. Excellent work. Moondyne (talk) 01:17, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Australia–New Zealand relations

Is Sayazakardalamdubursaya (talk · contribs) likely to be DavidYork71 (talk · contribs) or SuperblySpiffingPerson (talk · contribs) (or both!)? No edits of real concern yet, but that is standard MO for a new sock by these editors. Please keep an eye out. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 01:49, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Been watching. Certainly an enthusiastic editor. My biggest concern so far is the complete absence of Edit summaries. HiLo48 (talk) 02:31, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
It was him (thanks to Aircorn (talk · contribs) for lodging the SPI report). I've reverted his edits and semi-protected the article for two weeks. From looking at its history it's frequently targeted by this moron, so further protection might be needed, but I'll see how this goes. Nick-D (talk) 07:54, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Acheron, Victoria

Acheron, Victoria (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This needs considerable cleanup work, and some referencing. Can anyone help?  Chzz  ►  01:29, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

  • I didn't read it thoroughly, but it looks like a lot of trivial information is in there, random details about people's lives. I'll give it a try....
  • The list at the bottom of it looks like someone's workpage—like they've listed a set of key points to expand later.
  • The beginning of the history section is copied from here, so I've blanked it. There could be more. Nightw 08:16, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
Took a WP:Bold action on this one; no matter how we attempt to persuade, nothing is ever done by the perpetrators of this type of editing; now there is nothing to waste our time Crusoe8181 (talk) 09:49, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Elsevier

We are blessed to have been the location of one of the main Elsevier controversies, which are rearing their head again due to the Elsevier boycott. There is a bit of a mess of low quality articles about the Elsevier sponsored journals. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Academic Journals#Elsevier sponsored journals. --John Vandenberg (chat) 06:09, 4 February 2012 (UTC)


Short notice: Sydney meetup

Hi all,
Sorry for the late notice, but Ben Smith, who is a French Wikipedian m:User:benjism89 is visiting Australia with two friends and wants to meet up for dinner in Sydney on Wednesday [tomorrow!]. So... Open invitation to all wiki-folk who are in/can get to Sydney!

He's staying near Sydney Uni, so: Meet at 7pm at the upstairs bar of the Marlborough Hotel (also known as the "Marley bar") which is about halfway between Sydney Uni and Newtown Train station: http://maps.google.com.au/?q=Marlborough+Hotel&cid=4363433616880529583 From there we'll have a drink and then chose a restaurant.

Please forward this to anyone who you think would be interested.
Sincerely, Wittylama 01:52, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Jupiters Hotel and Casino

Today a contributor with a possible conflict of interest removed a controversy section and a section on a previous refurbishment from the Jupiters Hotel and Casino article. I have replaced both sections within a history section and partially improved the promotional tone. I also added some info with references on other controversial incidents to provide balance. Have I gone too far, I mean, are they notable enough to be included? - Shiftchange (talk) 09:45, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I've just blocked that editor: they had a clear conflict of interest and were trying to turn the article into an advertisement for the casino. I've also removed the very spammy prose they added about the 2011 redevelopment (eg, "upiters Hotel & Casino will be transformed into a world class leisure and entertainment destination..."). I wouldn't worry too much about what that editor was doing given that they were editing in bad faith. The Julian O'Neill incident doesn't seem very notable, but the others do (though the money laundering incident should be removed if it can't be referenced). Nick-D (talk) 09:59, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Australian places

WikiProject Australian places is looking a bit too quiet these days. The last talk page activity was in November 2010. What's more, a lot of what should be discussed at that project is being discussed at this one (The entry for "Acheron, Victoria" above being a case in point!). What do others think of a takeover? ClaretAsh 23:00, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Most of the WP:AUST sub-projects (with some exceptions - see WP:WA) are basically lifeless. They live on basically as a tool for classifying articles into various groups rather than venues for collaborative work. Others may have more idea than I about how useful that classification is. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 00:59, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
If this is the case, it may be worth considering redirecting their talk pages to someplace that actually gets read (like here). Stuartyeates (talk) 01:21, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
As with all of wikipedia - editing is down all over - we might even have more sub projects than regular workers on the main project who even contribute on this page - I would suggest a message on all sub projects talk pages to come here - rather than redirects. Matt's summary of the projects as tools of classification is an important point (and should be sufficient explanation why the idea of take over is a misguided idea) - also many of the sub projects have massive assessment backlogs - we lack (Australian project) assessment/project management minded eds ... SatuSuro 13:29, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
Not all sub-projects ignore assessments! 1148 bottles of beer on the wall, 1148 bottles of beer... The-Pope (talk) 13:48, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
Well done! at least one sub project is sorted out then! who knows about the the rest... SatuSuro 13:56, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
Indeed, who knows? What I would like to see is annual status updates from each of the sub-projects to be posted here. This could cover what achievements have been made, areas where there has been significant improvement, what areas of maintenance need attention, how a sub-project is failing or becoming inactive, which backlogs need priority attention, what new resources have been useful or any other developments which are significant or which may be of interest to other editors. If anyone else feels confident they have a good idea of the scope of work being carried out (or not) within sub-projects then I would encourage you to write a summary and post it here. I was thinking of doing this anyway for WP:QLD. Hopefully this proposal is more popular than my last one. - Shiftchange (talk) 14:34, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
Maybe put it on a separate page like Wikipedia:WikiProject_Australia/Sub-projects where each sub-project can be listed as active/barely active/historical and list their current focus. A format similar to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Directory/Geographical/Oceania might be useful as a starting point. Redirectly inactive talk pages to here is better than just a link, as some people may still post on an "open" page. The-Pope (talk) 15:46, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
Places was always a container project anyway - it was as far as I was always aware a "parent project" for all of the geographic projects, and most significant discussion took place here on AWNB because most people had this watchlisted. Think of it like directories or folders on a hard drive, with most projects being 2nd level subdirectories/subfolders. It's worth pointing out AWNB is a noticeboard/discussion place, not a project, but I agree with the suggestion that (as we did with WP AUS's talk page some time ago) some of the talk pages should probably be redirected here. Another round of rationalisations is probably in order too - Perth, Brisbane and Townsville were merged into their parent projects in recent years and it was suggested at the time that others were reasonable candidates for such a move. Orderinchaos 16:12, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

BCOT

Hey guys, a second opinion is needed here. Cheers. Uhlan (talk) 22:11, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Roads project sneaky past changes

Just happen to spot some changes to infoboxes that were made without any discussion with the QLD and Australian project all the way back in mid to late 2010, not sure how this was missed but it was. Template:Australian motorway and Template:QLDRoad were replaced with Template:Infobox roads rather then Template:Infobox Australian road. I've been making changes to the articles which were changed but I've only fixed a small number of articles ([10], [11], [12], [13], [14]) so far. Bidgee (talk) 11:32, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I noticed this just after the last AfD and started listing them at User:AussieLegend/Project 05 but got sidetracked. --AussieLegend (talk) 11:43, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Help with rail template

Hi. Can someone give me a hand fixing the rail template on the article Yenda please?

Incidentally, does anyone else find the rail line templates impossibly editor-unfriendly? I consider myself a reasonably experienced editor but I don't have the first clue about where to go to fix the problem. Can't there be a simple "edit" link similar to the one on navboxes? -- Mattinbgn (talk) 21:45, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

With navboxes, the same content appears on multiple pages (usually every page featured in the navbox). Succession Boxs such as this template only appear on a single page. The templates are a way to lay out a table. I'm not quite sure why the railways folks appear to have hijacked templates meant for documenting the successive holders of offices. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:35, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
It should be OK now, but they can be very fiddly.Grahame (talk) 01:46, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Working now, thanks. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 03:20, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

February Melbourne Meetup

Hi All. Just letting you know that we have another meetup planned for Melbourne, on Sunday, 26th February at 11am. More details can be found at the meetup page. Pizza will be provided. Look forward to seeing all of you there :-) Steven Zhang Join the DR army! 22:31, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedians to the Games

This thread has been moved to a sub-page due to size. Please also see outreach:HOPAU/W2G for further information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Orderinchaos (talk • contribs) 05:13, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Canberra Times

Apparently, The Canberra Times redid their website and many links to newspaper articles are now 404s. :( --LauraHale (talk) 10:38, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Is the Canberra Times a reliable source? ;) Seriously, that sucks, though it's the reason why 'accessed on' dates are useful. Nick-D (talk) 07:23, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
I used it for sources for a DYK I wrote on I think the 12th of February. The Times changed their website on the 16th. The DYK was reviewed on the 18th so all my links were broken. :( Good to have the access dates, but not so handy if you're going through assessment of some kind. :( --LauraHale (talk) 08:19, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
Ow, that sucks. Nick-D (talk) 08:51, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I used the contact form and got the following response, which makes me happy: "Hi Thanks for bringing this to our attention - the Canberra Times tech team will have a look and see if they can come up with a solution. Regards, Phillip Fairfax Media digital support ". Hopefully, they will fix things because lot of outbounds to them. --LauraHale (talk) 22:17, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

cfd

These never get the project tag like afd's- this might interest some - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2012_February_21#Darwin.2C_Northern_Territory SatuSuro 22:37, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

This was proposed for speedy renaming a few days ago but was opposed.[15] --AussieLegend (talk) 23:02, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Problem with image

I left a message at Wikipedia:Help desk as directed by WP:IFU but it was never answered and now archived. If it's possible, I think a screenshot of this post-match interview (9:10-9:40) from On the Mat (what would be a larger image of this) would be great although other images are available here, here, and here. 72.74.217.32 (talk) 04:40, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Australian Labor Party leadership election, 2012

My long held (but minority) view is that stand-alone articles on party leadership spills should not exist. However since they seem to be popular, they should at least be encyclopedic, neutral and non-crystal-ball-gazing. Australian Labor Party leadership election, 2012 fails on all counts. Can those with an interest in this sort of thing please fix it. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 05:15, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

is it really an election? To me that title implies that it is a public vote not an internal ballot. I tend to agree that most aren't notable but I think those that involve the sitting prime minister exceed the notability bar. The-Pope (talk) 05:25, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
I can't stand them either, frankly. One of the things I dislike is it's fairly presumptuous crystal-balling to assume that an "election" (I too dislike the use of this term) will even take place—for instance, there's a whole article called Australian Labor Party leadership election, 2010, even though Rudd stood down beforehand and no caucus vote/ballot/election actually took place. I guess they are for the most part notable and are not wanting for reliable sources, and they do have a significant effect on politics, such as changing the Prime Minister in some cases. --Canley (talk) 05:52, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
It's still technically an election in which one candidate wins unopposed (although I take The-Pope's point that a word other than "election" may make the actual process a little clearer, as the public don't vote in it). I agree with the need for such articles and actually plan to create articles for as many as I can get sources for historically - have already started on 1991 in my userspace. The advantage of them is that their content doesn't readily fit into any other space as a sub-section, and risks WP:WEIGHT issues (eg someone serves for 2 years but 3/4 of their article is about their dumping). I agree strongly that they need to avoid hyperbole and stick to what reliable sources say. Orderinchaos 06:34, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Why aren't they titled leadership spill? Moondyne (talk) 06:56, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
I suspect that leadership spill isn't widely understood. Australian Labor Party leadership change, 2012 seems more encyclopedic to me. Stuartyeates (talk) 07:15, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Either sounds better / less confusing / possibly more accurate than "election". Orderinchaos 07:23, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Or caucus ballot? "Election" is fucking ridiculous. Fifelfoo (talk) 07:29, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
I think that 'leadership ballot' or 'leadership challenge' are the terms used by political scientists. 'Election' is clearly non-sensical. Nick-D (talk) 07:34, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Challenge is only a subset of the article type, as some are simply brought on by the resignation of whoever is in power and the contest of others to replace them. Orderinchaos 07:36, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
So far there is no challenge. (Despite the media suggesting for months that there has been one.) If there are no other candidates, there will be no vote or election. Can we escape from the hype please? HiLo48 (talk) 07:55, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Of the options thus far expressed I'm favouring "spill", because it's the most accurate. Orderinchaos 08:00, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I would support that.HiLo48 (talk) 08:02, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Of course there will be an election. An election is simply the filling of a vacant position. It does not require multiple candidates. Does the term "elected unopposed" sound familiar? WWGB (talk) 08:05, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Domain .au past year
Whichever way you go "election" isn't it. Support Spill. Moondyne (talk) 08:06, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Any objections to "spill"? If not, I'll sort it out tonight (renames, links, category). Orderinchaos 08:55, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Spill sounds best to me. --99of9 (talk) 11:41, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
The term "leadership spill" isn't understood outside of Australia. "election" or "vote" or "ballot" is more universally understood. Vale of Glamorgan (talk) 17:38, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm a kiwi and I'd never heard the term 'spill' in this sense prior to this discussion. Stuartyeates (talk) 18:56, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
If there is actually a ballot on Monday, I'd be fine with changing it to "leadership ballot" at that stage. But until that happens, I think we should call it a spill, and explain what a spill is, including the fact that there's not necessarily any more than one candidate. --99of9 (talk) 02:50, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Input required on CAMRA

CAMRA was the original name of the Campaign for Real Ale article, until it was moved in December 2005‎, and a redirect was left behind. In Feb this year a user created a disamb page, offering readers the choice of going to Campaign for Real Ale or Canberra Academy of Music and Related Arts. The redirect was restored under WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, and a hatnote placed on Campaign for Real Ale, pointing to Canberra Academy of Music and Related Arts. Another user has objected to the restoration of the redirect. Evidence was then provided of the high traffic to Campaign for Real Ale, and the low traffic to Canberra Academy of Music and Related Arts via CAMRA; evidence has also been provided for the high global visibility and recognition of the CAMRA acronym with the Campaign for Real Ale. Time has been provided for counter arguments and evidence. See discussion on Talk:CAMRA. The page is now somewhat unstable due to the dispute. Opinions and comments would be helpful. SilkTork ✔Tea time 16:01, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Attacks on Dingos in Australia

The following was posted to my talkpage a few hours ago:[16]

Hello, AussieLegend! I'm bringing this to your attention because I see that you made an edit to this article relatively recently.[17] I came across this article by random, and saw there was no taxobox. I then found this article, so I copied the taxobox from there and inserted it at the dingo article. It was reverted by two different editors, one who removed the taxobox from the dingo article just a couple of days ago, and the other who created the C. lupus dingo article. It turns out that this taxobox was originally on the dingo article, was copied over to the other article, and now these two want the taxobox removed from the dingo article. Confusing, isn't it? I don't think these two are correct in removing a taxobox that has been on the dingo article since 2003 for their relatively recently created article - what say you? Doc talk 19:12, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

The article history shows that Dingo contained a taxobox until this edit on 21 February 2012. I'm not sure I'm convinced that there shouldn't be a taxobox in Dingo just because there's one in Canis lupus dingo. There is an ongoing discussion at Talk:Dingo#Taxobox where editors may wish to comment. --AussieLegend (talk) 23:00, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Please do join those discussions, but please don't see or depict anyone as "attacking dingoes". We're just trying Wikipedians. Please strike that through, if not rename the section. Chrisrus (talk) 16:33, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Attacks on Dingos in Australia is a local "in-joke". --AussieLegend (talk) 16:42, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

First Fleet

The discussion at Talk:First Fleet#Requested move may be of interest to perusers of this noticeboard. Of course, the discussion is not a vote. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 03:51, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Kim Dalton

Current BLP discussion regarding article on ABC's Director of Television - Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Kim Dalton. Dl2000 (talk) 05:11, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Open Australia

I've just come across the openaustralia.org website. I'm just wondering what others opinions are on it. Is it a reliable source? Thanks. ClaretAsh 00:16, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

we have a noticeboard that deals with source reliability WP:RS/N. This source is unlikely to be reliable for many (if any) uses. The about page lacks any indicator of editorial principles, articles do not cite content, it appears to be an amateurly administerd semi-open wiki. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:26, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
Apart from allowing comments from readers, openaustralia.org doesn't do much editorialising. Modelled on theyworkforyou.com (see TheyWorkForYou. Its a useful source for some basic info on members, notably including a scan of each members' Registrable Interests declaration - eg. [18]. Moondyne (talk) 01:13, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
Have a look at reliable source and the concept of "fact checking." The absence of a public editorial policy is a heavy mark against them. They also don't have any of the signs of an archive. Compare and contrast to National Archives Australia or APH's actual Hansard, both of which have reputations for reliability. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:25, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
This last point is, to me, key. I can't see many reasons why you would need to cite OpenAustralia, as opposed to the official Hansard, all of which is available in some form online. OpenAustralia might be useful in locating the exact Hansard you need, but actually looking up the real thing shouldn't be too difficult. The site's other main feature is the registers of interests, which, although sometimes interesting, I can hardly see us needing to cite too often - and if there's anything notable about it, presumably a news source would need to pick it up first anyway. Frickeg (talk) 07:22, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. At first glance, the site looks deceptively trustworthy so, when I came across it, I figured it won't be long before some inexperienced editors start using it as a source. Thanks again. ClaretAsh 13:18, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia training days in Hobart

Hi everyone, Wikimedia Australia is sponsoring two Wikipedia editing training days in Tasmania, run by Leigh Blackall - one in Hobart on Tuesday February 28th, and in Kingston on Wednesday February 29th.

WMAU has agreed to provide travel assistance (up to $100 per day) for regular Wikimedia contributors in Tasmania who want to assist with either of the workshops.

Volunteers should apply via email to [email protected], and only need to supply their username. Places are limited! -- Chuq (talk) 04:20, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Just an update on this if anyone is interested - please see the original links and also User:Chuq/Training Feb2012 for details about the sessions. -- Chuq (talk) 02:37, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Lets hope it ends up with more long term active editors for the Tasmanian subject area! well done anyways SatuSuro 08:55, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, great work. The number of people who have signed up is impressive. There's lots to write about in Tassie! Nick-D (talk) 10:37, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Multiple categories nominated for speedy renaming

About 54 Australian categories have been nominated for speedy renaming at WP:CFDS. Some of the renames are reasonable but there is an inconsistency in the disambiguation used that requires some oversight by Australian editors. --AussieLegend (talk) 03:05, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Mostly pretty good and worthwhile IMO. I have some small quibbles about the use of "the" in some places (i.e. The Pilbara, The Kimberley, The Hunter, The Northern Rivers) but only a local would be expected to understand such local peculiarities. Comment from Western Australians on the the Pilbara and Kimberley ones would be very useful. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 04:41, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
I think a lot of the issues with "the", or rather the lack thereof, stem from the American desire to destroy the English language abbreviate by not using "the". I had to work hard to get the article for The Buggles (of Video Killed the Radio Star fame) changed from just "Buggles" because they see this weird need to not use the word. "Category:Transport in the Hunter Region" seems more natural to me than "Category:Transport in Hunter Region", as it does with others that you've identified. Another issue I saw at these renames was use of "foo, state" vs "foo (state)" disambiguation. We should be consistent and some of the cats nominated don't seem to be. --AussieLegend (talk) 13:03, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
There is still after all these years something fundamentally wrong with the process in CFD where they are in their little world (usual suspects about 3 of them) change whole ranges of categories and have no inherent obligations beyond the category page itself to notify of their splitting infinitives or hairs SatuSuro 12:59, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Observer effect (physics)

Observer effect (physics) was shown on Media Watch as a source, complete with clean up tags. Anyone want to take a crack at cleaning it up? --LauraHale (talk) 06:45, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Australian Dictionary of Biography

Is there a consensus that people in the Australian Dictionary of Biography are notable per Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles? Is there any work underway to see these done? Should there be? Stuartyeates (talk) 02:41, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't know about a consensus but the existence of an ADB article is prima facie evidence of the topic's ability to comfortably satisfy WP:GNG, surely? -- Mattinbgn (talk) 02:49, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree with you both. Yes, I would like to see a list started at Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles, and would potentially contribute to it. --99of9 (talk) 03:01, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

There is this list - Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia/To-do/Australian Dictionary of Biography. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 03:05, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Whoops! Despite the name, this list relates to the Dictionary of Australian Biography. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 03:07, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
I've moved this to Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia/To-do/Dictionary of Australian Biography to minimize confusion. --99of9 (talk) 01:55, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Yep being in either the Dictionary of Australian Biography or the Australian Dictionary of Biography and we have template if your citing either source {{Dictionary of Australian Biography}} {{Australian Dictionary of Biography}} Gnangarra 00:49, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Could someone who has experience with templates please add options to Template:Dictionary of Australian Biography to allow it to take the entry author as well as the overall encyclopedia editor? Something like Template:DNZB does. Also having a gutenburg URL in the documentation must be confusing for new users. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:05, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Nevermind. I've found Template:Australian Dictionary of Biography which is the template I should be using includes these. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:07, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Stuart you realise that DAB is a different work to ADB thats why the templates are different.. Gnangarra 01:10, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes indeed. I have traced my confusion to the example at Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia/To-do/Australian Dictionary of Biography, which was my starting point. I've fixed that. Stuartyeates (talk) 04:49, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

My script is done and capable of generating stubs such as Gertrude Mary Zichy-Woinarski. Feedback welcome. Stuartyeates (talk) 03:31, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

It looks good and appears to be accurate, however I don't think the red links in the see also section are encouraged. The retrieved date for references should probably by in the "day month year" format. You could add a link to Portal Australia or a state or territory if appropriate. The discussion pages will need the Australian and Biography banners which probably can't be scripted because of assessing importance. It could be useful for making biographical stubs, if that is your thing. Personally I don't want to create a new article until I have done the extra work to push it pass the stub threshold. - Shiftchange (talk) 04:31, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
(a) The red links are to other biographies in the ADB; they shouldn't be red by the time I've finished. They may point to disambiguation pages, however. (b) for the DNZB I added them all as low/stub and haven't had any complaints. (c) fixed date order. (d) I'll have a crack at portal links, they're not something I've ever done before. Stuartyeates (talk) 05:52, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
User:Jenks24 pointed out here that the authorlink option to the template is broken; I'll pause for a bit to see whether that gets sorted. Stuartyeates (talk) 06:41, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Any chance of determining the gender? --99of9 (talk) 08:26, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
No ways that I can think of; ADB doesn't appear to expose gender. We can't really blame them since WP don't expose it systematically either. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:44, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Word count " he " vs " she "? That would be right more often than not, and correcting a few percent is much easier than correcting every article's "it". --99of9 (talk) 09:05, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
I pondered that, but there are some people who are primarily known for their interaction with people of the opposite gender, making " he " and " she " unreliable. My current text is clumsy but correct; I'm loath to turn my back on correctness. Stuartyeates (talk) 19:00, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Can/should I copy across a couple of sources from the entries? There's no technical reason I can't, but I'm not sure about copyright considerations. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:44, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Personally I'd advise against it. I am already concerned you might cut close to database rights. But IANAL. --99of9 (talk) 09:05, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Another minor issue. --99of9 (talk) 09:11, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
And another. --99of9 (talk) 09:15, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I've run across a few entries such as [19] which are actually entries for a pair of people. I'm going to assume that the primary individual counts as notable and the other doesn't. Stuartyeates (talk) 06:54, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to change my mind about this. There are about 10 of the 23 names in [Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia/To-do/Australian Dictionary of Biography/Z Z] appear in double articles. All the required metadata is exposed. I may as well do both individuals in the double articles. Stuartyeates (talk) 07:19, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I think that is reasonable. Some of them may turn out to be non-notable, but since they're specificially included as a joint subject in a dictionary of biography, they've got a reasonable shot at passing. --99of9 (talk) 22:44, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

It's amazing how kind Google is to Wikipedia. Our Josephine stub already outranks the ADB entry! --99of9 (talk) 00:28, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

This often happens with new articles, but I notice that it's sorted itself out now. Stuartyeates (talk) 04:43, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I've now done [Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia/To-do/Australian Dictionary of Biography/Z Z] and [Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia/To-do/Australian Dictionary of Biography/Y Y] and tweaked my script based on feedback. Stuartyeates (talk) 04:46, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I think you should wait until the redlinks are checked. Otherwise you might be creating duplicate articles of articles that exist at a different name. Also, the article names won't meet our naming conventions. Should we fix them afterward or before creation? --99of9 (talk) 12:14, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
I think that both of these are actually easier to fix after creation. I've made some changes (such as the removal of 'Sir') and moved a handful of newly created ones. Stuartyeates (talk) 03:17, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

There's a discussion at Wikipedia:Notability/Noticeboard#Dictionary_of_New_Zealand_Biography_as_an_authority_for_notability relevant to this. The key question being whether people with DNZB entries (and by extension ADB entries) are automatically notable or can be assumed to be notable. Stuartyeates (talk) 05:07, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I just had a look at the William Zerner article. The article makes no claim to notability meaning someone could come along and speedy delete it. Hack (talk) 06:05, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Indeed they could. My previous script used the word 'notable' but I received negative feedback about that so I removed it. Stuartyeates (talk) 06:39, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
It isn't just a word in the article, it's the whole concept of notability. I think I agree that MOST people in ADB are notable by wiki standards, are we sure that all are? Also, in that Zerner article, it tries to link the author to the ADB website. It seems that the template thinks that that field is only for internal wikilinks, so you get an extra set of [ ] around the external link. The-Pope (talk) 16:36, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
The issue with this example is that the template appears to be broken. The second link goes to the correct place. I've fixed my script so that new stubs don't have this problem. Stuartyeates (talk)
Is there an example where the authorlink field properly links to an external website? On the notability issue, I still think the Zerner article would struggle in terms of notability. There are only a couple of relatively trivial mentions on Trove. This may require a fair bit of offline research to prove notability. While the majority of entries will be notable I think it is dangerous to presume notability for all. Hack (talk) 03:00, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

This project is looking great. I do want to ask, though - the ADB is intending to start adding biographies for people who died 1991-95 in the next few months; are the lists easily updatable in that event? (I believe the plan is to add them gradually to the database, but I might be wrong.) Frickeg (talk) 07:38, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

The lists seem to be pretty uniform across Wikipedia:WikiProject_Missing_encyclopedic_articles, so I assume that there's a tool for it somewhere. More of an issue is if they decide to 're-skin' the site, which will completely break my script. Stuartyeates (talk) 07:45, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
No it won't be easy to add new names to the list, I just made the lists out of what was available on their site at the time. Hopefully somewhere they make a list of new articles that we can use as a source. --99of9 (talk) 02:24, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
Here is a proposed list, but I have no idea how they intend to go about adding them, how comprehensive this list will end up being, and whether links will be made from the list as new people are entered. Frickeg (talk) 13:11, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

23 March Meetup in Canberra for Women's History Month

Details at Wikipedia:Meetup/Canberra/6. :) Anyone who would like to attend is more than welcome to. :) I'm stubbing out articles about softball players in preparation of this. They are linked on the bottom of my user page. They tie into the the goals I set for the Australian sport Wikiproject:


More details can be found on Wikipedia:WikiWomen's History Month. --LauraHale (talk) 03:23, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Commonwealth Parliamentary Library

I have nominated this redirect for deletion here. Someone thought that the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library and the National Library of Australia are the same place. They are not. The Commonwealth Parliamentary Library is inside the Parliament House, Canberra, and is a reference library for the Parliament and the four Commonwealth Parliamentary Departments (one of which is the library itself). The National Library of Australia is in its own building in the Parliamentary Triangle a kilometre away. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:40, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Why not just change the redirect to Parliament of Australia? Hack (talk) 01:23, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
Or ... is the Library itself notable? Frickeg (talk) 08:54, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
There are now only three parliamentary departments; the library has been absorbed into the Department of Parliamentary Services. (see [20]) It is notable, being a government department, but the Parliament of Australia article does not mention it, and hence I did not think a redirect there was a good idea. Hawkeye7 (talk) 12:42, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Who's Who in Australia

A question somewhat related to the ADB discussion above, but separate enough: does an entry in Who's Who in Australia constitute grounds for notability? I understand a number of other Who's Whos are essentially "pay-per-entry" jobs, but I think we all know this isn't one. Our article says: "People are included if they have significantly contributed to Australian life on a national or international level. They are people who have built a positive profile over time. There are no restrictions on age or sex and entrants need not be born in Australia. Each person’s nomination is considered on its merits alone and entry in the book cannot be paid for. The book is a snapshot of Australian society at a particular point in time." The Who's Who lists is own criteria on its website.

My inclination is to say that they are notable, although further sources are of course desirable. The Who's Who can be a great starting point for a stub, though. Frickeg (talk) 13:08, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Never mind, I've had a further look and the answer is a definite no; there are some people in there who couldn't sustain an article. A good starting point and no more, I think. Frickeg (talk) 00:31, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Green Left Weekly

This article could use some extra watching as it seems to have attracted a recent round of IP POV-pushing edits. Dl2000 (talk) 02:11, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

On being outed in the Herald Sun

Thought I’d bring my "outing" as a Wikipedia editor to everyone’s attention. [21] The Melbourne Herald Sun rang me at work yesterday to question my deleting a past student’s name on the Northcote High School page in August 2011. I was a little surprised to say the least. The edit I made was with the comment "reverted good faith edits, awaiting evidence of their notability" and was pretty unremarkable. No evidence of notability was ever presented – I moved on to other things. As I work at Northcote High School it might have been wiser to steer clear of the page, but like most school pages, they seem magnets for vandalism and I thought it would help to keep an eye on it. Anyway, The Herald Sun has now quoted me, the now reinstated former student (apparently a Collingwood footballer of some note), Collingwood President Eddie Maguire and a former WP user who I had a part in blocking for sockpuppeting. And it’s front page news in Melbourne. Maybe I should have had a better logon name. You live and learn I suppose. Nickm57 (talk) 09:36, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

The Herald Sun following up on an ancient edit seems to be the very definition of a slow news day. I hope that you're OK though: that story is a really weird hatchet job written by an obvious moron. Nick-D (talk) 09:49, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
Anyhow, well done. You have been awarded a barnstar. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:54, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
The names of long-term (ie >100 games) AFL/VFL players are almost certainly notable enough for inclusion (although if he only attended for a single year, then that is a bit doubtful!). I've added it all and referenced it, but I'm amazed that the author of the article is a senior business reporter, not some new cadet. Storm in a tea cup or what. And they now expect us to pay to of read such tripe! The blocked user quoted in the article seems like an interesting character. Pretty sure I came across some of his edits a few years ago. The-Pope (talk) 11:19, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for your support all - and yes The-Pope, I think the blocked user still hovers about! Nickm57 (talk) 11:32, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
It was a slow news day for Channel 7 in Sydney too, but they had a piece on a halo around the sun caused by high-level cloud instead of Wikipedia. --AussieLegend (talk) 15:34, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

It never made the front page at all. It's on page 12 of the Herald Sun this morning, a very much condensed version of that on the web. Who is the blocked user and what does he edit? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.176.233.134 (talk) 23:29, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

It was linked from the front page of the website yesterday afternoon, and for a short time you could read the whole article online. I'm not into outing people, but it isn't hard to find if you read the article or Nick's comments above. The-Pope (talk) 12:28, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

in case there are west oz editors who dont inhabit their state newsboard but watch this one instead

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Takes_Perth_Foreshore and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Perth/8 - both this weekend... SatuSuro 09:08, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

and User:JJ Harrison will be over from Tasmania for both, Gnangarra 10:23, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
If I had of known a few days ago, I would have booked a return flight to and from Perth. Bidgee (talk) 10:38, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

New cat - Living National Treasures of Australia

I was wondering whether editors are aware of Category:Living National Treasures of Australia, a new cat that was created yesterday. --AussieLegend (talk) 03:12, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

And when they die do they become "Former Living etc..." or just get decategorised? Maias (talk) 05:31, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
And the first case has arisen - do we remove this category from the Margaret Whitlam article? -- Mattinbgn (talk) 21:50, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
From the category page: "Articles in this category are about people who are or, although no longer living, were honored as Living National Treasures." - that seems pretty straightforward to me, and I doubt there's much point in splitting it into 'living' and 'former' categories. --GenericBob (talk) 23:50, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
"although no longer living, were honored as Living National Treasures" - Obviosly, the person who wrote that is not one of the Living National Treasres of Astralia. --AussieLegend (talk) 03:14, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

A few style/formatting issues in Australia-related articles

Colleagues, I accidentally came across articles in the area of Sydney public transport. Please note, more broadly:

  • chronological items like years and dates are not normally linked;
  • Subtitles are in normal sentence case, Not Title Case.
  • International date format is used in Australian articles: 3 January 1999, not January 3, 1999;
  • I've seen miles as main units, with km in parentheses. That changed 40 years ago. Please see MONSUM!
  • Generally it's unnecessary to wikilink Sydney and Melbourne, especially if not in a list of other less-well-known Australian cities that are more appropriate to link;
  • Consider dropping the state unless there's some reason to include it. Americans seem to be hard-wired to insert their states, but "Melbourne, Victoria, Australia" and "Sydney, New South Wales, Australia" can get a bit cumbersome. Yes, the states are sovereign entities, but that's all very 19th-century in a globalised world, isn't it? And on a similar point, "Sydney, New South Wales" (without the country-name) at the top of an article is unhelpful for international readers. Better "Sydney, Australia", first time ... then just "Sydney". And a pet-peeve of mine is, for example, "Marrackville, NSW", which might be Australia Post talk, but hides from many readers, even Australians who don't live in Sydney, that Marrackville is a suburb in that city. Why not "Marrackville, Sydney"?

Thanks for your good work. Tony (talk) 03:39, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Or even better, "Marrickville, Sydney". ;) But anyway, although I'm not sure I agree 100% with the last point (it's not something that bothers me, anyway; I tend to include the state if it's in a table or something, but would say "Marrickville in Sydney" in the text), the rest of them are all definitely true. I think most of us are following them though. Frickeg (talk) 13:53, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
Silly me. Spelling was never my strong suit. Tony (talk) 08:13, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Anzac Day coming up and the Gallipoli article leaves a lot to be desired

I've left a note there asking whether editors are prepared to help. There are serious referencing and paragraphing problems, on a quick run through. Cheers. Tony (talk) 11:20, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Query about stats on the WikiProject's popular pages list

Fellow editors, I've just noticed that the popular pages list has a ratio of 31:1 for the "Views" and "Views (per day average) figures. Does this mean that the ?total views figures are for the past month? If so, could that be made explicit in the table, and I wonder how often it's updated. Thanks. Tony (talk) 07:58, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

The Popular Pages are a per-month basis, with the specific date range indicated at the top of the table (forex, the current data is for January). They used to be updated by Mr.Z-bot (talk · contribs) near the start of each month with the past months' stats, but since late last year, the updates have shifted to near the end of the month. -- saberwyn 13:26, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
And most of us try not to look too closely at the list, or else we get depressed about how most of the popular pages are about actors/actresses that we've barely heard of. The-Pope (talk) 14:21, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, I must need new reading glasses. Pop pages? Well, that's the kind of society you get when you allow unrestricted TV advertising. Suffice that these articles are at least a hook into our more serious stuff ... so we should make 'em as good as possible just for that strategy. Tony (talk) 09:19, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Recurring characters of Neighbours

Can someone have a look at this page's edits by the 71. and 198. IP addresses in recent days? I'm way too busy and don't know enough about Neighbours to be of much use, but if their edits on postcodes are any guide, I suspect most if not all to be subtle vandalism. Orderinchaos 07:49, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Apparently Jimmy Little just died but no official news yet

That's the problem when you're a journalist on Wikipedia, you hear these things from managers but have nothing that's not OR to post. --Roisterer (talk) 03:43, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

The Sydney Morning Herald just published a story. --Canley (talk) 04:33, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
Mess+Noise as well but they're all based on the Noise 11 story. Would like to see some independent confirmation. --Canley (talk) 04:34, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
ABC seem to have confirmed it. --Canley (talk) 04:39, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
Jimmy's manager wanted to ensure his family found out about it from sources other than the media. --Roisterer (talk) 07:04, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

WikiAcademy workshops in Northern Queensland

In April and June Wikimedia Australia and the State Library of Queensland will be holding WikiAcademy workshops in Townsville, Ingham, Hughenden and maybe Charters Towers. We'll be travelling through Townsville each time, so it would be good to have the first Townsville meetup in April and/or June. John Vandenberg (chat) 09:51, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Cabcharge edit war in progress

Wandered in and found this happening - could use extra watching to help sort out who is doing what to whom and why... Dl2000 (talk) 23:27, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia Dream Team league

For anyone who is interested and wants a bit of off-wiki fun, I thought that we could have a Wikipedia based AFL Dream Team league. I've got an empty league called WPAFL #850244 that you can join to see who will come second behind the Popestars. I'm not doing Supercoach this year as my 1-man protest against the Herald Sun paywall (I know that Supercoach is still free, but it's the principal of the thing!) Get in quick, I think the leagues are finalised before the Swans/Giants kick it off this weekend, but it might be delayed until next week when the full lockout occurs. (if this is all gobblegook to you, then please ignore! Like they say, Fantasy Footy is like Dungeons and Dragons for Sports fans!) The-Pope (talk) 15:03, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Last chance to join up, I'm guessing leagues close at the full lockout at 7:50 PM AEDT, FRI 30 MARCH. 3 of us so far...The-Pope (talk) 15:33, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
Didn't see this until too late but I'll be expecting updates throughout the season and then a video of The-Pope doing a lap of hounor with the silverware at the end of the season. --Roisterer (talk) 02:55, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Cleanup

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Bonython - just deceased and an atrocious case of how bad some BLP arts can be if no-one gets to do a cleanup... SatuSuro 14:53, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I can see how it happened - an article was started with the editor puttingt down some dot points for later expansion, after which it was largely abandoned. I have made a tentative start on prosification, but it obviously needs much more input - expansion and adding refs mainly. Maias (talk) 02:17, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
I'm likely to get a request to work on that anyway due to the family concerned, so I'll do what I can. - Bilby (talk) 03:12, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

New article Illegal immigration in Australia

I'm not sure if we really needed a Illegal immigration in Australia article (surely Australian immigration laws or similar would be a more meaningful topic?), but if this is kept it would probably benefit from lots of people watchlisting it. Nick-D (talk) 08:25, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

The article's off to a bad start; it was conflating genuine illegal immigrants (e.g. those who overstay their tourist visas) with those who exercise the right to seek asylum in Australia. --GenericBob (talk) 09:16, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
I played around with it, but I wouldn't miss it if it was deleted. --Merbabu (talk) 10:24, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Earthquake

I've started an article for the 2012_Indian_Ocean_tsunami. John Vandenberg (chat) 10:16, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

David Jones store list

Attention is drawn to this discussion.

I started this discussion about a month ago, using the precedent set by [AfD] (created after this DR overturned an original AfD).

No replies were recieved in this month and I have WP:BB'd the list (which was pasted into a subpage of a talk page) and have came here to have a concensus established. Regards -- sandgemADDICT yeah? 05:22, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

ABC donation of Video

Hi All,
As some of you may have seen on the WMF blog, yesterday I had the pleasure to announce the first ever free-license release of content from the ABC - a few dozen historically significant archival videos as part of their broader 80th birthday celebrations. Here's the announcement: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/03/25/abc-joins-wikimedia-in-sharing-historic-footage/
You can find the files themselves on Commons at Files from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and you can see their current uses in WP articles on the toolserver[22].

You may remember that about 9 months ago I posted here informing folks that a few of us would be meeting with the ABC to talk about starting to work together. This announcement is the first results of that meeting! Long time coming, but worth it for this unique Australian footage. It's also a fantastic precedent to show to other broadcasters (in Australia and overseas) - especially publicly funded ones. I'm also expecting to see a few more files approved to upload in the next week or two (that didn't quite work their way through the ABC permission process in time for the launch).

Sooo.... Ta Da! :-) Wittylama 02:07, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Well done, all involved! Donama (talk) 10:28, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

World War I edit-a-thon

Wikimedia UK has announced their first World War I themed Editathon to be held on June 16th.

They are running this event in partnership with JISC, the UK Government's expert body on digital technologies for education and research and working closely with experts on military history from academia to improve Wikipedia articles on this really important topic. It is a start to Wikimedia UK's World War I Centenary outreach work.

One of the main themes is "Global Impact" so if anyone is interested or can help, we might be able to improve the content with regard to Australia's contribution to WWI.

Find out more, and sign up, here: http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/World_War_I/World_War_I_Editathon

Whiteghost.ink 05:06, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Historical interest rates in Australia

Alan Austin claims, implausibly to me, that the cash rate in Australia in 1982 hit 85%? Is this true? Where on Wikipedia can we find historical information about interest rates in Australia? I simply couldn't find it. The SMH editor claims elsewhere that the rate in April 1982 peaked at 21.4% not 85% so I can only assume Austin has made a typo here? Anyone? Donama (talk) 10:48, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The source given in the answer to that quiz doesn't support the claim. It's obviously wrong - even loan sharks don't charge 85% interest rates. Table F5 at http://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/index.html#interest_rates appears to be the relevant Reserve Bank of Australia historical data series, and states that the highest variable housing loan rate since 1959 was 17% (which most recently occurred in 1989 and 1990). Nick-D (talk) 11:00, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
I think that there have been some periods where cash was in very short supply for one day when large payments were due and then there was a surge in short term money market rates. This could have been 0.25% in one day, but would not have lasted any length of time.[citation needed] Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:56, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
This article from 2004 by Tim Colebatch in The Age says this did happen: "Impossible as it sounds, the data records that at one point in Howard's last year as Treasurer, the cash rate briefly hit 85 per cent as the Reserve tried to stave off a run on Australia's overvalued currency. It has never been that high before or since." --Canley (talk) 08:35, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Also, I believe the mortgage rate was capped by the government at 13.5% in 1982, so this would not have been noticed by mortgagees. --Canley (talk) 08:58, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

God Save The Queen

The issue of God Save The Queen being inserted into the info box of the Australia article has arisen again. It would be good to have a wider debate. Discussion is here. regards --Merbabu (talk) 00:12, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

It's been proposed to re-name "Balfour Declaration of 1926" to "Balfour Report"

The proposal is currently being discussed on the Talk Page for Balfour Declaration of 1926. I oppose the request myself; the reason for it appears to be that those who are interested in the Balfour Declaration of 1917 seem to think that it should be the only Wikipedia page that uses that term; see the Talk Page for the Balfour Declaration, which until a few days ago was "Balfour Declaration of 1917". Comments on the proposal welcome. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 03:21, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

[23] clearly calls this the Balfour Declaration 1926 in the footer of every page. Two separate nations consider their respective founding documents to have similar names. There is no need to privilege one over the other. Stuartyeates (talk) 03:33, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
Please feel free to add your comment over on the Balfour Declaration page. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 03:57, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
I've just now posted a request on the Balfour Declaration page that it be reverted to "Balfour Declaration of 1917" with a disambiguation page for the two Balfour Declaration articles. Anyone interested in this issue should look at the discussion on both pages. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 09:29, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

WikiAcademy Townsville - new draft pages.

WikiAcademy in Townsville is underway - new draft pages created by participants are listed at WP:GLAM/SLQ/17 April 2012.

Please check out the pages and help out as you're inspired. You might like to monitor the Related changes.

Thanks --Chriswaterguy talk 03:02, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

As always with these academies, please encourage lots of freely licenced photographs for Commons. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 04:06, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
All of the participants are expected to bring an image and some text, and they are walked through the process of creating the draft article and uploading an image to Commons, and then we look at other aspects like monitoring changes, understanding diffs, adding images to articles, categorisation on Commons (e.g. the participants helped fill commons:Category:Buildings in Townsville), etc. Thanks to everyone who helped make this session a success by providing edits we could look at and describe the participants. Their eyes always light up when they see these changes from the community, and they instantly start to think about, and discuss, the fact that they cant control this content once it is out there, for good or ill, and they see the pros and cons. Its great. Thanks! John Vandenberg (chat) 13:30, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Requested moves of 30+ Melbourne street names

Editors here may be interested in this multiple RM that I have initiated. My preamble:

These articles are all concerned with street names in Melbourne. (I would have include another 17, but the template has a limit of 30.) I do not support these moves; but I know that some very active editors do. It is time to air the matter, once and for all. Is it better to have an article on Collins Street in Melbourne called simply Collins Street, or to have it called Collins Street, Melbourne as at present? Which option serves the needs of Wikipedia's worldwide readership better? In almost all cases that I list there is no content in the destination article, just a redirect. And in almost all cases there is no Wikipedia article that very closely resembles the Melbourne-oriented one. There are, for example, no other Collins Streets with their own articles.

Your vote ("Support" or "Oppose") would be welcome, along with your reasons.

NoeticaTea? 12:33, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Ingham, Queensland workshop underway

New pages from new Wikipedia editors here: WP:GLAM/SLQ/20 April 2012 - please check them out and help as you're able.

The current list includes a German page (won't appear in Related changes):

English pages:

Thank you! --Chriswaterguy talk 01:46, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Great to see. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:06, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

MediaWiki Experts Required

Hi, I apologise if this is the wrong forum. I'm an inventor, and am looking at quitting my day job to startup a new enterprise. With the purpose - its better to do something that makes you happy, and is of value to others.

In this discussion I wanted to gauge interest, as to whether any of the Sydney Wikipedians are interested.

The startup will launch in a suburb close to you, and depending on its success, launch in the US towards the end of the year.

Let me know.

Thanks,

Joshannon (talk • contribs) 03:14, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Australian Wikipedians' JSTOR access

At the moment Wikipedia:Requests for JSTOR access is forming a list of editors who desire access to JSTOR to get hold of academic papers; useful for writing and citing articles. The bulk of the Australian population is covered by the following institutions which have access to JSTOR:

  • State Library of New South Wales
  • State Library of Queensland
  • State Library of South Australia
  • State Library of Victoria - after joining the library for free online a library card is mailed to your Victorian address, and you then have access to JSTOR online from anywhere, 24/7 for a couple of years. Can be done in person for quicker access.

On the assumption that the other libraries work like the Victorian one, most Australians ought to be fine, no need for help from the WMF. Feel free to add details on how other states can access JSTOR. Josh Parris 05:05, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think State Library of New South Wales has the same system as the State Library of Victoria. I know my access to the SLNSW is very limited unless I visit it in Sydney (about a five hour drive) Bidgee (talk) 06:35, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
Here's a link for eresources at the State Library of New South Wales, showing which databases are available offsite with their library card. Melburnian (talk) 07:22, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
The National Library of Australia also has quite a few databases available online, including JSTOR. Anyone with an Australian postal address can apply for a reader's card online here. Nick-D (talk) 12:00, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
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