pfctdayelise has added the following to the Wikimediaau-l email list:-
"We have had a couple of committee meetings on IRC. Discussion has mostly revolved around the new Statement of Purpose (SoP) draft.
Our main concerns have been about explicitly meeting the wishes of
both Chapcom and Consumer Affairs Victoria (CAV). CAV in particular
wants more explicit, concrete points, it seems.
For CAV, they would like us to mention the WMF projects explicitly by name, but for Chapcom, they would prefer we don't. So, there are some different tensions there we have to negotiate a little.
So, I guess, we will have another week, see if members are happy enough with it, run it by Chapcom and then ask Bduke to take it back to CAV.
Thanks everyone for your patience and work on the SoP so far."
I can't believe we didn't have a page on the Gulf Country. Much of the material in Gulf of Carpentaria was not about the Gulf itself but around the land around it. Now it is really late where I am and I need to sleep, but I'd appreciate someone with a good geography book helping out here. Also, is this region synonymous with Regions_of_Queensland#North_West - wasn't sure whether to put a main tag or seealso tag...Cheers, Casliber (talk· contribs) 15:32, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Fooian Australian criminals - notable Fooian Australians?
Given the few A-Class ratings (some - see Talk:Breaker Morant are not up to standard) I think we can deal with this later. There seems clear agreement on what a Stub is and clearly GA/FA are not a major issue. However there is little consistency in Start/B ratings. I mostly agree with the consensus forming at Milhist wikiproject to ignore the C class for the moment. If we did implement it we'd need to probably be clearer about what the ratings entail and produce some sort of check list....like the below ramblings. - Peripitus(Talk)02:11, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Stub - of little use to a casual reader. Either unreferenced or containing very little information (I'm in favour of all unreferenced articles being rated as stubs).
Start - contains at least one , referenced, useful section that broadly covers the topic area and would be of use to a casual reader. Some sketchy information on other subject aspects.
C - Has at least sketchy sections covering the topic in a broad way. At least half of the articles sections should broadly cover the sub-topic and be appropriately referenced.
B - Article is referenced, broadly covers the topic and has sufficient information to inform a reader about most aspects of the subject. Should be largely well formatted and neutral. Should at least pass criteria 2 and 3 of the GA assesment
GA/FA - no changes
A - to be thought about another day.
I think we should implement C class, my suggestion is a C class is either a well referenced short article or a poorly referenced long one. B needs to be mostly referenced. Start would be anything longer than a paragraph, IMO. -- maelgwn - talk02:28, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I supported the introduction of C-class but I see no reason to rush in at this stage. Let's have a look and see what some of the other projects are up to before rushing in. -- Mattinbgn\talk03:39, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I reckon the C-class will be useful, far more so than A class, and we can split up the vaste collection of start-class articles. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:22, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. I can see an immediate use for it in the subprojects I help with assessment on (the geographic ones). Once my life becomes less busy in a few days I'd be available to assist/cooperate with any work necessary to implement it. Maelgwn's suggestions seem sensible, I'd say many of our B's and a handful of our Starts are in fact C's in a real sense. Orderinchaos06:24, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
On a similar note, there was a recent edit to the {{WP Australia}} template to replace the existing banner with the more generic {{WPBannerMeta}}. The new banner functions the same as our existing banner as far as I can tell, and should allow more project participants to have input to the banner itself as the code has been greatly simplified (our own banner had become somewhat of an unmanageable mess at the best of times). I reverted the recent change as it broke Australian assessments in relation to importance, but those problems since appear to have been corrected once I took the problems up with the new banner's author. If we head down this path and take up usage of WPBannerMeta the implementation of C-Class will already be taken care of. Comments? -- Longhair\talk07:54, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
For those that hadn't noticed, the {{WP Australia}} template used extensively on talk pages concerning the WP:AUS project has been been made redundant in favour of the {{WPBannerMeta}} system. I've spent the best part of of my free time checking for any problems and reverting where necessary and all appears to be functioning well now under the new system. Any problem, please do tell... -- Longhair\talk09:15, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't support C-class because a new classification class will not make a better encyclopedia. Resolving the A-class question before implementing C-class would be more useful. I would like to see a clear example of how assessing as C-class will make things easier for editors, will improve articles content or help in organising the project. Let's take the current WP:ACOTF as an example. When the time comes, how will assessing it C-class next rather than B-class be better? And wouldn't the time spent on a re-assessment of a large number of articles be better spent on improving some of them. I need convincing, so Mattinbgn's suggestion to see how other projects handle it is a good idea. - Shiftchange (talk) 23:37, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
A-class isn't an issue for Australia - we have just 7 of them out of more than 60,000 Australian assessed articles in total. We have, however, 1,500+ B-class articles and 18,000+ Start-class articles. Orderinchaos00:08, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Sunday Reed to be watchlisted
It seems the new Kidman-Urban baby has been named in part after Sunday Reed (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and the article may receive more attention than normal as a result. Could others please watchlist? Thanks --Matildatalk06:40, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
The article: Dennis Ferguson (sex offender) seems to be of a poor standard, and contains lots of allegations but no reliable references. The subject is currently very high profile, so it may be worth keeping an eye on this article. --Lester00:23, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
This is going to be a difficult one to keep clean, because it's an issue that so many people feel very strongly about, and it's not helped by the frenzy that the local media here have whipped up. Nevertheless, I'll watchlist it and try to keep it reasonably clean. Lankiveil(speak to me)01:32, 8 July 2008 (UTC).
Semi-related issue, there is an interwiki link on this page to what seems to be a template on frwiki. I've traced it down to an inclusion on Template:Infobox Criminal, but I'm not sure what the procedure is for interwiki links on Templates. Might one of you template whizses have a look and see if there's a way to remove this interwiki link from the Ferguson page? Lankiveil(speak to me)11:55, 11 July 2008 (UTC).
If there's going to be inclusion of any list of criminals whatsoever in this article, list them all, not just selective high profile names, or remove the lot. Further, how many of those concerned can actually be verified as being of Lebanese origin? What if they were born in Australia to Lebanese parents? That makes them Australian in my eyes. -- Longhair\talk22:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
part of the solution to establish whether or not somebody is or is not a Fooian Australian is to tabulate the data and let the reader decide as per Welsh Australian#List of notable Welsh-Australians. A lot of people would include the Minogue sisters and others would not but this way the reader can see the connection with Wales is their mother was born there...
the question in my mind then is say this person notable? Is he notable enough for the list of notable Lebanese Australians? Does WP:ONEEVENT apply and we should have an article on the event and not the individuals convicted?--Matildatalk22:43, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
While I agree that most members of the "gang" do not warrant separate WP articles, I suspect Bilal Skaf is different. His notoriety and leadership of the gang may warrant his own article. Regards, WWGB (talk) 02:58, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree that Bilal Skaf probably should have his own article, due to the extended media coverage (and at least one hilarious but in very poor taste parody film that I've seen), but the rest of them are probably not notable enough for separate articles. Lankiveil(speak to me)04:50, 8 July 2008 (UTC).
I still don't see how Bilal Skaf is a notable Australian Lebanese figure. He is infamous and no doubt more information relating to him and his crime should be linked to the article on the actual event. I believe that including people like Bilal sets a dangerous precedent, in that any person of a particular ethnic background who has committed a crime is automatically included in an article on that ethnic group. Anything that taints a particular ethnic group or race with a negative stereotype is not only racist, but dangerous. It is not something that should be propogated in any encyclopedia, let alone Wikipedia. --Fairdes (talk) 12:09, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
Notable for Wikipedia purposes does not mean "admirable" or "renowned", it merely means "worthy of notice" and clearly that is the case here. I don't see why listing Skaf as a notable Lebanese Australian (or is it Australian of Lebanese ancestry this week, I can't keep up with the correct terminology) is racist, provided that it isn't give undue weight. Your argument here; "any person of a particular ethnic background who has committed a crime is automatically included in an article on that ethnic group" is a bit of a strawman. Nobody is proposing that at all, indeed there has been some recognition here that that undue weight has been given to criminals in the article. That said, Wikipedia is not censored and it is not for us to whitewash articles and I reject the inference that articles on ethnic groupings anywhere should be purged of all' negative references. I am also not sure how listing a name is propagating a "negative stereotype" or is "dangerous", provided the article is balanced. To resort to Godwin's law, an list of notable Germans would be dishonest if it did not include Hitler as well as Goethe. I think Lankiveil's suggestion is moderate and suitable and I support it. -- Mattinbgn\talk12:40, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
I did indeed pause on prodding Bilal Skaf. The article gives no claim to his notability other than for the one event. It includes material about his family which to my mind at the first glance breaches our policy on living persons. If we are going to keep that article I think it should be cleaned up. Similarly if we keep that article then he should be included in the list of notable Lebanese Australians.--Matildatalk20:59, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
I was initially concerned to see so much text about Skaf's parents, however, on reading further I found that both parents had been intercepted for inappropriate conduct concerning their son's incarceration. So I don't have a problem with the detail there. The article also highlights that Skaf is much more than WP:ONEEVENT. WWGB (talk) 23:33, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
I really think that WP:ONEEVENT applies in relation to Skaf. While the atrocities he committed are obviously far worse than refusing to take off a ridiculous set of sunglasses, he's really no more notable than Corey Worthington/Corey Delaney and the same arguments for deletion of both articles apply. If he commits a crime after his release in 2033 then he may warrant an article then. --AussieLegend (talk) 21:51, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
Corey Worthington threw a party that got out of control. No big deal there. Skaf raped women and received a 55 year prison sentence (later reduced on appeal), a sentence far in excess of any prison sentence this country had ever seen for similar crimes. Surely that's notable? -- Longhair\talk06:54, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
As you've pointed out the sentence was reduced so it's not really a 55 year sentence. In any case, the length of sentence is really a non-issue. WP:ONEEVENT says "If reliable sources only cover the person in the context of a particular event, then a separate biography is unlikely to be warranted" and Skaf has only been covered in the context of a particular event (the gang rapes). If we endorse Skaf's one-event bio because it was a serious issue and reject Corey whatsisface's one-event party because it wasn't a serious issue then we're not maintaining a neutral point of view. --AussieLegend (talk) 09:26, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
The Criminal section, as well as the people listed in it, should both be removed. The reason is that the media is more likely to highlight the race of a criminal if the criminal non-anglo. With lists like this, Wikipedia articles about ethnic minorities are going to get plastered with criminal links at a disproportionately high rate. Example: if paedophile Dennis Ferguson (sex offender) just happened to be Lebanese, his name would be displayed in the Lebanese article. If he's of anglo descent, it becomes a non-issue and he doesn't get listed on any race list. Lets keep race and crime separated, as it is impossible to handle it in an unbiased manner. --Lester22:11, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
I concur with the views of WWGB (and others who state Bilal Skaf is more notable than confined by ONEEVENT) when rereading the article more closely and that the refs tohis family seem appropriate as in referenced by independant reliable sources and not just prurient. I also find that the clean up is only really needing inline cites - that will strengthen that all statements are properly sourced and the article meets WP:BLP--Matildatalk23:46, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
Excluding some individuals from a list, and including others, unless there's an objective criteria for doing so, would be special pleading. Maybe lists should be done away with if we can't be objective with them. Also, why prod articles when you can suggest a merge instead? Andjam (talk) 13:00, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
merging did occur to me but I wanted to be more overt about the deletion. I agree that excluding some from the list on the basis of no more than special pleading seems not good practice. However, the list is unlikely to be exhaustive. I am not very fond of the lists but I am trying to make them more workable with the table form so that the reader can form their own view as to the status ff whether or not they are indeed a Fooian Australian. --Matildatalk23:39, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
Shrine of Remembrance has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.--Avala (talk) 22:00, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm working on references now - I should be able to reference almost everything by later tonight. However, I'm not sure what other issues will be raised at FAR. - Bilby (talk) 09:51, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
That's really great, Bilby! I've got it watchlisted and can help with prose stuff and with any referencing that can be done over the internet. Good luck! —Giggy10:06, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes, great work Bilby. I'm actually surprised how long it's taken for the FARC crew to pick up on this article. Unfortunately, even now with inline citations I don't think it will meet the criteria. It's just another case of an article standing still while the criteria under which it was initially promoted many æons ago has substantially changed.—cj | talk16:52, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
I suspect so, as well. But at the same time, referencing the history section (with Melburnian doing "The Shrine today") means that I'm not in a bad position to add material as required, so it might be possible to bring it back to featured standard. And it is probably easier to save an article at FAR than it is to go through FAC again. - Bilby (talk) 22:22, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
She'll be right. As long as the info is in there the prose and MOS formatting can fixed relatively easily. And yes, it's easier to save an article at FAR than get it through FAC. If it's a stalemate at FAR, eg 50-50 it would usually end up staying as FA, but if something at FAC was 50-50 it would not pass. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:34, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Does anyone know of a way to get a non-expiring link for an entry in the Victorian Heritage Register?
http://vhd.heritage.vic.gov.au/vhd/heritage is a hopeless thing that not only uses too much Javascript, the 'bookmark this' links don't work at all. Just to make things worse it doesn't include a lot of locations, such as those on the Victorian Heritage Inventory.
At the moment we have an editor User talk:Binnsie who is associated with the magazine, and doesn't understand what Wikipedia is - as seen by what is in the current revision - while it sounds like what a office full of surfers would get up to, I don't think it is really appropriate for an article here. He doesn't seem to be intentionally trying to piss people off, and has offered to upload a scan of the magazine's about up page to show he isn't some random vandal.
"He is a natural footer and likes to say "digger" a lot. Just don't get him started about the music the kids listen to these days." :D Orderinchaos04:31, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Prester John socks - help requested
Hi - a reasonably active user was found to have been operating sock puppet accounts while blocked for 3 months for stalking and edit warring in March 2008 - see Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Prester John. He is back again with sock puppet accounts and also various (and quickly changing) IP addresses - stalking and harassing editors by reverting many of their edits - even if those editors aren't harassed by his behaviour it is sheer vandalism. Could everybody help with watching out for that behaviour (you are very likely to have at least one of the pages affected on your watch lists and report it promptly to the checkuser page. If you are an admin, prompt blocking would be appreciated - the rollback button isn't that efficient :-( --Matildatalk21:42, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I am concerned that a couple of accounts have been identified as sockpuppets and I for one do not understand the rationale. The accounts used for stalking and harassing behaviour are obvious but there are accounts where I beleive the editing topics are similar and these have been identified too. I am not comfortable and would really appreciate a couple of eople looking through Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Prester John and confirming all should be there. I have concerns about I Wake Up Screaming (talk· contribs) andSharif Abdul (talk· contribs) - the others I think are OK --Matildatalk20:58, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Some edits by PJ are very similar to those of Screaming. For example, consider the Solar power in Australia article and compare this edit by PJ ([1]) with a later edit by Screaming ([2]).
Having seen the original edits of PJ on some Australian energy-related articles, and compared them with later edits of Screaming, I have no doubt they are the same person. Johnfos (talk) 21:18, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the confirmation re user:I Wake Up Screaming. I would like similar confirmation re User:Sharif Abdul from somebody familiar with PJ's edits on Islamic topics --Matildatalk21:47, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
I am reasonably confident about Sharif Abdul. One of the things that stood out at me when I reviewed it (it was identified at CU as a possibility) was edits like this [3] where he went through Islamic articles changing "the Prophet" to "Muhammad" which is something that PJ has been doing for a long time, see here [4] for example. Also removing "Holy" from "Holy Quran" PresterAbdul. There were other things as well but I don't really want to list all points here as it will just make it easier for him next time but I'm reasonably sure it is a PJ sock. And if it isn't PJ, it's a POV pushing troll, especially making anti-Islamic edits under an Islamic username and so I feel quite comfortable with that block in particular. Sarah23:32, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Sarah's statement above, especially regarding Islamic articles which are routinely attacked by PresterJohn, DavidYork and all the others. On a semi-related point however - in identifying a PresterJohn sock and reverting its edits, please be aware that WP:MOSISLAM generally recommends "the Prophet" be replaced with "Muhammad" except where it is the first use in the article or is otherwise exempt from style changes (eg. quotes). Feel free to revert the POV nonsense he adds to articles, but sometimes the naming changes he makes are actually correct. Euryalus (talk) 01:36, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
At the risk of sounding like a POV-pushing troll myself, changing "the Prophet" to "Muhammad" and "Holy Quran" to "Quran" seems to me entirely appropriate for an encyclopedia. Not that that excuses sock-puppetry. Peter Ballard (talk) 01:37, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
Early edit history of the said editor (and at least 2 other well identified editors) was spent removing PBUH from articles mentioning muhhamad and a significant drift of editors from wikipedia occurred at that time to the islamic wikipedia who were offended by the constant edit warring and removal of honorifics - any endorsement of constant offence in my mind is not sufficiently excused by 'this is an encyclopedia' when it comes to honorifics, usage or removal - there is more than one way to do it - and the wikipedia community has lost out because of the style and manner the way it was done - more thought could have been put in as to how to discourage honorifics in text and titles SatuSuro01:43, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
Euryalus, I do agree with you and the tricky thing in managing Prester all along has been that often his edits are valid and I have sometimes agreed with some of his points regarding NPOV and synthesis. I don't want to start a discussion here about the validity of various edits as it really belongs somewhere other than AWNB, I was just responding to Matilda's concerns about the block and pointing out why the account looks like PJ in addition to the checkuser. As for reverting his edits, I agree with you about that, too, and I have tried to caution people who have been reverting his edits that sometimes his edits are actually correct and valid and to be careful that they don't mistakenly revert back into articles errors or inappropriate content etc. I really hate to think of the mainspace being damaged in pursuit of fulfilling the sentence "all your edits have been reverted" in the sockblock template. Sarah02:05, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
We all appear to be in agreement. I should make clear I'm not supporting PresterJohn in any way, and I know Sarah wasn't suggesting (or even referring to) the blind reverting of his edits. I just wanted to raise this issue as past reversions of DavidYork socks has sometimes removed correct styling from articles. The damage these people do far outweighs their occasional good edit - I was just trying to get ahead of the game and save some time re-removing the occasional unnecessary honorific. Its not a big deal, just something to bear in mind when a new PresterJohn is discovered and their vandalism removed.
I also agree this is not the place for debate on Islamic honorifics (here or here is better), and that the style guide should be applied sensitively to avoid the appearance of offence. The lengthy debate about the image of Muhammad at Black Stone is a good case in point. Ignore all rules is also relevant - if rigid adherence to a style guide is likely to drive good editors away, don't do it until there's been detailed discussion and a genuine consensus reached. Lastly, I agree that an editor whose major early contributions are solely to tool through Islamic articles to delete honorifics should be viewed with some suspicion - this is an unlikely sole interest for an editor and can easily appear to be offensive even if its just enforcing the "rules".
And with that, thanks to those who are hunting out these sockpuppets and taking the time to remove the damage they've caused. Euryalus (talk) 02:44, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
Good to see some such considered discussion of the PJ issue – it’s not a black and white thing. Although I support his blocking, it is actually a loss to wikipedia. As Sarah hinted at, some of his NPOV-related copy edits are actually quite good. He was good at picking out pro-left bias, unverified info, and sloppily cited/syntheise info. Of course, he was only ever good at reigning in the left-wing bias, never the pro-right bias. Indeed, it has to be said that he often introduced material supportive of the right that was just as lousy as the stuff he removed supporting the left.
All of this is important, as I feel that the Oz politics and environment articles, can be a bit sloppy such that they favour the left POV. Combine this with the fact that most of the editors around these arts tend to display a left wing bias – some overtly so – PJ’s strong right bias was a good counter balance for some of the stronger left bias. I note 1 or 2 of these stronger left wing editors have for a long time actively campaigned for PJ to be subject to some form of restriction or disciplinary measures when they themselves are no better – just on the other side of the fence.
Thus, all editors, even those slightly left-tinged, need to be extra vigilant that sloppiness doesn’t creep back in. --Merbabu (talk) 04:32, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
This issue is not about content. It's about playing by the rules. What we've witnessed in recent days is an indefinitely blocked editor going through the contributions list of other editors and reverting them, while making a couple of legitimate edits in between. When you get a stream of vandalism, it is impossible to sort out any good edits from the vandalism. Therefore it all must be reverted. There are other editors, both left and right in politics, who at least play by the rules. That's the difference. --Lester04:43, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
While I agree with that, and stand by my earlier remarks, “*playing* by the rules” does not make a good editor. See WP:GAME and WP:LAWYER. PJ “played” by the rules for a long time until he began openly and consistently breaking them – and other editors of very dubious merit continue to “play” and will no doubt remain as a result. Thus, this is very much about content. --Merbabu (talk) 05:56, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Looking at the "rampage", diligently reported by Wikiconstable Lester, I am reminded of a similar affair some years back. Lester, may I suggest that you ignore obvious provocations. Edit-warring over trivia, calling in fellow-travellers to avoid 3RR sanctions, and opening up AN/I requests is probably not the best use of your time. If it is PJ, then you are merely providing amusement for him. If you go on this route, then he will eventually find the combination of actions that will result in you doing something you will come to regret. Don't waste your time and everyone else's. --Pete (talk) 03:56, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
I hope i'm not opening a pandoras box but must you always reflect upon others, especially Lester? Grind the axe somewhere else. Timeshift (talk) 04:28, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
Be that as it may, Peter raises a point that I agree with and have mentioned to some people already. I think Prester is being entertained and encouraged by reactions from people whose edits he's stalking, which would seem to be Lester and Merbabu, and I also encourage them to say as little as possible on site in response. Block, revert, ignore is the best response, IMO. Sarah12:00, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Timeshift. But if Pete wants to invite unflattering comparison, so be it. When I first started editing on wikipedia, I was jointly accused by Pete and Prester of being a sockpuppet of Lester. It is no small irony which two actually turned out with dubious distinction of prolific sockpuppeteer to their wikiname. Glasshouses, stones. Meanwhile, it ain't just a content issue, it's a conduct issue too. --Brendan[ contribs ]09:03, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Reverting the edits of an indefinitely blocked or banned user is the only route to take. If that route results in a sockpuppet launching a combination of actions that I will "come to regret" (whatever that means) so be it. When an editor gets indefinitely blocked or banned it is for a reason, and it means that Wikipedia does not want anything to do with that editor any more. It is not necessary to sort out the good from bad edits which are made by such a sockpuppet.--Lester
Let me put it more plainly, then. Your personality is such that you are vulnerable to cleverly-crafted provocation - as you are now showing with your talk of "rampages", calls to ANI, and rigid responses to what is clearly trivial. A quick look at my own sockpuppet history, aimed at Jtdirl, shows how easy it is to raise the stress level of an obsessive person to the point where they go beyond what is accepted by the community. Jtdirl no longer edits here. I am heartily sorry for this, and I would hate to see you be pushed along the same path. But you know your own mind, you know how you respond to teasing, you know what disturbs you, far better than I do. Do whatever you wish, brother, but let nobody say that I did not raise my voice in warning. --Pete (talk) 04:12, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
There's no consensus in the community that we must blanket revert every edit that a blocked or banned user makes. Prester John isn't banned so this doesn't really apply but the closest guidance I'm aware of is the banning policy which states: "This does not mean that obviously helpful edits (such as fixing typos or undoing vandalism) must be reverted just because they were made by a banned user, but the presumption in ambiguous cases should be to revert. When reverting edits, care should be taken not to reinstate material that may be in violation of core policies such as neutrality, verifiability, and biographies of living persons."(italics in the original) Whenever I've seen the issue of reverting blocked or banned user's edits discussed on the various noticeboards there has been no consensus for what you describe and so I can only once again advise people reverting his edits to be careful that they don't reinstate errors or contentious material because they will be responsible for it. Sarah05:04, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
I think Pete's talking about you being involved in that reverting, rather than questioning the merits of reverting, from what I can tell. I can comprehend it - essentially Prester is being a typical troll looking for a reaction from his victims. The reaction is what he thrives off - he needs the attention. If he does not get the attention from his victims, then the game stops being fun. Orderinchaos04:46, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Yep, agreed. The first thing PJ does when he comes to Wikipedia is check what Lester's been up to. I would put money on that. And I'd also put money on him being entertained and encouraged by Lester's reactions. If Lester really wants him to stop then he needs to quit feeding him by making dramatic comments and responding to PJ. I don't think any of us should respond to PJ beyond block and revert but IMO Lester should act like he can't even see it. The more the 'victim' responds the more he is going to be encouraged to continue and if he gets no response the entertainment value will taper off and we'll probably see him playing these games less and less frequently until he gives up. Block, revert, ignore. Sarah05:04, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
One for the legal eagles amongst us. Many of you would have heard of Tony Mokbel's high-profile escape and re-capture in Greece earlier in the year. An unanswered question remains at the talk page for his article. As he was released on bail at the time of his escape, did Mokbel actually escape detention or not, and should the category Escapees from Victoria detention be removed? -- Longhair\talk10:51, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
I was thinking of the overcategorisation aspect myself as I'm struggling to find any contenders for inclusion apart from what's already there. -- Longhair\talk11:15, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for those two. (red faced - I should have known :-) I'll have to unpack and dust off my paperback crime collection to fill the gaps. Does anyone feel the current title of the category concerned is kind of awkward? Escapees from Victorian detention sounds much better IMHO if the category is to stay. I note a change to the title a few weeks back but it was promptly recreated back to it's original title due to being "renamed without discussion". -- Longhair\talk13:12, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
My non-lawyery opinion is the wording of this is rather strange, and if we actually need a category for people who have escaped custody in Victoria, I think it should be renamed. But I'm not actually convinced we do need to categorise escapees down to the state level. It's not like we have a whole heap of notable Victorian escapees or even a whole heap of notable Australian escapees - there's only nine in the Australian category - Category:Australian escapees and I'm really having a hard time seeing why it's necessary to have a state cat. They all seem to have been created by someone who has been mass creating crime themed cats for everywhere and I think they possibly don't realise that saying "Escapees from Victoria detention" is just as bad as "Escapees from America detention".
As for the delightful Mr Mokbel, as you've said, Longhair, Tony Mokbel skipped out on his bail and then failed to appear in court. Being in "detention" means that you're being held in custody and Tony Mokbel simply wasn't in custody so I can't understand why he should be categorised like that and I have removed it. I am also unsure of the intended scope of Category:Australian escapees and whether it applies only to people who escape from lawful custody in Australia, or whether it applies to anyone on the run from society in general because I'm not so sure that Mokbel belongs in that category, either.
As for Victorian escapees, Mr Longhair, don't forget Heather Parker, the prison officer at Melbourne Remand Centre, who helped her boyfriend Peter Gibb, and his mate Archie Butterly escape from remand in 1993. I'm actually a bit surprised that we don't seem to have an article on that case or on the film that Peter Phelps starred in which was based on the case, One Way TicketSarah19:36, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Actually, having looked into this a bit further, this seems to have been a bit of a contentious issue. Moondyne apparently renamed Category:Escapees from Victoria detention, Category:Escapees from Western Australia detention and Category:Escapees from South Australia detention to Western Australian, Victorian, and South Australian but the original creator reverted him and recreated the cats at the original spelling! Anyway, I just restored Moondyne's changes and OIC deleted the grammatically incorrect cats. I don't like these cats anyway and I honestly don't see a need for state level cats when there's only nine articles in the national cat but if we have to have them then the states can at least grammatically correct. Sarah20:15, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Coordinates in articles about places
I was fiddling with google maps recently and noticed that only a few wikipedia articles actually show up at coordinate locations. Whether by accident or on purpose, articles with the coordinates in the title bar via a coordinate in the form {{coord|-32.924|151.585|format=dms|display=title}} (eg Seahampton, New South Wales) do not get picked up by google. Coordinates that are in the {{Infobox Australian Place}} (eg Kurri Kurri, New South Wales) are transcluded to the title bar as well as showing up in the infobox, and these are picked up by google. Interestingly, a coordinate in the form {{Coord|32|57|53.9|S|151|42|48.7|E|display=inline,title}} (eg Kahibah Public School) does show up.
As a workaround for this google problem, and to improve consistency across geographical articles, perhaps all articles that have coordinates and Infobox Australian Place in them could have the coordinates moved into the infobox. I'm wondering whether the display=inline,title parameter is a good idea for other articles. It goes against the grain to deliberately insert the coordinates at the bottom of the article as well as in the title bar, but it seems to be an effective work around for google's problem. --Athol Mullen (talk) 14:47, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Weird, because several of the ones that appear in both through Mapit-AUS-suburbscale are not appearing on Google Maps. Only a dozen appear in the northern suburbs of Perth, and checking the code on all of them, it's a random selection of the three ways we notate them, I'm not sure why Google is not picking up on the rest. I had thought Mapit-AUS-suburbscale was not getting picked up, but several in fact are (e.g. Karrinyup Shopping Centre). Generally, the more embedded something is in templates, the less likely Google can deconstruct it. As a test, I will deconstruct one (at Carine, Western Australia) and see if it changes when Google sweeps through again. Orderinchaos19:54, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
While looking into some edits to an article on my watchlist tonight I found this new article. It seems factual enough, but the phenomenon it describes is not contained to WA, although apparently use of the term "Special Rural Properties" is - it's a council-level thing and is more typically called "rural residential" (looking for that term yields a lot of hits, not just across Australia but in the very same council areas mentioned in this article.) Anyone have any idea what to do with it? I think if it had a home somewhere it would be useful, but not sure where or in what form that would be. Orderinchaos15:35, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
Hobby farm is what one can do with land zoned as such, but many rural residentials are not hobby farms (some usages in fact ban agriculture without a permit). Orderinchaos23:13, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
I can't find a home for it either, it's related to Special Rural Zones, but there's a real dearth of Australia-related land-use planning articles to tie in with. Melburnian (talk) 11:12, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Parliamentary editors?
Interesting reading! I'd love to see a copy of the guide. Cheers, 09:09, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
What a great piece of journalism that is. From the above: "A couple of years ago, Wikipedia was a byword for errors. Its entry for the First Fleet probably (emphasis mine) went something like this: 'The First Fleet arrived in 1878 under the command of Captain Philip Arthur. To commemorate its safe arrival the place the fleet first landed was renamed Port Philip Bay." Making up your own "facts" to bash Wikipedia with must be the new standard at the Australian. Bah. -- Mattinbgn\talk05:54, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
It would be interesting to see if he is even capable of finding or even cleaning up his own article :| SatuSuro06:41, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Now now, settle down. He is after all the first editor to expose this parliamentary library practice in mainstream media. Timeshift (talk) 07:29, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
The headlines are accurate, but this kind of news, that political hacks have been editing here, diminishes the reputation and integrity of Wikipedia. Readers want unbiased articles that are independent of the political parties. Those associated with political parties are just going to get themselves regular usernames and blend in with the crowd of regular Wikipedia users. They are going to vote on the Articles for Deletion list. They are going to vote at Requests for Mediation. Their swelling numbers will claim consensus on content issues. What is required are clear cut rules about what content is included or excluded from Wikipedia. We need rules about how to decide what content is in and what is out, as sheer numbers and consensus will now be biased.--Lester01:13, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
The only way they'd achieve any sort of success would be if they followed policies. I think they'll get tired of trying to understand and comply, and give up after awhile. Perhaps I'm too optimistic, but I think their obvious lack of policy knowledge, incorrect advice and blatant COI won't enable them to get far. Somno (talk) 01:33, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
I dunno. There's a bunch of people here with obvious political biases who keep on moving Wikipedia in their preferred direction. I'd say that party membership is a reasonable constraint on abuse. Look at Adam Carr, who was an actual political staffer. Being able to work with other editors is probably the best indicator for success. --Pete (talk) 01:38, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
Sometimes I think that most people contributing to Wikipedia are biased in one way or another, but police each others' biases to varying degrees of success. Parliamentary staffers who are newbies at Wikipedia are bringing a knife to a gunfight. For example, how many of them know about watchlists, noticeboards and the cabal? Andjam (talk) 12:02, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Was discussed previously here. There is disagreement regarding the correct title. I'd be grateful for others' views. Moondyne03:04, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
I still stand by my argument for deletion. There is zero credible evidence that an overarching "Australian mafia" exists other than an invention by the press. I doubt the article in its present form is salvageable. I would delete the whole thing and start again. Mattinbgn (talk· contribs) -- 03:37, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. It seems to be a number of rival gangs centred on personalities, with no clear resemblance to a "mafia". Orderinchaos03:39, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Someone has helpfully suggested that Melbourne gangland killings pretty much covers the modern situation - and I agree - leaving very little for Australian Mafia or Organised crime in Australia to cover. I've stated a couple of time previously, unless we have court records showing the sort of link between Sicily and Australia as we find in the US, then it is folly to bandy around a term like Australian Mafia. On the other hand, I would have thought that there is sufficient material to talk about "Organised crime in Australia" going back to the 19th century. I would think that this would need more specific treatment than found in Crime in Australia. πιππίνυ δ - (dica)03:43, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree, an article on organised crime in Australia is desirable. However, the article as it exists has nothing that would be included a serious article on this topic and indeed is misleading. Delete and start again, should someone be interested, is the best option I feel. -- Mattinbgn\talk03:52, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
As we all know, there has also been at least one editor who was a member of Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy who has been editing articles about the monarchy.--Lester12:14, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
The user's been unblocked (by me) under the username Steakknife. They have agreed to stick to the one account and to abide by WP:TALK, which were conditions under which the unblock was granted. Orderinchaos15:27, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
Can someone please keep an eye on this one? My bandwidth has been shaped by my ISP and it's a struggle to even load pages let alone follow around hundreds of edits on a dozen or so articles. It's been brought to my attention there are some issues. Orderinchaos12:48, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Owning our disambigs
Some other projects actually claim their disambig pages - we at the moment dont - anyone prepared to state this point - yes the oz project should wake from its political mayhem and foollery and grab the moment and claim its disambig pages as well ?? - viz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Trams_in_Australasia -if there is a yes or two - it will give some happy eds the opportunity to tag disambig pages that are clearly oztralian - a bit like reclaiming an island in the spratleys (not a good one to have on watch btw) - I look forward to a response SatuSuro 01:05, 29 July 2008 (UTC) btw it might need further tweaking of the oz template to fully recognise them - not sure SatuSuro01:06, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
Support - it will give a bit of responsibility, a point to contact if work is needed. In general the DAB pages are often of low quality. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:32, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
Support - I was thinking of doing this for the WA project a few weeks ago. Looking at {{cat class}} the other class worth breaking out from NA would be template. Actually that could do with a cleanup - there's lots of Cat pages tagged as NA at the moment. TRS-80 (talk) 04:46, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
I have just gone though all of the Melbourne road related articles and removed all of the freeway icons such as this page. There seems to be a big thing for using route shield images anywhere they will fit as well - does anyone else have thoughts on the issue? I think text works just as well. Wongm (talk) 00:20, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
IMHO, I think the images (within paragraphs) detract from the text and make the tables unnecessarily busy. That said, I'm certainly no expert on roads or highways, or articles about them, so perhaps there's something I'm missing. Somno (talk) 00:58, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
I do edit the highways etc for Western Australia and I agree that there is some chronic overlinking to images there. I had a look at some of the ones I help with and some of them have become prone to roadcruft as well, it's just a matter of cleaning out the cobwebs I think. Orderinchaos01:11, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
I was just having some "artistic fun" with a "Pakistani Motorway sign", sorry it wont happen again...however, should the word "freeway" be used to describe a "tollway"?
I thought a "freeway",as defined in the USA was a dual-carriageway that was free of at-grade intersections and free of tolls...regards, Chris. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chrispain (talk • contribs) 01:19, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
The states that have them either get away with it by calling their freeways and tollways "motorways" (NSW, QLD) or giving their toll roads weird names (VIC) - eg CityLink, EastLink etc. Orderinchaos02:31, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
That said there are some very odd categories and articles in the Australian project that need checking for their oversize highway numbers and images - by independent third party eds who arent involved in creating them for review - I am sure from some that I have encountered need major re-thinks and edits in relation to the format and actual lack of information and image obsessive additions SatuSuro03:22, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Agreed, remove in line with the philosophy at WP:FLAG. Apart from being incredibly ugly, they actually make the article more difficult to read. -- Mattinbgn\talk03:50, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Its a systematic issue - some eds got carried away with route numbers in the past and collected galleries of coloured numbers - in the end its whether the Australian project wants a standard of article that is sufficiently encylopediac or if it can actually carry some odd parts that are eccentric SatuSuro04:07, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
The coloured numbers are OK in lists and infoboxes, but not in text blocks. Aside from anything else, not everyone who reads Wiki is doing so from a desktop or laptop machine with corresponding OS - there's mobile devices, devices for the blind etc. Orderinchaos05:39, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Please leave them in the table and infobox, but remove them from the text unless it is absolutely necessary. JRG (talk) 04:08, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
With the infobox, I think "major exits" should be just that, and should not include the shields (esp when this is largely a duplication of the table). But the shields for the road itself and for commencing and terminating points are useful information. Orderinchaos04:34, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
What about Motorway or Freeway grade roads only? I'm thinking about something like the M7 in Sydney. It would have a shield for M2 at end, M4 and M5 at other end. Nothing else. JRG (talk) 06:35, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
The Corey Delaney debate (I won't link) would give it a run for its money. Either way, I see DRV, AN/I and various other acronyms initialisms in this article's future. Hmm ... -- Mattinbgn\talk06:27, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
Well, unlike the farce that was the Corey debate and the absolute censorship that has been placed on the article as to the content allowed, this one will have the correct outcome. JRG (talk) 06:33, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
Speaking of Corey, just when is he releasing that single? When/if it registers on the ARIA chart, the whole debate can start again. Who wouldn't want that to happen? ;) Somno (talk) 06:44, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
If by correct you mean keep, then unfortunately it does appear that another step in Wikipedia's trend towards covering the ephemeral will continue, to the detriment of the encyclopedia as a whole. -- Mattinbgn\talk06:53, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
Not sure where Wikipedia stands on articles concerning those facing court trials. But it seems the problem with a article about a living person who is standing trial is that 'Pre-trial publicity can have the effect of making a fair trial impossible' so states Peter Callaghan, SC, Dennis Ferguson appeal told fair trial not possible. The trial of Dennis Ferguson (sex offender) was stated as being unfair and hence not heard. Also the upcoming trial of Jayant Patel may face the same problem, Internet raises new challenges for judicial process. There has been statements made on television here in Queensland that the wikipedia articles played a big part of this. From reading comments in the talk pages of these articles it seems i am not the only one to notice. I expect this may happen even more in the future, so post it here for discussion as we may become responsible for these articles being used in court hearings. I know the media has became more restrained regarding the Patel case to try and avoid any cause for a unfair trial. Should we at Wikipedia be doing the same and maybe removing the articles till after the court cases ? Boylo (talk) 00:39, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I've always thought this "unable to get a fair trial" argument to be a bit of a lawyers' w*nk, and I was gobsmacked to find that in Ferguson's case it actually worked. Wikipedia should not be censored just because the laws are stupid. The key is to make the Ferguson and Patel articles better, not to remove them. Peter Ballard (talk) 00:58, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
We have nothing in the article that isnt already on public record and report by media or other reliable sources. The article needs to adhere to WP:BLP and WP:NPOV we've(Wikipedia) has been down this track before, the result is that unless someone(QLD/Australian government) makes an official request directly to the foundation then we dont remove articles from sight. please note WP:NOTCENSORED and that the information is hosted on servers in Florida and subject to US laws. Gnangarra01:01, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I would very strongly oppose any removal of articles on localised legal grounds, I would hope that the existing system relying on watchlists and protection if need be would be sufficient. Maybe some public servants could watch those pages instead of their political master's pages! If it becomes a significant issue each state DPP might need to have a real wikilawyer regularly checking out the controversial pages - you'd think defence lawyers looking for grounds for a mistrial would already be doing so. Is there a template to highlight the need to be extra careful on cases before the courts? The-Pope (talk) 01:11, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree with all of the above. However, people need to be aware that although the Australian courts have no jurisdiction over Wikipedia, they do have jurisdiction over Wikipedians living in Australia, and any Australian who contributes material to Wikipedia that prejudices a case before an Australian court, could find themselves up the proverbial creek without a paddle. Hesperian01:17, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Like all legal matters, if in doubt...don't. Rather than debating on whether you can be in legal trouble or not, better to take the finger off the edit button and do something else. Whether or no people think the law is unfair or stupid does not change the facts that the law is what the courts rule, and courts are not noted for their sense of humour. It does no harm to have the article complete after the case is completed.- Peripitus(Talk)01:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Indeed. Simply rely on reliable sources - we won't make any difference if the SMH, the Australian and the ABC are already reporting something - and be very very cautious about turning the article into a news ticker (it often happens with recent, rapidly developing events). If it looks like our venerable media are pushing the envelope (eg publishing a name when everyone else is keeping it secret), don't join them in the effort. Oh yeah, and be really blatant about it - e.g. "It was reported (ref, ref) that such and such", or "The prosecution alleged (ref) that..." Orderinchaos02:23, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Liberal-National Party of Queensland
Would someone who's got a little bit of time on their hands write an article for the new merged party today? It's a bit hard to update all the other articles if the base article doesn't exist yet. Rebecca (talk) 00:32, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Does this affect Queensland federal politicians? A anon editor changed Barnaby Joyce to being a LNP member (and maybe others, but I think Joyce is the only Qld coalition member in my watchlist). I reverted, believing that the merger is at the state level only, but I may be wrong. Peter Ballard (talk) 03:36, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
It's complicated - they're LNP members but at federal level, caucus/whatever with the federal party they were originally elected under. Orderinchaos04:11, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
I've just created Template:Australian politics/party colours/Liberal Nationals as a placeholder template for use on tables and charts and the like (see Queensland Legislative Assembly, for instance). The shade itself is a strict mathematical average of the existing National and Liberal template colours, and as such probably won't be what they end up with, but it'll do for now. I do think the colour is a wee bit dark, and would prefer a brighter turquoise-y colour, but I figured this had the best chance for acceptance right now. There are a lot of articles that will need changes made to them, with this amalgamation (and if it falls apart, then we'll have to change them all back, hooray!). Lankiveil(speak to me)11:20, 29 July 2008 (UTC).
Also raised here but now i'm raising it here due to a lack of response, and a spit at me by the author of the image for being culturally insensitive. I have explained I am fully aware of the cultural sensitivities, however he is obviously not aware that the image is not mine to delete, it is now hosted on wikipedia and free to be distributed. I no longer control what happens to the image. But there is obviously an issue here and a speedy resolution would be good. Timeshift (talk) 15:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
FWIW, I'd be bold and remove the image from the Kevin Rudd article as a courtesy to the original creator of the image, who I presume is the complainant since you're being contacted via flickr. The media is encouraged to respect indigenous beliefs in this area (eg Advisory Note: The Portrayal of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Peoples) and it does not seem to unnecessarily compromise the Kevin Rudd article to remove it. On the other hand, Wikipedia is not censored and I wouldn't be removing the image from the Commons itself, if that is even possible. Debate木22:34, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
It would be appreciated if editors could watchlist Paula Wriedt over the next few days. A user has attempted to add potentially libellious information regarding her recent hospital admission. -- Chuq(talk)11:59, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I think libellous is a bit over the top. It's just not being spoken about in the media at this time. WWGB (talk) 12:14, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Controversial, personal, and unsourced, I think it's libellious enough that it be removed - especially as an incorrect source was added in order to make it appear legitimate. -- Chuq(talk)12:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
What a load of BS! Did you even bother to watch the Nine News video? SEN Radio in their news bulletin stated the reason she was in hospital was because of "attempted self harm". BTW Mr. Chuq I do not like being threatened via private messaging when you are clearly wrong in this matter Bigalowed (talk) 14:13, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
This is exactly why we have WP:BLP (Biography of living persons) and WP:RS (Reliable sources) rules. It shouldn't go in until or unless a reliable source has reported on it, and even then we need to consider it in the totality of the coverage. Orderinchaos14:22, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, all that exists right now is the Premier's statement, and it's so vague as to be practically useless. I'm always of the view that Wikipedia doesn't have to be "right now" - we can afford to wait for the situation to clarify before adding stuff. I think too often this is a problem with developing stories, especially when the media themselves don't know what's going on yet. Orderinchaos15:54, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Note all the print media outlets say that Minister's family is expected to make a statement tomorrow[5] or similar. I have protected the article for 36 hours from nonadmin edits, use either {{editprotect}} or request protection removed when the information is verifiable. Gnangarra14:37, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Further article is now unprotected as the speculation is verifiable, though its still being worded as speculation and not as fact. The news reports that do say that the family is expected to make a statement later in the day, please exercise caution and consideration in what gets included and be mindful of WP:BLP. Gnangarra02:26, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
The family's statement is now out, and according to the ABC they haven't confirmed the attempted suicide rumours. The wording remains "speculation" on the ABC site. I suppose at some point it is reasonable to report on speculation, as speculation, but I guess when is the tricky bit. - Bilby (talk) 06:27, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
It seems the Tasmanian government may be prepared to review the workload of ministers and MPs, so Ms Wriedt's illness may bring about some positive change. WWGB (talk) 06:38, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
There is a code of conduct among the major Australian news organisations, that if they run a story about suicide, or attempted suicide, that they finish that story by providing a phone number to a telephone counselling service, such as Lifeline (Counselling service). I think there would be a case for providing similar link or number at the end of Wikipedia articles of a similar nature. John Brogden and Paula Wriedt articles spring to mind. There is evidence that when the subject is in the news or public discussion that it can lead some people to contemplate it, and that including such telephone numbers helps.--Lester02:08, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Speaking personally, I think it is a good idea. Speaking as a Wiki-robot, it is probably against WP policy. Probably the way to do it is to have it naturally worked into the article, as has been done at John Brogden (politician). Peter Ballard (talk) 02:25, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
If there's a notable link, as in the Brogden article, then it is fine to include it. But we shouldn't be contriving a link so as to meet a non-existent obligation. Hesperian02:48, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Agreed with Hesperian. There is no moral obligation upon Wikipedia. Very simple reason, it's not expected that the human race is ever going to agree on morality any time soon. Orderinchaos05:51, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
This once agin highlights the difference between Wikipedia and news outlets. News outlets provide a link to counselling because someone who may already be emotionally troubled might be further affected by seeing an unexpected story on a suicide or similar, especially where extensive details are given and the coverage reaches saturation point. I suspect there is also an element of face-saving - to justify the often gratuitous coverage of someone's personal tragedy with a token reference to counselling. Neither of these rationales are valid for an online encyclopedia. We do not (or should not) provide extensive details of self-harm in articles. We cannot subject someone to saturation coverage of an event, to the point that they cannot avoid it in their daily lives. We would also have trouble drawing the line - given most Wikipedia readers are in North America, do we also need a link on the Brogden article to US counselling services?
I don't mean to trivialise the issue with the above comments, but its important to separate the role of an encyclopedia that provides neutral information and must be actively sought out, with that of media outlets which provide emotive detail and cannot always be easily avoided.
As Wikipedia editors we should think carefully before rushing to include self-harm details in articles. Once the dust has settled the details will be clearer, truth sorted from newspaper fiction, and the facts can be presented in a neutral tone that is unlikely to impact on the emotional health of readers. Linking to counselling services is unnecessary if there's a neutral, measured approach to the issue in articles.Euryalus (talk) 03:12, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. We should simply note it took place or is alleged to have taken place and cite the source, people can go read the source if they want to know more. It's a private matter and usually (except in extreme cases involving public displays) only the person involved and possibly their doctor really knows what took place. There is certainly no need to go to the extent of detail that the Western Australian papers used to in the 1920s. Orderinchaos05:54, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
IMO there should be a moratorium on recording any event in Wikipedia which is less than a month old, per WP:NOTNEWS. There's plenty of other places people can go to get the current affairs, eg. Wikinews. A simple, policy like this would halt a huge amount of conflict and associated discussion across the whole project. Moondyne06:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Fully agree with Moondynes one month moratorium idea - there is no rush/no deadline to have entries in an online encylopedia - maybe some urgency freaks need to hone their anxiety as would be-journos and try wikinews - it would certainly put a lot of events into perspective considering how deliberate amnesia created by our current australian media. It is a very good test to see how they treat stories or events even a few days let alone weeks old SatuSuro06:13, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Interesting idea - it could have legs. But what about the death of a notable article subject? Or a disaster like the 2004 tsunami? --Merbabu (talk) 06:17, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
I've voiced a similar idea a few times. I have suggested exceptions for unambiguously notable items (deaths, election results, major sports results...) I've christened it the "one month / five years rule" (1. wait a month unless it's unambiguously notable; 2. Will it be relevant in five years' time?). Peter Ballard (talk) 06:34, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Should put it up - the relevance argument would be very interesting in afd discussions though - it could be a two edged sword that one - I think there would be WP:CRYSTALBALL alerts though SatuSuro06:39, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Without meaning to sound ghoulish, is there a risk of litigation being launched if a media organization does an article mentioning suicide without mentioning counselling, someone reads it, and then commits suicide? Andjam (talk) 13:01, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Do you really mean to ask is there a risk of litigation being launched, or is your question rather is there a risk of litigation being successful? Hesperian14:15, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
You would have to prove the media outlet(s) had breached a duty of care. There might be an argument that gratuitous media coverage of an identified individual was a contributing factor to that individual killing themselves but it would be a long legal bow to suggest that coverage of an individual who committed suicide was the principal cause of a second unrelated suicide. Suicide usually indicates an underlying emotional or psychological disturbance. The stress point of media coverage might exacerbate the disturbance but is unlikey to be the original cause of it. A media outlet's duty of care extends to the people it identifies and to a generic general public with an average level of emotional stability only.
Even if there was an argument that media coverage of self-harm provoked a copycat self-harm, you'd have to stretch it further to suggest it was the fault of a Wikipedia article. Unlike newspapers, TV and radio Wikipedia is easily avoided by not logging on to it. Something covered in Wikipedia will inevitably have received coverage somewhere else also, and if we're doing our NPOV job properly our references will be much less sensational and in-your-face than those elsewhere. There is a danger if we report as fact something that no one else has confirmed - in that instance we are slightly exposed as we're the only source for the claim and someone hurt or killed themselves as a reuslt we might be in trouble. I doubt this would occur with an article referring to someone harming themselves but it might occur with people posting personal details (phone numbers etc), and those details then being used to harass the victim to the point of doing something silly.
Unfortunately, no. From Google Maps Terms and Conditions: "The photographic imagery made available for display through Google Maps is provided under a nonexclusive, non-transferable license for use only by you. You may not use the imagery in any commercial or business environment or for any commercial or business purposes for yourself or any third parties."[6]Melburnian (talk) 12:41, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Surely we can link-out to Google Street View in the 'external links' sections. I think it's a good alternative to using the images directly. Cnwb (talk) 09:44, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
You can link directly to an image of a building, for instance, by using the URL from the LINK button at right of image, after getting direction of view as desired (Then copy the 3rd set of coordinates in the URL over the both the first 2 to align the red pin thingy and the orange pedestrian thingy correctly -try this one
It's a LOCU, though, not a LOCB, which means it's a locality rather than a suburb. Generally, although not always the case, unbounded localities do not have articles while bounded localities do, the exception being something like Westgarth (Victoria) where a substantial and well-designed article is possible for the smaller area. In this case I'd say merging is a good idea as the article is a stub and not much more can be written about it in the context of a separate identity from Blackburn. Orderinchaos11:28, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
On a similar note see Codrington, Victoria - I was responsible for creating as a redirect- The township was surveyed, but never settled - just a few farms there along the highway (the wind farm has its own article) and nothing else of note to report, so I included with Yambuk, Victoria which is the same census division. Correct? There's quite a few localities in the Mallee etc. with articles or red links which could suffer the same fate? I'm in agreement with comment re Laburnum (Epistemos (talk) 04:29, 7 August 2008 (UTC))
Yambuk and a portion of Codrington are both contained in the confusingly named ABS "Yambuk (State Suburb)". However, Codrington is a bounded locality [7] which borders Yambuk (another bounded locality) so the two are mutually exclusive geographic entities, therefore I'd favour having it having its own article, albeit on the small side. In terms of Laburnum, I'd tend to merge the information with Blackburn as Laburnum is a quite small residential community contained within that suburb. Additionally, I think that Bellbird, Victoria should redirect to Blackburn, as this location (often referred to as the "Bellbird area") has no official status. Melburnian (talk) 07:04, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
Indeed. ABS does not indicate official status for a suburb, what they have done is created a census district called a State Suburb which has an internal meaning within the ABS and which usually, but not always, coincides with suburbs in metropolitan areas of various sizes (but is fairly meaningless beyond them). Orderinchaos09:45, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
I wouldn't have been opposed to moving the page to the WP namespace... under a WikiProject or something similar - but definitely agree to its removal from article space. -- Chuq(talk)11:40, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
This is probably more useful as a page within the Wikipedia namespace (somewhere within the Australian places WikiProject seems to fit), as it's aim is to assist with the construction of articles rather than being an article itself. We used to have similar tool pages like this long ago. Where they are now, I don't know sorry. -- Longhair\talk05:46, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
It's got early issues of a whole range papers: at the moment, The Argus, The Brisbane Courier, The Canberra Times, The Courier-Mail, The Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reports, The Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen's Land Advertiser, The Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser, The Mercury, The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal, The South Australian Advertiser and the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, with more to be added.
Thanks Bec. I love that site. I spent an hour on it earlier tonight looking up old family names and I found an article about my great-grandfather and my great-uncle's KIA WWI death notices. Thank you for posting about it. Sarah20:15, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
Thanks also Rebecca- that is the embryo of a stunning resource. I've just spent an hour lost in a fascinating exploration of Adelaide's 19ct century social history - Peripitus(Talk)00:43, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
Brilliant stuff. I can foresee that this site will be my first point of call for sources. And, I've already started work on editing the articles there. --Roisterer (talk) 02:53, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
Reference-ish question
Trying to make head or tail of a 1910 newspaper article about a criminal fraud case (uttering). Trying to figure out why someone would destroy a promissory note that had been issued to him, I'm not an accounting expert unfortunately :) Any ideas? Happy to send source material to anyone who wants a go at figuring out what happened.
A relevant part of the content is:
He (witness) purchased a buggy from accused for £52 10s, giving him two bills for £25 and one for £2 10s. Accused prepared these bills and witness signed them at the Stock Bazaar, Perth, on 7 April 1909. The two former were now at the Western Australian Bank, and the other, which was then for £502 10s, was destroyed by accused.
Difficult to tell, but it seems that way. I've emailed you the full extract from the article so you can see it in context. Orderinchaos03:21, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
Some more eyes on this article are required thanks. It's once again the ongoing target of childish vandalism. I've semi-protected the article for now, but it appears, going on past experience, nothing deters this clown from taking another potshot when backs are turned. -- Longhair\talk01:37, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
For now I've deleted the abusive edit summaries. There's no privacy issue, so I don't think oversight is required. Kevin (talk) 06:44, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Another one
What is the difference between "progress arrested" and "discharged" with regards to the passage (or not) of legislation? I can't seem to find any kind of explanation or definition anywhere. Orderinchaos15:34, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
Ah, in that case, I'm afraid that I'm not really sure. Reporting practices for legislative procedures around that time tended to be rather ad-hoc, so perhaps they even mean the same thing. Sorry, I know this doesn't help much! Lankiveil(speak to me)02:01, 24 August 2008 (UTC).
I'd expect that "progress arrested" it was referred off to a committee or await a report where as discharged would finalised result. Gnangarra07:33, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
I have finally selected HM Bark Endeavour as the new collaboration, and it will get two and a half weeks to get us back on track. I'd like to remind other regular editors and admins that I don't own the WP:ACOTF page, and it's OK for other people to choose a new article if I'm too slack for a while. --Scott DavisTalk14:42, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Is there any interest in this article? Otherwise, I couldn't be bothered adding much more to it — except maybe for appending a couple of sentences from the ABR to the introduction – as it has to be returned in a few days. Couldn't bring myself to finish chapter three. Ottre (talk) 23:52, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Better something than nothing! One comment: the article should focus solely on the book. The "Reception" section should go into Wayne Swan, because that is criticism of Swan than the book. Peter Ballard (talk) 12:01, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Oops. I guess the "on her" bit was a bit swamped by the stuff around it and just didn't convey to me that it was the article about her that you were talking about. --Athol Mullen (talk) 13:51, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
Blanche d'Alpuget is appearing on the Conversation Hour on 774 and ABC Victoria right after this song if you want to hear her speak about the book show wrote in response to our article about her. Blarneytherinosaurgabby?01:36, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Aussie dates for Aussie cars
Could I get some eyes on this, please? Matilda has taken over the job of correction, but Lester's input looks pretty shaky. --Pete (talk) 10:24, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
My gripe isn't one date format over another. My gripe is the edit wars and flames of antagonism that are burning all over Wikipedia because some people want to force their preferred date format onto articles without reasonable prior discussion with the participants of those articles. I'm appalled that people are edit warring over date formats. It's not urgent. It can wait 24 or 48 hours or a week between revisions so it can be discussed and explained, rather than ping-ponging back and forth in edit wars on multiple articles simultaneously.--Lester20:58, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Dates are not linked unless there is a particular reason to do so
Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country should generally use the more common date format for that nation (this is under discussion but I can't see that a different view from Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English will prevail - ie An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation uses the appropriate variety of English for that nation and also If an article has evolved using predominantly one variety, the whole article should conform to that variety, unless there are reasons for changing it on the basis of strong national ties to the topic)
I and several others believe that the Australian date format is dd mmmm yyyy eg - 14 February 1990 and not February 14, 1990. The style used in Australia is also known as the International format at the relevant MoS section on Full date formatting.
I think the argument put up by User OSX on his talk page is not valid but I appreciate Skyring bringing the topic to the wider forum for discussion. I agree with Lester that edit warring is inappropriate. --Matildatalk21:14, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
One of the confusing things here is that the media usage is not new, but probably stems from *original* British usage, which the Americans themselves inherited just as they inherited the imperial number system. The international format actually originated in continental Europe. However, despite being a British dominion with very loyal ties to the mother country, Australia seems to have gone with European usage from the very beginning - I'm guessing this is something to do with our Anglo-Celtic heritage, but I could be wrong. The media have always used what we refer to as American dates fairly consistently right back to the 1900s, but letters and official publications generally never do. *All* Hansards that I can find are dated at the top eg "27 February 1917". The Government Gazettes are a contradiction, using American dates in their headers, but consistently European dates with nominals and commas throughout in the text (i.e. 27th February, 1917.) Personal letters I've viewed from the period use either "11.Apr.'07" (with the dots) or "11th April, 1907" (with the comma and nominal), and use nominals for references in the text of the letter (eg 17th April, or more commonly 17th inst.). Orderinchaos22:31, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
I have the 3rd edition of the Style Manual for authors editors and printers - there is now a 6th edition which seems to be widely referred to by universities. It is now published privately but the 3rd edn (1978) was published by the AGPS. Page 61 of the 3rd edition states: When giving a date in full, use the following form: 10 September 1971. This form is completely unambiguous, requires no punctuation and its typographically superior to such forms as September 10, 1971 and 10th September, 1971. It is also logical proceeding from the day to the month to the year. http://www.cis.org.au/Policy/Style_Guide.pdf is an on-line style guide for provision of copy to an organisation (publications for The Centre for Independent Studies) . I cite it only as an on-line reference for style used by an Australian publication. It states Dates should be written 14 February 2001 . The guide refers the reader for more information to The Chicago Manual of Style and The Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers as useful guides. --Matildatalk23:16, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
I think the discussion is fairly clear what date format is required. What intrigues me though is that Orderinchaos was receiving mail in 1907. --Merbabu (talk) 23:32, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Adding to this, the military tends to be more rigid in its enforcement of rules and regulations and less tolerant of inconsistencies such as those that Orderinchaos has highlighted regarding government gazettes. It's also fairly resistant to change so styles that were set in place decades ago remain in use today. (One of my last jobs in 1999 before leaving the RAAF was updating a manual that had last been changed in 1968) Although I can't speak to its content today, when I retired from the RAAF in 2000, JSP(AS)102, the Manual of Service Writing used by all three services, stated that the date format was dd MMM yy (eg short date - 25 APR 15, long date - 25 April 1915), which is consistent with the style that most of us seem to see as Australian, as well as being consistent with other authoritative documents such as the style manual mentioned by Merbabu Matilda. --AussieLegend (talk) 23:58, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Just my 2 cents on this - I always write dates in the format [[July 1]] [[2008]], knowing that I will not be linking to a redirect, and that my preferences (and most other aussie's preferences) will display it as 1 July 2008. When adding references using the {{cite news}} template, I always use yyyy-mm-dd - as these dates are always linked I know they will be converted, and yyyy-mm-dd is the shortest and least ambiguous. The big question - why were the quite separate functions of date linking and date auto-formatting combined in the first place? Why can't dates be auto formatted using a different form of markup? I make take this question to WP:MOSDATES, no doubt this isn't the first time it has been asked... -- Chuq(talk)10:30, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
I too got into the habit of writing dates as [[2008-08-28]] thinking that everyone would see it the way they want to see it ie we'll generally all see it as 2008-08-28, without thinking about what non-logged-in users would see. My question would be why doesn't the "master" wiki system just pick either the US or International styles (maybe auto-pick it based on geo-coding of IPs?) and auto format it the way it thinks you want to see it. If you can't be bothered to log in, then you shouldn't be too picky about how dates are displayed. The-Pope (talk) 13:02, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
The journo who wrote it contributes here occasionally (so don't be too hard on him) and sought interviews from a few ppl a couple of weeks ago. Moondyne13:35, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
I thought it was a reasonable article, even if he couldnt find two disambiguated articles. Maybe its an indicator that the disambigs arent as clear as they could be. Gnangarra13:44, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Well, for one thing, needs a ref. The ABS is saying 143,000 approx (the figure we have). The urban centre/locality figure is 128,000 approx, and even adding the two LGAs together (Townsville + Thuringowa, per the March 2008 merger) gets around 154,000. I can't figure out where his figure of 171,000-odd comes from. Orderinchaos12:16, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
On a related matter, do we count the population of a town only or is the whole population of the local government area a better figure? This has recently come up in regards to the population of Weipa, Queensland, where the ABS lists the lgas population but I had a source for a lesser amount that was just counting people living in the town. - Shiftchange (talk) 12:24, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
Burden of proof rest with the editor to provide a source for 171,000, I presume this is an estimated base pop of the two areas plus growth allowance. I'd say that the rank of 13th should stand until ABS changes in that its a comparison of apples and oranges one actual the other an estimate, though the ranking should have a note with the to explain. Gnangarra12:27, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
I reckon it would be some sort of estimate by the Council. It is interesting that when I replace an estimated or unreferenced town population figure with one from the 2006 census, it is always a reduction. Every time. Either there are a lot of town boosters out there or we are somehow psychologically conditioned to overestimate the size of the populations we live in. On Townsville and other cities using the SD as the population figure; these SDs are already significantly larger in area than the urban centre anyway. It defies belief that a larger figure could be found, even given the typical census undercounting. -- Mattinbgn\talk12:30, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
Funny, I'd noticed that myself as well. It even works in areas which are clearly in decline and so a recent boost could not be a factor in explanation. Orderinchaos12:32, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
I had a look at the contribs of the user that is adding this figure, and they make interesting reading. Apart from adding the uncited population figures, most of their edits seem to be either removing negative information about Townsville businesses, or adding material about shopping centre extensions and the like. I think we're either dealing with a good faith editor who is proud of their city and is adept at ignoring that little "You have new messages" message, or someone with a vested commercial interest in promoting Townsville. Lankiveil(speak to me)13:59, 30 August 2008 (UTC).
I think it's time to delete the Bankstown portal... and dare I say it, review the remainder of the Australian portals for freshness. -- Longhair\talk11:46, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Seems like a reasonable proposition. Even our state one struggles at times, although I believe it is alive due to the efforts of some hardy volunteers - but an LGA level one is not likely to attract that sort of attention. Orderinchaos12:30, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
If some of the above topics were updated at least once every month or so would the portal be allowed to stay a bit longer. Also the portal links should be allowed to remain in some of the City of Bankstown articles especially when they are all relevant. I'll come back with more later on.Adam (talk) 00:23, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
Its been a one person show, except for a couple of MOS changes, I dont see much reason to have portals on LGA. IMHO the only way they would remain fresh is for the LGA itself to be maintaining it and most of those out source their web sites to 3rd parties anyway I cant see them doing much on Wikipedia. Gnangarra13:48, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Well, apparently you can teach an old dog new tricks. I took Gnangarra's taunt and cleared out most of the refs to the portal. --Stephen01:28, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
I vaguely remember in the discussions about redesigning the main page, that portals are actually really popular. How that applies to portals other than the 8 linked from the main page is another question. Somno (talk) 05:11, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
As part of my long-winded project of creating location articles for every designated place in Queensland, I've encountered a style problem that I would like some input on. As you may know, there has been a recent round of LGA amalgamations in Queensland, with many cities, towns and shire governments being merged into "regional councils". This is all well and good, but it leads to some awkward phrasing like the following in Te Kowai, Queensland:
Te Kowai is a suburb in the Mackay Regional Council in Queensland, Australia.
The trouble being that the suburb is not actually in the council, the council is the body that now administers the area. I can think of a few better ways of putting this, such as perhaps "Te Kowai is a suburb in the area administered by the Mackay Regional Council in Queensland, Australia.", but that seems quite awkward and long-winded. Any input on a nicer, standard way that I can put these would be welcome! Lankiveil(speak to me)05:23, 6 September 2008 (UTC).
This is something that's been annoying me for a while as well, Lankiveil. Some of the articles on Local Government Areas claimed that "council" can mean the area itself, but this was uncited, and wasn't supported by any of the legislation I've been reading. As far as I can determine, the only official term for the area governed by a local council without a specific modifier such as "City" or "Shire" is "Local Government Area". The sentence should probably read "...a suburb in the Mackay Region", or "...a suburb in the Mackay Regional Local Government Area". It may help to read the relevant Qld legislation. - Aucitypops (talk) 09:01, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
I wouldn't get tied down too much on whether or not "council" is an official term for an area. The term is widely used to identify the area administered by a local council despite what may or may not be enshrined in legislation. According to the NSW Department of Local Government and my local council, the name of my LGA is "Port Stephens Council". Strictly applying S.221 of the NSW Local Government Act results in the name of the administrative body being either the "Council of Port Stephens Council" or "Port Stephens Council Council". Neither option seems really correct but that's what the legislation prescribes.[12] Lankiveil's issue is probably best addressed by using:
I don't think that is correct, see [13], where the council website calls the area "Port Stephens Local Government Area". "Council" on that webpage appears to refer specifically to the local government wherever it is used. Under the Local Government Act it would be the "Area of Port Stephens" and "Council of the Area of Port Stephens", wouldn't it? But in common use the most convenient shorthand would probably be "Port Stephens LGA" and "Port Stephens Council" respectively. - Aucitypops (talk) 12:59, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
What you've discovered demonstrates exactly why you shouldn't get bogged down in semantics. I've received written responses directly from Council's General Manager and the NSW DLG but you've found something on a related website that seemingly contradicts it. We could get into a huge discussion about who is right but really, it's a trivial issue not worth spending time on. It's clear that the terms are interchanged quite often so it's best to just leave it at that because even the experts probably can't agree what the actual term should be. --AussieLegend (talk) 17:31, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
Anyway, back to the example: according to the Local Government Act of Qld, [14]
(2) The class of a local government area may be 1 of the following--
• region
• city
• town
• shire
• another class prescribed under a regulation.
(3) A local government area may be declared to be a region, city or town, or another class prescribed under a regulation, only if it satisfies the criteria prescribed by regulation.
I think you may have the wrong reference. That link is about "Law-making matters included in jurisdiction of local government". Not having read the actual section, does it actually say that the area actually has to be titled as such? --AussieLegend (talk) 17:31, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
Officially, the area is the Region of Mackay under Queensland law in this instance, which we would simply never use as a name of any kind because it sounds plainly silly and is not in common use. Likewise, the use of "council" is a bit confusing, as to be in a council means to be a member of it, not to be resident of a location within its area. Also, one doesn't have suburbs of council areas, one has suburbs of metropolitan cities/areas. So I think it should probably read "is a suburb of Mackay, Queensland". If it's not a suburb of Mackay but in fact a town or hamlet or locality which happens to be within the LGA, we should probably use the region instead - like Central Queensland or whatever. Orderinchaos19:55, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
Infoboxes are supposed to contain summary information about a subject. If it's in the infobox it really should be expanded upon in the article. --AussieLegend (talk) 11:13, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
See, just to add even more mud to the water, my understanding is that the new regions are divided into suburbs, even where they are rural localities and the word "suburb" doesn't jive with the standard Australian meaning of the world. To use another example, take Mount Mee, Queensland - it's a rural location in the North Moreton Regional Council LGA, which itself is decentralised and doesn't have a clear centre or an independent like the Mackay Region does. It's not a "suburb" really of any larger city, but I think we still need to describe it as such. Semantics are fun, aren't they? Lankiveil(speak to me)01:55, 7 September 2008 (UTC).
That was my understanding too. It does make sense for standardisation purposes. That's how it's done in NSW too. Our suburbs are listed in the Geographical Names Register. I assume Queensland has a similar register where official designations for localities may be found? --AussieLegend (talk) 11:13, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
250 million edits- so had to post
Fluked the round total at 12:26 EST 11 September 2008 (02:26 11 September 2008(UTC))
Site statistics
The English-language Wikipedia currently contains 2,549,298 articles.
This number excludes redirects, discussion pages, image description pages, user profile pages, templates, help pages, portals, articles without links to other articles, and pages for Wikipedia administration. Including these, we have 14,526,831 pages.
Users have made 250,000,000 edits, with an average of 17.21 per page, since July 2002. This includes edits by unregistered users. In addition, we currently have 809,370 media files (excluding files from the Wikimedia Commons).
Thanks for the update - fascinating. I am bemused at the ratio of 14.5 million pages to 2.5 million articles - quite an overhead. Reminds me of some stat that I have probably misremembered that for every front-line soldier in world war 1 there were 5 people behind the lines and I think the ratio has increased since that time. For every article - there are 4.7 pages in addition to that article supporting it - this page of course being one of the supporting pages ;-) --Matildatalk04:38, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
There would be a few as ANI has 460 odd archive pages to itself, though I recon the John Howard and George Bush articles(inc talk) hold 10% of the edits between them ;) Gnangarra05:50, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
For those interested, Wikipedia:Pages with the most revisions is a reasonably up-to-date list of the pages with the most edits. You can find out the number of revisions in a page by doing a diff from the edit with the lowest ID number (usually edits from ConversionScript or the article's first edit if created after January 2002), and the current edit, and adding 2 to the given number of intermediate revisions. For example, John Howard has 7,429 revisions at the time of writing. For an explanation of the weird cases where that method doesn't work, see User:Graham87/Page history observations#Revision ID numbers. Graham8701:57, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
A good opportunity to acquire some free photos of Olympians- we don't have many, because most Olympic sports don't have regular competitions and public training sessions unlike football teams each, and photo opporotunities don't come around often. The parades are starting as of next week
Mon 15 Sydney 12pm Parade up George Street to Town Hall
Wed 17 Melbourne 12pm Parade Cnr Bourke & Swanston, down Swanston St to Federation Square
Thurs 18 Adelaide 12pm Parade Torrens Parade Ground Parade up King William St to Victoria Square
Friday 19 Brisbane 12pm Parade up Queen Street Mall to Reddacliff Place
Sat 20 Darwin 4.30pm Stage in Raintree Park, Cnr Nuckley & Smith Streets
Sat 20 Hobart 11am Stage on Parliament House Lawns
Re: Deletion of the Template:Indigenous Australians/deceased
Hi all. I am wondering if you could help me for a mo. I have been referred here after watching a Youtube video from ABC Television, with a viewer advisory citing that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders should be aware that the show may contain images of people who have passed away. Thanks to some explanation, I now understand that this is an extremely culturally sensitive issue for those people, since the viewing of people who have died and listening to their voices is considered taboo in the culture and may cause distress or offend cutural standards.
Then I saw this Template for deletion - what a cheap shot. This template needs to be here - Christ on a bike, i know about WP:OTHER and the fact that just because its somewhere else, it doesn't mean it should be here, but if a major national broadcaster can do it without problems, and national and regional newspapers do it, I don't see why it shouldn't be here.
I thought that Wikipedia was all for cultural sensitivity and promoting respect. If this template doesn't confirm the fact that we as a site are respectful of the cultures of other nations and races, what the heck does???
I am gonna call an RfC if no-one here has any objections to this, since I consider this a matter which needs to be re-opened and dealt with. :) Regards all, and sorry for the long yabber there. Went a bit overboard... Thor Malmjursson (talk) 00:27, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Don't think you'll get very far. The debate and conclusion seemed fairly straight forward and many very experienced Australian editors were involved in it. WP:NDA outranks all other arguments. What we should do is consider where we use images that may cause offence, a bit like the whole Non-free image rules, only use those images where absolutely necessary to be an integral part of the article, not just "for decoration". The-Pope (talk) 01:33, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough guys - thanks for your comments. Just out of interest to you, I have proposed instead of this, a minor change to the wording of the Content Disclaimer to include audio, and listed why I am asking for this. I now know that the General content disclaimer applies sitewide, so rather than the template, a quick reword there should do it. :) You can find the request and reasons here. Cheers! Thor Malmjursson (talk) 02:48, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Seems notable at a very quick glance, but the article is currently crap. Any of our law editors want to clean it up? Giggy (talk) 04:10, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
It's definitely notable, at least in the blindness community. I' don't know about citing this as a source, but Main Menu, IIRC the first Internet radio show on blindness technology, devoted over an hour of a two-hour program to the case. I prefer not to make major edits on blindness articles, unless they add something that I think is obvious, because I have strong opinions on blindness issues, but I might also lend a hand here - the article just seems to require a lot of wikification. Graham8709:22, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Ignoring the quality/notability questions, I'm more concerned with the live Wikipedia being used for assignments and the editors apparently having so little awareness of the MOS and standards. I wonder what grade he got? I wonder what qualifications/wiki experience the lecturer has?The-Pope (talk) 15:21, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Both were created by the same editor, a now-banned sockpuppet... Wikipedia isn't mentioned in the unit outline of the course the articles are supposedly for, so it was probably the decision of the editor, not the lecturer, to post it here. Somno (talk) 01:44, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
A pretty terrible article. Have made a start on standardising the format - there's plenty more to do to fix the actual text. I think the most interesting point is the decision that cost-benefit of providing braille material should be seen in terms of an agency's budget, not the cost-per-user of the end material. Its not a case I was familiar with until reading this page so I won't be offended if anyone reverts my changes. Euryalus (talk) 03:18, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Now that I've read the materials in more detail, this does not apepar to be that notable a case. The genuinely notable one and the subject of the "MainMenu" show cited by Graham above is Maguire v SOCOG 2000, which related to the requirement for web material to eb accessible to blind users. The 1999 case found SOCOG had discriminated by not providing printed material accessible to the blind, but this is hardly a surprising decision and had minimal repercussions in Australia or worldwide. By contrast the 2000 case was a genine landmark.
The 2000 article is also pretty terrible, and I might go work on that one instead of this. The question is what do we do with the 1999 article - it has minimal coverage in reliable sources outside of HREOC's own files but with some hard work could possibly be lifted to a standard that would survive AfD. Any thoughts? Euryalus (talk) 06:05, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
I was going to say merge into the 2000 case but it has sufficient material to be a spearate article. I can't think it wouldn't survive AfD - can't see what the grounds would be. I think it is a useful precursor to the 2000 case. I am not sure that one is more important than the other actuually - the negative decision in 1999 is quite important too. A google search on SOCOG and Maguire for pages from Austrlaia brings up a fair few sources including at least one ABC news report on the 1999 case as well as a discussion in the ABC's Law Report program --Matildatalk06:39, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Fine by me. I think a requirement that web material be blind-accessible is more ground-breaking than a similar requirement for printed material, but thats just a personal opinion. Both articles could do with some work, especially as their creator won't be back to do it himself. Euryalus (talk) 22:26, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Posting this here as well as WP:ACOTF as more people watch this page - is there a view that the fortnight is too short a time to get an article close to featured standard, as the template says? Should we be looking at ACOTMonth? I notice from the archives that it used to be ACOTW but that articles were either new or stubs. Now we are working with established pages, which means to genuinely improve them requires more detailed research. Unless an editor happens to have materials to hand at the start of the fortnight they will struggle to get the background to make a major contribution before the fortnight closes. I appreciate anyone can continue to work on articles after the ACOTF period has closed - I'll keep going on HM Bark Endeavour for example - but we miss the point of the collaboration if some contributors can't get involved at the same time as everyone else.
I've just discovered that the National Library has just made a bunch of databases available remotely to anyone who's a library member. Some of these are less useful for our purposes (esp on Australian articles) than others, but there's some absolute gems in there - among other things, there's now a way to get Factiva access without being a university student/staff member. I also noticed an Australian literature database in there which could be of use, and there's quite a bit of general interest stuff. Rebecca (talk) 12:09, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
There is ongoing discussion on the talk page for the Manual of Style (including a series of polls) aimed at achieving consensus on presenting dates in American (January 26, 1788) or International (26 January 1788) format on an article by article basis. The poll gives full instructions, but briefly the choices are:
C = Option C, the winner of the initial poll and run-off. (US articles have US format dates, international format otherwise)
R = Retain existing wording. (National format for English-speaking countries, no guidance otherwise).
Any one want to deal with this fellow - "the project of redesigning darebin hasnt been going for that long mate. we havent updated much things at the moment. please just bare with me" [16] and "Yehrr... i dont have access to the website atm.... im bored and i thought that id make the wikipedia page better and updated." [17].
I have left a note onthe users page highlighting WP:COI, WP:V, WP:RS and WP:OR. Also there was two CoD logo images uploaded to Commons that I deleted as copyvio, one of the Logo's could be uploaded here under Fair use guidelines. Gnangarra08:30, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
Include a link to the image on the NSW SES website.
Credit NSW SES as the copyright holder.
Include the name of the photographer if provided.
All of these are standard operating procedures so they're compatible with Wikipedia uploads. Obviously this only works for images which are copyright by the NSW SES, ie. which include "Copyright: NSW SES" or something similar (see, for example, this image). The relevant OTRS ticket to link to is 2008092210006851.
Yeah, I presume so. The release came from the Senior Community Education Officer of Public Communications at the NSW State Emergency Service (SES) - as provided by the signature in his email - and he links to www.ses.nsw.gov.au (as opposed to the national website) in his signature, so I think it's just for the NSW SES gallery. Daniel (talk) 06:44, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I've created Template:CC-NSWSES on Commons. As far as I can see, this template meets all the requirements noted above. Can someone with OTRS access please 1) check that the OTRS links given there all work, 2) verify that the template does everything we have to do, 3) check if they specified which CC license to use. Thanks. Giggy (talk) 08:02, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
couple of points; * I've looked at the OTRS ticket the license should be cc-by-2.5 as that was the link in Daniels original email. * The email to me doesnt read as a clear free license, I've ask on the OTRS mailing list for other opinions on the ticket. Gnangarra11:05, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I just discovered this CFD which may have some interesting ramifications for Australia. I didn't see any familiar names in the discussion so I thought I'd give everyone a heads-up. --AussieLegend (talk) 20:05, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Just saw it as well. These sweeping category changes are becoming ridiculous. See this change and see if you can make sense of it. A note on the project noticeboard before setting the bots on all guns blazing would save a lot of trouble. -- 20:21, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
The proposer's original recommendation at least made some sense. Even "Coastal settlements" does but to change from a specific criteria to a criteria that includes everything is ludicrous. --AussieLegend (talk) 20:39, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) It seems this discussion reveals the problem; an over-enthusiastic editor misreading the CfD and using a bot to make a series of changes without actually checking the changes made sense. Hmm. The CfD result is fine—the arbitrary distinction between cities and towns has never made much sense to me and the passion displayed by some towards the distiction is misguided at best—but the way it was interpreted by unusual to say the least! Mattinbgn\talk20:41, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
In Australia the distinction between towns and cities is made clear in most circumstances. AussieLegend was right to be concerned about this. We should keep the original categories at least for Australia because they make sense. "Coastal settlements" could include anything. JRG (talk) 23:02, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
"In Australia the distinction between towns and cities is made clear in most circumstances." You think? Want to explain to me how we should class Echuca, Maryborough (Vic), Moe, Hamilton etc. (all former "cities") and how that is different to Swan Hill, Benalla and Horsham for example? Further, why aren't Frankston, Blacktown, Casey, Blue Mountains classed as cities in their own right, but Ipswich and Logan are? Have Charters Towers, Toowoomba, Mackay, Bundaberg, Gladstone and Rockhampton mysteriously stopped bring cities following the Qld LG amalgamations? The distinction is arbitrary and seems to be based on old versions of Local Government legislation that provied some distinction between "cities" and other locatilities that no longer apply. Even what is included in a "city" varies arbitrarily with Brisbane and Newcastle using local, idiosyncratic definitions based on LGs while most of the other larger urban areas in Aust use a census definition. Made clear? Hardly. -- Mattinbgn\talk23:18, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I think it is important to recognise that the word city, in Australian vernacular, means a metropolis. It is not synonymous with the word City as applied to local government areas. We must resist the temptation to make our job easier by conflating the two meanings. Hesperian01:22, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
With respect to the Australian ones separately from the others? I think we should - the old schema worked for us but clearly didn't for others around the world. Orderinchaos23:25, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I've recreated the category so we can add cities that are definitely defined as such to the category and can add them back in. I've made a start with NewcastleJRG (talk) 14:05, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
and the very user renaming deleted it again (Edit warring IMO)[18]. I think we should take this to deletion review (I don't have time ATM as I'm about to head off to work). I find it rather wrong that no one was really told about it on the project pages and for the closer just to go renaming and deleting. I seen no issues with the old categories which worked find but I do now see issues with the new categories. Bidgee (talk) 20:12, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
I had missed this discussion and woke to find that we now have coastal settlements - that is plain wrong - could someone suggest the best avenue of reversing such an absurd and idiotic change SatuSuro23:31, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
I've posted but what a bloody mess this has turned out to be. If there was discussions on the project pages then it wouldn't have turned out like this. Bidgee (talk) 03:55, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
I am the editor who made the original umbrella nomination of, among other, the Coastal cities and Coastal towns hierarchies to be renamed. I now see that it was most unfortunate that the Australian WikiProject wasn't notified separately, but that is an insight that I have attained to only recently. Those who read through the original umbrealla nomination of September 14 (and the two similar nominations concerning riverside and lakeside communities listed above on that page) will notice that the editors participating were really wanting, but not able to think of, some way of getting a larger group of editors to participate in the discussion. In the recent Deletion review it has been asserted that umbrella nominations, such as this was, in itself are "an abuse of the process" (Orderinchaos). Just as the editors in the original renaming debate, Orderinchaos grieves that this sweeping process wasn't brought up in a forum were a larger segment of the Wikipedia community would see it, such as the Village Pump. The fact is that this issue was posted at the Village Pump on September 17. When you go and look at the response to that post, you will probably understand more of the dilemma we are encountering in this process.
The intention of the original nomination was not to decimate any existing hierarchies, but to establish an overarching structure for communities of all sizes. This could, as is clear to me now, be achieved less disruptively if some local considerations had been made (in particular towards the Australian hierarchy), however, the Australian categories were three among some 55 categories in that one umbrella nomination alone, and there were also two other similar umbrella nominations (although smaller) being initiated concurrently. I simply missed identifying any particulars needing special attention.
It should be noted that to a large extent, the problems arose when the closing admin misinterpreted the discussion and would-be consensus (some seem to contest this) and programmed his/her bot to make some very nonsensical changes that would have been avoided had some form of reality checking been active. (Closing admin's comment sums up how much went wrong and how it was remedied).
I feel that one unrecognized problem which is uncovered by this little mess is that far too few people keep categories in their watchlists, and, far too few WikiProjects bother to tag category pages with the project banner. Had either of these two been to a larger degree reality the chance that WikiProject Australia had missed the original renaming discussion would have been significantly diminished. For me it was simply too big a task to go on to notify all the country, region and other geographical and technical WikiProjects who might have an interest in this process. For the sake of avoiding any similar conflicts arising in the future, there should be established some routine for making such notifications which relieve the nominator of both the responsibility and task of seeing to it that they are made. __meco (talk) 07:38, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
Why on earth should we add them to the watchlist in fear of them being wrongly deleted/renamed? I've got 2,000 items(articles, categories, images ect) and adding all of them is insane since it's would clog up the watchlist, hard to see changes made and even slow loading when going to the watchlist.
"For me it was simply too big a task to go on to notify all the country, region and other geographical and technical WikiProjects"
Not really a big task and would be the best thing to do even if you got other editors to help you out to inform the users but other editors should not have to resort to have every category in their watchlist. Bidgee (talk) 10:24, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
Indeed. I believe by count we're actually the third largest single project on Wikipedia and almost 3% of its total content comes under our watch. It's been my observation that Australia and Canada more than pull their weight not only in content terms but in having active, interested and knowledgeable editors and admins who are capable of contributing to processes. Additionally, for a country of their size, NZ (who incidentally had a couple of categories affected by this nomination) are also very well organised and capably led - I've had dealings with their people in times past and have never failed to be impressed. Orderinchaos10:29, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
I beg to disagree - as one of the very few Australians editors who is not a bot and who has regularly tagged categories - that is not the answer - they should not be watched necessarily for xfd - I believe it is those who want to change who should take their xfds to the projects - not the project to have to have someone watching for closed door discussions at CFD - if it take a bit longer it might give the changers a better idea of how many projects and editors they might actually be inconveniencing. SatuSuro07:47, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. If change is deemed so necessary that it must be made immediately, it is up to those advocating change to prove their case, not those who accept the existing format. If they don't want to put in the work to defend their arguments before a wider audience, they shouldn't be advocating such sweeping proposals to begin with. This is about the eighth time that Australian topics have been caught up in the sweeps at CfD with very little discussion. Part of the problem is this notion that things must be identical across the world, when that isn't really necessary and can be subject to local considerations - there's no need for a uniform standard internationally except on things which genuinely are project-wide and can go through the usual policy/guideline channels. All of the categories, by the way, were tagged to the project, but I already have more than 3,000 items on my watchlist (and don't doubt other editors here are in a similar boat) and see no need to keep every single Australian category on it simply because some random person decides to have a bunch of them renamed. We can't easily predict which ones people might want to rename, as most of them emerge from problems that don't occur here (i.e. there's some classification problem related to the US or Europe). We've gone to the effort of having a centralised noticeboard which most of the regulars and many others do read (i.e. this one), and if approached are happy to consider reasonable proposals as we, like you, do want to see the encyclopaedia improve and if something helps it do so, we'll be all for that. Orderinchaos08:41, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
On reflection, I agree, mostly, with Meco. We are being far too quick to assume bad faith here. The root of the problem is that people have very few categories on their watchlists, but a great many articles that are affected by changes to category names. This means that these category renaming and deletion proposals have an extremely high impact yet are disproportionately difficult to advertise. This is sufficient to explain much of what has been characterised here and elsewhere as sneakyness, discourtesy or unilateral decision-making. I have been a party to these accusations, but on reflection I repent of them.
You may respond that this situation places a greater responsibility upon the nominator to engage with affected parties, and you may be right, but that is a completely different kettle of fish to imputing a bad faith motive. Regardless of whose responsibility it is, I suspect that we will only master this if we act ourselves. Since this problem crops up fairly often, I will set up and maintain some kind of notification system, so that these things don't take us by surprise in future.
The bad faith was not in the nomination (although I think using CfD for this type of mass renaming is an abuse of process) but in the overwhelmingly defensive reaction from the parties involved in the close when challenged about their actions. The mass listing was a bad idea, the lack of notification made it worse, the botched close compounded the problem, but the bloody-minded reaction to the response about the mess made has been the worst part. No doubt these editors are good faith editors but the reaction to challenge makes it hard to see motives other than "sneakyness, discourtesy or unilateral decision-making". I hope it is otherwise. The best way to fix the problem is to avoid mass nominations , this makes the notification problem go away. -- Mattinbgn\talk11:23, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
Well Meco is also assume bad faith to expect that we should have to have categories in our watchlists. I have articles that I've had to take off my watchlist due to the time it was taking to go to my watchlist page. Bidgee (talk) 11:04, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
I disagree with that completely some project management enthusiasts (there are not many in wikipedia but they do exist) do have whole projects categories on watch (and you get to see the damned category changes washing across your watch page like a tsunami regularly and make mental notes of those eds you would hope they know what they are doing) - it is not that much a problem. At some stage I have had most of the broader parts of the australian category tree on my watch list. After removing over how ever many 000 categories from my watchlist on which so little happened - I also have at my user page the Indonesian version of this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:RecentChangesLinked/Category:Australia for some it might be like paint drying (or worse), but for category tree enthusiasts it does provide some insights as to what is happening - I really believe that we have both the capacity, the appropriate means and the ingenuity to keep tabs as a project over our categories if we so wish SatuSuro12:00, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
I have been watching this article for a while and I am starting to get a little concerned. While arguably notable (At least I think it meets WP:N) the article is becoming a bit of a "walled garden". The content, nearly all un-referenced or self-referenced, is mostly tables, charts and lists (and overly detailed) and the external links are becoming a bit of a link farm. I am considering a reasonably severe trim of the article but I would like some other opinions, especially as I do not feel the trim will be welcome. Others thoughts would be gratefully received. User:Assize 12:53, 23 September 2008 (UTC) (not sure what happened here but I wrote this comment -- Mattinbgn\talk20:31, 24 September 2008 (UTC))
Very much a walled garden for third tier league 1st AFL -- 2nd VFA/L, WAFL, SANFL etc.. -- 3rd NFL, while it maybe possible to argue notability for the league as a whole IMHO none of the clubs would warrant articles based solely on being in the league, the same would apply to players in the league in that both would need something else to support notability. I suggest you nominate at AFD the clubs as a group and the league on its own. Gnangarra11:09, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
I have come across Category:Olympic competitors for Australasiaand its component parts and arts - and am wondering as a project that is nominally incorporated into part of this term - is it really a category that has any validity in reality? Do we need such a category, or does it serve any genuine purpose?
I would be intrigued in the current climate of having to encounter the Cf issues - perhaps we might consider it for an AWNB origin CfR and or CfD - ahh, considering how i have chastised others for lack of historical context :) SatuSuro10:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
I know there's some controversy as to which continent or region we are on. However, one key thing to look up - does the Olympic movement use its own definitions? If so, it's a sound categorisation. Orderinchaos10:40, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification - it makes sense to have it on that basis - I hadnt considered the historic context to it. sigh SatuSuro10:46, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
Encouragement for those of us despairing about free use images for current politicians - today, after a few days of informal negotiation and careful explanation of what a CC 3.0 licence is and a bit about how Wikipedia works, I managed to score a fully released image of Colin Barnett, the incoming Premier of Western Australia, from his office. That makes a total of three across Australia that I know of this year. Hopefully with the increasing number of them popping up, it will be easier to convince others to do likewise. Orderinchaos08:02, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I would have thought that the spin doctors would be happy to have an approved pic on their page, rather than potentially an unflattering one that we manage to snap. Who's the actor who's often used as the case in point for unflattering photos?The-Pope (talk) 00:33, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Categorisations of politicians by State or territory
Since the kind people at CfD have raised an issue that clearly needs addressing, it may be worth the project spending some time considering just how these categories line up and the most appropriate names. We have Category:Federal Politicians from South Australia and [[Category:New South Wales Federal politicians, some consistency and a parent category would be in order. Discussion could take place here or at WP:AUSPOL or even at WP:CfD!
Sounds good. For the Senate it makes sense because that's what their constituencies effectively are. I think we already have categories for members of the state houses. JRG (talk) 00:14, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
I would agree with doing it by house - that's what we've been doing for state politicians anyway, so it's a fairly easy solution to implement from a category point of view. Orderinchaos04:07, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
The dangers of a "Controversy" section
"[Italy coach Nick] Mallett initially turned to Wikipedia to research [NRL player Craig] Gower, and was aghast to note the majority of the Australian's profile fell under the sub-category, "Controversy", detailing his numerous brushes with officialdom in Australia."[19]
Thanks; was just coming here to post about this. Just so they don't get double emails, Jay Walsh/Press and OTRS are both aware of the issue. Regards, Daniel (talk) 01:53, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Ah, I should have thought of that myself. I ended up posting it at the Wikipedia as a press source page which I believe the Post editors refer to. I also looked at Craig Gower and saw someone had already included this, I made some tweaks to it but do not have an opinion as to whether the article should be mentioned at all. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 03:53, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Crikey, we should be able to do better than this. If anything is going to kill this encyclopedia, BLP issues will be it. These "controversy" or "criticism" sections, regardless of how meticulously sourced are a disaster waiting to happen. Even now, the article is hardly a balanced account of Gower's career. -- Mattinbgn\talk04:12, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
BLP issues aside, 'controversy' sections are lazy and unneeded as the material they contain should be merged into the other sections of the article if it is important or be removed as trivia if it is not. Nick Dowling (talk) 04:27, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Being from a southern state, I've never heard of the guy. But as far as I can tell it's all referenced, accurate and noteworthy, meeting WP:BLP. What's the problem? If the guy's got a history, why shouldn't his future club know? Peter Ballard (talk) 04:37, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
I could write articles on most public figures that would be accurate, referenced and noteworthy and still be a "hit piece" due to the undue weight given to the negative material. We have (at least, I feel we have) a duty to the living subjects of our articles to be fair and to write about them in a manner that we would wish to be written about.This moral obligation is over and above our legal obligation. This does not mean a whitewash, but at the least we should maintain a even-handed approach, remembering that, in the case of Mr Gower, he is notable for playing rugby league, not for his exploits. Lurid as his exploits are, if he was not a professional sports person they would not be included in Wikipedia. The very existence of such a "controversy" section calls additional attention to the negative material over and above the material that actually makes him notable. In this case, the article almost had a real and detrimental effect on his career. Regardless of whether he is a public figure or not, we should all be mindful that what we write here at wiki can have a real and significant effect on people's lives. -- Mattinbgn\talk04:59, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't know why we are using words like "danger", "negative" and "controversy" here. Surely any prospective employer is entitled to know that Gower is a serial boozer. It's not what we write here that has an effect on people's lives (since we are just accumulating what is reported elsewhere), it's what the subjects bring on themselves by their past actions. If the article requires further balance, Gower's football achievements should be expanded rather than any editing of his notable off-field exploits. Similar arguments have been occurring over the Geoffrey Edelsten article. WWGB (talk) 05:11, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
And have occurred over numerous others. In general writing properly about what they are notable for, while filtering only for egregious stuff, tends to do the trick. Orderinchaos05:20, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
(ec) Wow. How does it benefit the public to know about Choco Watmough's cancelled AVO? Or the dismissed allegations against Anthony Laffranchi? The original Craig Field article was deleted sometime last year because it was more about the man's drug usage than about his football. I'd be getting rid of the 'controversy' sub-header and merging the information - when it is indeed notable - in the article body. And how long should 'charges' (such as those in the Richard Williams (rugby league) article) remain in the article when it is impossible to find a verifiable result? Or does that not matter becuase he 'brought it on himself'? •Florrie•leave a note•05:29, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
"Controversy" was the name of the section heading in the article, "negative" is what the material is; that can't be denied. "Danger" is a matter of opinion, but I think it is justified. In the main, our only knowledge of these incidents is the press coverage, which by its nature is almost always sensationalistic. The initial allegations are often given wide coverage; the later retractions, withdrawals, extenuating circumstances etc. are given less, if any coverage. Editors here should be more than mere regurgitators of content from press sources; we have an obligation to source encyclopedic information not every bit of trivia that has been printed on the subject. I think on this topic we will have to agree to disagree. -- Mattinbgn\talk05:53, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I would be interested provided the notability level was set at a high enough level to not have the project creating (and defending the creation of) articles on every building of merely local interest only. A lot of claims are made about the historic significance of various places and buildings; it would be nice to be able to pull them together. -- Mattinbgn\talk11:13, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
I say this because there's a strong precedent in the American scheme, which includes a lot of places that aren't anything like what you'd call famous, but which nonetheless are historically significant; they've pretty clearly established them as notable for Wikipedia articles where there's some sort of reference point like the register in the US. Rebecca (talk) 11:53, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
The different state/territory heritage authorities have easily accessible websites that differentiate between specific levels of significance - and the national register also - One problem in some australian city projects has been editors in wikipedia as enthusiasts for the lower level and trying to pull into separate and suburban articles - buildings and localities that have no intrinsic heritage status at all. As for having to deal with historical significance against wikipedia notability issues - best of luck - in Western Australia an example of the relative nature of perception is the Landmarks of Perth article - and what is deemed by collective editors instinct - I would say half are not - and considering the paucity of historical knowledge by some editors and over reliance on web based material - particularly 'solid' backup/background material would be needed to utilise to warn off the inevitable frivolous attempts at setting up historical context. SatuSuro14:14, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
Sounds interesting. I'm planning on doing something about the buildings built and designed by Hardy and Monk families in the Riverina. Bidgee (talk) 14:36, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
Hrm. Well, what would people think about creating, say, Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian historic places? Could encompass getting articles on the Commonwealth Heritage List properties, the National Trust ones too (many of which lack articles), and then look at other angles we can take from there (as with Bidgee's idea). SatuSuro, I don't think that's actually likely to be too much of a problem; if we're sticking to buildings already on a register for their historic notability, then we don't need to have these debates. There's already good precedent with this from the US. Rebecca (talk) 16:15, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
Good idea. You might want to talk to Sardaka who is interested in RNE properties and has taken pictures of many of them in Sydney suburbs. JRG (talk) 07:47, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Waterfall Gully, South Australia has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Michellecrisp (talk) 04:15, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
Has anyone have any access to, or any idea on how to acquire, a freely licenced photograph of our new Chief Scientist, Penny Sackett. She works at ANU but I am not sure if she is based at the main campus or Mount Stromlo. Birthplace, birth date etc, would also be appreciated if known. (now known) Advice gratefully accepted. Cheers, Mattinbgn\talk07:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
According to her ANU page, she's at Stromlo. Which is a bugger, because ANU is much, much easier for me to get to (not that I have a camera, but I have been eyeing some off recently). Of course, now that Chief Scientist is a full time position, she may shift her base of operations a bit closer to Parliament, in which case I'll try to track her down, and maybe even interview her for Wikinews. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 23:41, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
Considering it is not verifiable, yes it is OR. Whether that applies to WikiNews however, is another question. An image for wikipedia would be great however! Timeshift (talk) 06:57, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
I would be surprised if Wikinews is a reliable source but even if it can't be used in the article (and that is my understanding) an wikinews interview would still be fascinating. (On a tangent, couldn't photography been seen as OR? I mean strictly speaking) -- Mattinbgn\talk07:02, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
No, a photo is not classified as WP:OR. Wikinews is still supposed to be reliable, and may or may not be suitable to upload an interview to, i'm not all that familiar on the rules for it. An interview would not be suitable for a wikipedia article, unless Wikinews allowed it and the wikipedia article linked to it through wikipedia standards. Timeshift (talk) 07:11, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
A new editor is enthusiastically making major changes to Parramatta (note the move). I'm tired and heading to bed but it probably needs looking at as a matter of urgency before the damage gets even worse. -- Mattinbgn\talk13:28, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
Ah cool - thanks for that to yourself, J Bar and others involved :) Reminds me of an editor we once had out here in the West that got similarly frustrated and combative over similar types of issues. Orderinchaos12:11, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Anyone live in or near Yass?
tram line in Yass
Does anyone here live in or near Yass or can get there easily for a photo? The local council is planning to rip up the tracks from the historic Yass Town tramway in Dutton Street in Yass and replace it with a bus bay and three historic markers (never mind that it's the only extant street tramway from that era in New South Wales - don't let it get in the way of progress!) The decision will be made in the next fortnight or so - so it's rather urgent that it be done in the next month. As I have no faith in the council protecting the heritage item, it would be really good to get a photo of this tramway before it is ripped up if any editor is able to do that (I'm not able to sorry). (A photo of Yass Junction Station wouldn't go amiss while you're there. Thanks for any help that can be given. JRG (talk) 06:34, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
Any Melburnians are cordially invited to a meetup at Melbourne Uni, 6pm on Wednesday November 5th. This precedes the LUV meeting for November at which I will be speaking, on "hacking MediaWiki (for users)". Please come and help me stack the LUV meeting. ;)
I had, at one stage tagged many, many articles (mainly relating to localities) as requiring infoboxes. This placed a tag on the talk page of the article and placed them in a category. While the articles retain the tag syntax "needs-infobox=yes" in the WP:Australia template the tag itself is missing and so is the category. See Talk:Wandoan, Queensland for an example. Can anyone help find out what the problem is? -- Mattinbgn\talk08:18, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
The {{WP Australia}} banner was changed a few months back to make use of the generic {{WPBannerMeta}} template, rather than our own custom banner. It looks as though the infobox functionality was lost in a recent change. Somebody over at Template talk:WPBannerMeta would be happy to fix the template. I note a recent post there raising a similar issue for Wikipedia:WikiProject Mountains so it's possibly a widespread problem affecting other projects. -- Longhair\talk20:54, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
It seems to be reasonably widespread. I looked at a few different templates and some have been changed at various stages in the recent past to infobox=yes while others still have infobox-needed=yes and they work. That's where I got lost. --AussieLegend (talk) 21:19, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Can this category be deleted? The Mayors category is already sufficient for the people in it, and the other two entries in the category are a Federal and State politician respectively. Most local government politicians are not notable anyway. JRG (talk) 08:14, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
I was actually thinking the same thing (as JRG) myself. I'd support its deletion, as most people who could go into it would fail WP:N. Orderinchaos13:53, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
I think my point, garbled as it was, was that anyone who meets notability to be in this category is already covered under another ground (state or federal politician), that anyone else who would fit in the category would likely be deleted per WP:N, and hence the category is not a collection of local government politicians in Victoria, but a tiny selection of people who have additionally gone on to higher offices, and is hence redundant and perhaps even unhelpful in a real sense. Orderinchaos00:38, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Then again, anyone who meets notability to be in Category:Australian people is already covered under another ground, and anyone else who would fit in the category would likely be deleted per WP:N, and hence the category is not a collection of Australian people, but a tiny selection of people who have additionally achieved notability in some other way, and is hence redundant.... ;-) Hesperian00:57, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Ah, but Australian people is (at least it should be) a structural category - i.e. one that is empty save for subcategories, and there's plenty of subcategories that make it quite useful. On the other hand the local politicians one has only Mayors as a subcategory, and it could quite easily be attached elsewhere. :) Orderinchaos01:20, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Name one person who is notable for their membership in Category:Australian military personnel of the Vietnam War. Or, to put it another way: name one person who is notable solely for being a Vietnam War veteran, as opposed to notable for some specific action, event or contribution related to their role in that war.
I notice that you created Category:1896 poems a couple of weeks ago. Surely not every single poem written in the year 1896 is notable?
"name one person who is notable solely for being a Vietnam War veteran, as opposed to notable for some specific action, event or contribution related to their role in that war" is a distinction without a difference. Someone notable for an act in that war is notable as a veteran of that war, surely. As for the category 1896 poems, surely you are not drawing a line through categories sorting subjects on a temporal basis with categories classifying subjects on their non-notable offices held or their status as a vegan, because that would be rather silly. On that basis, there is no feature that is not worth categorising by, say Category:People with hazel eyes because we allow categories on birth year and surely you don't believe that.
To return to the initial point, categorising by former local government role is pointless as it is an irrelevant and unimportant feature for the members of that category. The year a poem is written in, or the town that someone was born or raised in, for example are important and relevant features of the members of those categories. Hence, the first class of category is unhelpful and not worth having and the the second class of categories are useful and worth keeping.
Finally, I have no plans to nominate this category for deletion and I doubt I would be successful in having it deleted if I did. Nevertheless, it seems to me to be to a clear-cut case of over-categorisation.-- Mattinbgn\talk06:17, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
You've subtly repositioned yourself, from "we shouldn't have categories based on characteristics that don't confer notability on their possessors" to "we shouldn't have categories based on properties that are unimportant features of their features." Of course I agree with the latter statement; but it doesn't get us anywhere, does it? Hesperian06:35, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
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blocked, reverted and added to CU case --Matilda talk 00:41, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
