Talk:COVID-19 pandemic in New South Wales

Statistics query

@Jaswinder1122:, could you please explain your source for the edit here?

The NSW government website that I cited [1] says:

• 56 deaths in NSW not 54, and
• 5,535 confirmed COVID cases, not 5,725.
etc. as in the infobox.

You also changed the last para in the lede, (which I added as there was no mention in the body text of COVID deaths!) starting "As of 26 June 2021 .... " so that it is not verified by the cited source.

Do different official NSW government web pages give different figures?

Regards, 220 of ^ßorg 11:30, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi @220 of Borg:, my source for update is < https://covidlive.com.au/nsw>.If you think it’s not a reliable source, you can undo. Kind Regards Jaswinder1122 (talk) 11:55, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

@Jaswinder1122: IIRC that website is supposed to be sourced from government websites, but, it's not cited on this WP page at all! :-O

You should NOT just take figures off the internet and change them on a WP page, you are SUPPOSED to cite them per WP:VERIFY. The figures in the infobox should in my opinion, ALL be mentioned in the body text, and properly sourced there. The info box is just a graphical summary in a way. Not sure whether each individual number has to be cited, but I've often seen it done.

I'd suggest, strongly, that you stick to the Australia Federal and State government COVID-19 websites, cite them properly, and update the sources access-date, if needed, each time the sources figures change.
Regards, 220 of ^ßorg 12:29, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Writing Suggestion

This is a wonderfully detailed account of the covid situation in NSW. However, for anybody needing some quick info, like when did the 2nd NSW lockdown end, it is very difficult to sift through. A summary section may be good idea. 101.179.217.183 (talk) 18:38, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

@101.179.217.183: That's what the lede of this page is for is for, but perhaps the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia (timeline)/s may help? I'll try to see if that details missing from this page though.--220 of ^ßorg 03:42, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Statistics plots

@T of the G of the W: Can you or anyone figure out how to make the "Plot of COVID-19 daily cases in New South Wales" graph in a Logarithmic scale?
The difference between the 2020-21 and late 2021-22 plot is huge. I recall I tried, code cut and paste from another graph, but it didn't work here. --220 of ^ßorg 03:48, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

@220 of Borg: That sounds like a good idea given the huge disparity in case numbers now compared to previous waves. I'll have a look and see if I can get it to work, but I'm not too skilled in creating graphs on Wikipedia. It would be nice if someone was able to do this, though. --user:T of the G of the W 07:34, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Funny, I didn't get 'pinged'. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@T of the G of the W: IIRC I managed it on the new cases graph on the Australian COVID statistics page by pasting in 'code' something like:

"|graph_type=log"

or similar, BUT as I said above, the same didn't work on the graph on this NSW page. --220 of ^ßorg 10:42, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

@220 of Borg: Strange that that didn't work on this page, do you know who originally created the graph for this page? (and I'm assuming for many of these COVID statistics pages) If they're still active, they should hopefully be able to give us a hand.

Hopefully the ping works this time :)

--user:T of the G of the W 11:43, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Splitting this article

This page is currently one of the longest pages on the wiki, with over 441,114 bytes. The page statistics also say that this article has 205,511 bytes, which is way too long. I would suggest first splitting out the timeline section, then splitting 2020 and 2021 into their own articles, and since the 2021 subsection has 341,000+ bytes, we could possibly split that as well. @Onetwothreeip, Zsteve21, 220 of Borg, and T of the G of the W: Blubabluba9990 (talk) (contribs) 03:13, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Agree @Blubabluba9990: in principle, though I've never been involved in splitting an entire article up. (Apparently I'm mostly responsible for its size! 😟 (see here) And a lot of November and December 2021 updates are 'missing'.)

So you're thinking of splitting into a:

• Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in New South Wales (~ 80% of the page)
• COVID-19 pandemic in New South Wales (2020)
• COVID-19 pandemic in New South Wales (2021)
• COVID-19 pandemic in New South Wales (2022) (We'd need this page too, eventually?)

series of 'new' pages? --220 of ^ßorg 04:01, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Alternatively, somebody could edit out some of the now less notable incidents, or edit 'historic events' back to a weekly/monthly update, rather than daily as I have been mostly doing, leaving the more notable, ie. new record deaths and cases, days. 220 of ^ßorg 04:18, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree. zsteve21 (talk) 09:58, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree. However the 2021 section might need a split of its own given how big some of the sections are. Blubabluba9990 (talk) (contribs) 16:22, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Splitting would be the easiest option but the best option would be to edit the article down to a more reasonable size. The information currently there is far too detailed. We don't need a summary of each day in the pandemic. We need to have broad trends, and we need to have changes in restrictions. This is not on my watchlist, so ping me if you reply. Steelkamp (talk) 06:55, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Also note: As of right now, this article is the longest on Wikipedia, at 528,075 bytes. Steelkamp (talk) 06:56, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

RfC on timeline section

What is the best way to improve the timeline section?

1. No improvement needed, keep as is.
2. Split into articles by year, keeping content as is
3. Delete and start over
4. Editing down in this page, please specify how
5. Some other way, please specify A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 10:20, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Survey

• Option 3, as nom - As the second largest article on the wiki entirely due to its unnecessary level of detail in the timeline section, I think the best way to fix the article is deleting this section and starting over. The only article that is longer is the ‎List of International Organization for Standardization standards, 1-4999 (a list), and this page is on its way to beat it in a few weeks time if the section keeps getting expanded at its current rate. There is no reason why this section should be that long. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 10:57, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 4 in principle, though that will look a lot like 3 in practice. The level of detail there is tremendously excessive. That shouldn't just be dumped off into other articles. Rather, it needs to be dramatically trimmed back and made into a brief summary rather than a blow by blow of each particular. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:22, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 4. Option 1 does not solve the issue that the detail in this article is overly detailed. It isn't necessary to have details of who died or got sick or went to hospital every day, let alone the demographics of these patients. Option 2 just pushes the problem elsewhere. That leaves options 3 and 4. Option 3 would not be ideal unless a draft was created so the actually substantive information and references can be placed there. Option 4 is the best idea as it gets rid of the excessive detail without the need to completely reconstruct this article. Epicgenius (talk) 18:03, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3/4: WP:Nuke it from orbit, and rebuild the most relevant parts of the text to provide a broad overview of what happened in a summary fashion. The existing blow-by-blow daily timeline is rather absurd. I think, as Seraphimblade pointed out, that options 3 and 4 will look the same in practice because almost all of it will have to go. Endwise (talk) 04:47, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

I have boldly split off 109,491‎ bytes from the 2022 'timeline' to a 'new' page @ Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in New South Wales (2022). Also linked to that page from COVID-19 pandemic in New South Wales#2022.
Regards, 220 of ^ßorg 13:47, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't think that fixes the main issue with this article, 220 of Borg, which is the unnecessary level of detail bordering on an an indiscriminate collection of information on the day-to-day happenings of a 3-year pandemic. I provided a similar option (2) but I don't think it's a very constructive change. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 14:00, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Here from Feedback request: I am wondering why to choose now to be "bold", during an RFC? The tag on the page, and previous comments, indicate splitting was not really the problem but unnecessary content and other issues. Looks great for article creation stats though. However, I seem to have read this page is under discretionary sanctions and the splitting editor apparently didn't see it. I don't usually mess around with DS articles, and there may be exemptions, but if not I would suggest self reverting before Mr. broadly construed visits. Splitting makes Wikipedia appear bigger but not necessarily better.

I brought up another browser for the split article and it is staggering. There is a need for tagging from the start. An almost day-by-day covering on both articles that absolutely contains overly bloated content. If someone cut the crap from both articles they could be merged back (unless the powers to be interceeds first) and the article would be much smaller.

Both articles suffer from the same problems. I couldn't suggest removing even one tag. There should be an expedited solution because someone may boldly split off 2021, then there would be 3 articles all needing the same tags, and possibly editor(s) in hot water. I agree with A. C. Santacruz. A better option is to blast the bloat, especially since there is so much indiscriminate information, and start fresh. -- Otr500 (talk) 15:54, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree that just creating "split" articles as a dumping ground for the indiscriminate information is not at all an appropriate solution. It needs to be trimmed way down, not just shuffled around. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 18:56, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

@Otr500: On a quick look WP:NUKEIT, or Wikipedia:Blow it up and start over, refers more to "Copyright violations, extensive cases of advocacy, and undisclosed paid sock farms are frequently blown up".That is not the case here. 220 of ^ßorg 12:25, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

I also think this doesn't solve the underlying issue. That new article is already 76,000 bytes of readable prose size, near the limit of when WP:PAGESIZE suggests it be split. But that 76,000 bytes is really, really boilerplate. To give an idea of how boilerplate it is, the following text appears 74 times with only minor changes.

On [DATE] another [FIGURE] deaths were reported. [FIGURE] were vaccinated, [FIGURE] had 1 dose, [FIGURE] were not vaccinated. This raised the official state total to [FIGURE] deaths. There were [FIGURE] men and [FIGURE] women, [FIGURE] was aged in their 60s, [FIGURE] their 70s, [FIGURE] their 80s, and [FIGURE] in their 90s. [FIGURE] were from Sydney and suburbs: [FIGURE] south western Sydney, [FIGURE] south eastern, [FIGURE] western, [FIGURE] northern, [FIGURE] south Sydney. There was also: [FIGURE] from the Newcastle area, [FIGURE] Central Coast, [FIGURE] Wagga Wagga, [FIGURE] the Tweed Heads area.

Daily new cases (positive test results) reported were down again at [FIGURE] from [FIGURE]. Of those, [FIGURE] cases were from PCR tests, [FIGURE] RAT tests.

Most new cases were from the Sydney region: [FIGURE] South Western Sydney Local Health District (LHD), [FIGURE] South Eastern Sydney LHD, [FIGURE] Western Sydney LHD, [FIGURE] Northern Sydney LHD, and [FIGURE] from Sydney LHD. There were another [FIGURE] from Hunter New England LHD, [FIGURE] Nepean Blue Mountains LHD, and [FIGURE] Illawarra Shoalhaven LHD, with numbers below [FIGURE] cases in all other LHDs.

Cases admitted to hospital rose to [FIGURE], with [FIGURE] in intensive care and [FIGURE] on ventilation. Numbers hospitalised were up on the previous days' [FIGURE].

So far we are 75 days into the year, so basically a new paragraph for every day. Is there a reason why all of this can't just be removed and replaced with a graph? – Epicgenius (talk) 18:00, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

I like the idea of a graph. That would make much more sense in presenting this, and certainly would be a great deal more compact and readable. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 18:49, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

There are graphs, on this page but not updated since mid January, and also on on the Australian COVIDStatistics page, also out-of-date. 220 of ^ßorg 12:25, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

I have shouldered, IMHO by default, a huge amount of the effort of updating/ maintaining Australian related COVID pages over the last (possibly) ~18 months? (See my contributions) I am therefore rather ... disappointed that an editor chose to just delete a large portion of this page. There are several Oz covid pages that are months out of date. It looks like in this topic area, if I don't do it, it usually doesn't get done. Due to circumstances I can no longer spend, 8 to 10 hours a day going from page to page updating them, so ... it doesn't get done.

I have edited likely every state COVID page, but especially NSW, Victoria, Australian Capital Territory, the statistics page, protest page, the vaccination page etc, etc. If there is "excessive detail" here, at least the information is there, current, and can be condensed down into, possibly, a monthly update using the same reliable sources, not just deleted!

Wouldn't it be more productive to make the effort to bring the outdated pages up to date rather than concentrate on 'nuking' one that is at least up-to-date, but presently toodetailed? 220 of ^ßorg 12:25, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

220 of Borg I'm not entirely sure if you understand how unreadable the article is. It would take close to 3 hours to read the article without stopping. It is quite in violation of the WP:SUMMARYSTYLE required to make the article conform to wiki standards. I understand people criticizing your page feels bad, and I applaud your efforts at trying to track the pandemic in Australia, but the fact is that its not very useful to our readers in its current state. If it took you 10 hours a day just to update them, that means it will cause a massive burden on other editors to maintain if, as you say, you don't have the time for that anymore. Point is wikipedia is not a database nor an indiscriminate collection of information. Articles aren't there to just collect endless amounts of information. They're there to present a readable, concise, and educational perspective to our readers on topics they want to learn about. I'm in favor of "nuking" because I think building the timeline section from the ground up will be easier and more productive. I'm not in favor of deleting the page at all, and hope this discussion can provide an opportunity to improve it. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 13:46, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Trimming

As discussed above, much of the information in the Timeline section of this article (which took up about 85% of it) is the same as on the NSW Covid Timeline wiki page. I've cut down the article a lot as it previously had details on every single death and every restriction rules change. If any believes I've cut something that shouldn't have been cut, please add it back in. If nobody else does, I may come back later and make some categories for certain towns on the page using the old info. ☽☆ NotCharizard (talk) 09:27, 31 March 2022 (UTC)