Talk:List of members of the Australasian Antarctic expedition

Importance

Classed as "low". These people were members of one of the major Antarctic expeditions of the Heroic era, which was of considerable importance in the history of Australia's involvement with the Antarctic. The expedition's personnel were pioneers, and I think "low-importance" does them little justice. So I'm adjusting it to "mid" (which might still be an understatement). Brianboulton (talk) 17:39, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Extraction of this List from main article AAE

G'day Guys The removal of this list from the main article on the AAE is quite a major change and really should have been flagged on that article's talk page months before giving effect, to allow the many contributors the opportunity to make input. Notwithstanding, I can see that a complete list would have overshadowed the main article & this list has great potential, so I will focus on the list issues:

• The title should be "List of persons associated with the Australasian Antarctic Expedition", this will permit the inclusion of the sponsors and other miscellaneous persons, without whom the expedition would never have taken place (note even the lowliest coal shoveller had an important role worthy of recognition) also the suffix 1911-1914 to the list should be deleted for consistency with the main article
• The separation of the list into multiple tables attempting to categorise everyone by their primary activity makes it more difficult to find an individual when that primary activity is not known. Again, rarely did any person have involvement solely at one location, eg many persons who did not remain on Macquarie Island had involvement in establishing the base. Far better, in my view to make the list a single table with an additional column "Primary Activity" or similar, sub roles detailed in the comments column. Importantly this will allow a full alphabetical sort by surname to quickly identify a person.
• Despite the assertion that the list has been "transferred" from the main article, analysis shows that the list has been recreated. Several names have been missed or mutilated in the "transfer", eg Herbert Dyce Murphy became Herbert Murphy (just fixed), Charles Albert Sandell became Charles Sandell, Arthur John Sawyer became Arthur Sawyer, etc.
• Lists, by definition, do not contain additional material not found elsewhere in Wikipedia. They are simply a finding aid and Importance Ranking should always be "Low"

Samuel.dellit (talk) 21:28, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

• Thank you for these comments.
• I've no objection to your recasting the list as a single alphabetical sequence, if you think this will work better. I suggest you give it a go, and let's see – we can always change it back if necessary. My chief interest is not the list, but on improving the main article, which has existed since December 2005, and is still in regrettably poor shape. No one has taken the trouble to act on the maintenance tag that's been in place for 10 months. So the objection that I should have given months of notice before taking action on the list seems a bit hollow.
• The suggestion about the title, "persons associated", doesn't seem thought through. Such a list could be never-ending. If you're going to include the "lowly coal-shovellers" individually by name, you've got to list all near-100 members of the Aurora crew. Then, apart from the sponsors, there's the suppliers of provisions, equipment and clothing, the dockers and fitters who worked to refit the ship between voyages, the crew of the Toroa, etc, etc... They were all "persons associated with the AEE". It's far too wide a definition to be practical.
• I don't agree with your restrictive definition of what makes a list. See WP:FLCR. Nor do I see any justification for your assertion about low importance. Where does Wikipedia say this?

Brianboulton (talk) 21:22, 2 November 2019 (UTC)