Talk:Shilling (Australian)

Dunco33 (talk) 02:54, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 09:14, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

References

Hi there, I was wondering if anyone could help me figure out how to format the reference list section so that I can add new references that are listed in the citations section in dot point format. Whenever, I try to add new references that I have used, it continually formats them as citations and I was wondering if anyone could give me any guidance on how to add them in the dot point format. Dunco33 (talk) 02:54, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi Dunco33 and thanks for your contributions. I see that you have added some references at the bottom, but on Wikipedia it is much preferred to use inline citations, as each fact should be supported by a reliable source. I use this handy little citer tool for formatting citations, that you might find helpful - but please note, it does not always produce perfect results, so check the what it looks like before you save and adjust as necessary. Another thing to note is that article talk pages don't always attract an immediate response (it depends on when and how people who are watching the page are notified), so for general kind of help like this it's best to ask at the Teahouse or Help desk, where there are more editors more likely to jump in and answer your question. Article talk pages are in general for discussing aspects of the article, or discussion with a view to coming to a consensus decision if there are any points of controversy in the article.

I'll add an automatically-generated welcome panel to your user talk page with a few more links which may be helpful. Happy editing! Laterthanyouthink (talk) 09:21, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Dunco33 (talk) 04:53, 7 January 2022 (UTC) Hi Laterthanyouthink, thanks heaps for the guidance. I'll do a bit of research on inline citations and try to use the citer tool you provided.

As you can see I've added a lot more to the stub, so if you have any more advice it would be greatly appreciated. Dunco33 (talk) 04:53, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

(Note the colons I've added for indentation here - just makes it easier to read.) Yes, Dunco33, I can see that you've been making great progress! I don't have time to review the whole thing now, but will just mention that you can put the whole reference inline, and save repetition, by using named references. (I have just converted the one you've used in the lead, fyi - although strictly speaking only need the source cited once, if the whole paragraph is extracted from the same source.) I assume that you only have hardcopy versions of those Royal Australian Mint documents? There are various ways of referencing, and different editors have different preferences. Yours is akin to the method used in, e.g. Gubbi Gubbi people, only there the editors have used a slightly smarter way for readers to find the source, using the sfn template. Personally, I only use this method if it is already styled that way in the article, preferring to put the whole citation in-line and not having a separate list of sources. However, I wouldn't worry too much about this if it's too confusing, because an experienced editor can easily copyedit and convert these afterwards.

My only other comment at this stage is that the lead contains quite a bit unnecessary detail, that doesn't all exist in the body. I try to follow WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY, based on the assumption that the reader's first look should convey the most important points at first read, with the detail in the body. (And so long as it's cited in the body, it doesn't need citing in the lead, although this rule is probably "more honoured in the breach than the observance", so I wouldn't worry too much about this either.) Laterthanyouthink (talk) 07:39, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi Laterthanyouthink, I'm just trying to use named references now, it's a little difficult but I'll keep trying to do it. I did a little research on the formats for referencing in high quality wikipedia articles. I saw the referencing system used in the article for Queen Elizabeth and liked the way they separated the footnotes(under a citations section) and a references list, but thats just my personal preference. I'm trying to take out the unnecessary detail in the lead section now and structure it in a way that functions to summarise the body of the article. Dunco33 (talk) 05:29, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi Laterthanyouthink, yes you were correct, those documents I received in hardcopy directly from the Mint. The report as I referenced it was a hardcopy collection that was provided to me by Mint staff of an information wall within the mint itself, and I was unsure how I should reference it sine I have not been able to find any template or way to reference an information wall of a museum/government department. If you have any advice as to how I could reference it, in a form that is different to a report (as part of a government publication), it would be greatly appreciated. Dunco33 (talk) 06:09, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi Dunco33, no worries, just do what you are most comfortable with and I or other editors can check or change anything that really needs changing when you've finished. Re the hardcopy pamphlets or signage, it's just a matter of making clear where it came from. I have just had occasion to use a dance programme, which I cited thus: Convergence [programme], Australian Dance Theatre, May 2021, p. 1-2, using the Citation template which you can see if you edit this. You can always add a note at the end, or could use the format parameter (as in "|format= Sign on the wall at Australian Mint|"), or whatever you think is informative. (It just occurred to me that I'm not sure which editor you are using - I use WP:wikEd - so yours might look a little different.) Don't sweat on it too much though - the content and reliable sourcing are the most important bits.

Just one other suggestion while I think of it - I would move the Production section further up somewhere, and leave the Mintage table as the last section. This isn't a hard and fast rule as far as I know, but leaving long lists or tables seems to be a kind of convention to aid readability. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 08:20, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea, I'll move the production up, so the mintages isn't breaking up the text. I'll also add a little note as well in the reference for the mint, something like "retrieved from the information wall in the Royal Australian Mint", or something along those lines. Thank you so much Laterthanyouthink, you've been such a great help. As usual, let me know if you see anything that could be improved. Dunco33 (talk) 10:42, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

No worries, Dunco33. I've actually just gone in there and combined some of your duplicate referencing using ref names, and a few other minor copyedits. Not sure if I'm supposed to do this while it's part of your assignment, but I see another editor has also done a couple of minor fixes. You could just cut and paste the properly formatted citations from the Sources section into each ref within the text, instead of listing them separately, to neaten it up. I haven't read and absorbed all of the content, but the layout looks pretty good. You could mention the Currency Act 1965 again in the body. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 03:10, 12 January 2022 (UTC)