Talk:Thomas Playford IV

Renumbering

An email to mail:helpdesk-l said:

Re entry for Thomas Playford IV (should be Thomas Playford V)

Please note that Sir Thomas Playford, the former premier, was not the
fourth in the line of Thomas Playfords; he was the fifth.  His great
grandfather, the 'fiery Baptist minister' (whom you mention and who came
from Barnby Dun in Yorkshire) was Thomas Playford  II.  His father, the
first Thomas Playford, lived and died in Barnby Dun. He was a foundling,
who never learned his parentage. I have done a good deal of research in
the UK on this matter, but without succeeding in tracing his ancestry.

Accordingly, the text needs to be amended for the Thomas Playfords up to
Sir Thomas Playford V. I can quote source material if you wish to check
on this.


Sincerely

Dr Phillip Playford AM

I am unsure of this, so I have refrained from changing anything yet. If someone wishes to verify this by contacting <phil.playford (at) doir.wa.gov.au> they may make the change. Alphax 13:17, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Original research. Once he convinces the South Australian parliament, he'll have convinced us. Ambi 14:28, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. In researching this article I found no reference to Sir Thomas being no 5 in the long line of Thomas Playford's. Of course, if citeable proof is made, then I'll be happy to have it changed. --Roisterer 11:49, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

The email above openly admits to having discovered this claim himself. The parliamentary website uses "IV", with no reputable sources claiming he was the fifth. When this guy convinces the parliament, he'll ahve convinced us. Ambi 11:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

He (IV) is, technically, Thomas Playford V. The original pastor that emigrated, Thomas I (the pastor), was the son of a Thomas Playford (a native of Yorkshire) and therefore would be II. History (and seemingly the family also) have ignored this technicality. That said, I'm still indifferent as to a change. michael ^talk 12:17, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Gerrymander

From the Article.

Playford could point at the economic growth of the state as a reason for his continued election as Premier but he could also thank a gerrymander of his devising, known locally as a `Playmander', for his hold on power. The Playmander consisted of more seats being distributed in the less populated rural areas of the state (which were more likely to support the LCL) than in Adelaide and meant that he could comfortably remain in government even when Labor received a substantial majority of the popular vote.

This sounds like malapportionment to me, not Gerrymander. Both are bad of course, and I am not seeking to defend Playford, but having electorates of different sizes is called malapportionment, while gerrymandered elecotrates are usually the same size but have bizarre looking bounderies in order to have more seats with less votes (if that makes any sense). I would change it myself but I am not 100% sure that I am correct and I need sleep. Teiresias84 12:29, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

From memory, it was a mix of both. It was known as the Playmander, in any case. Rebecca 08:24, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

In my research for this and a range of related articles, the Playmander was usually referred to as a gerrymander (it may have been partly because playmander sounded better than playapportionment but that's what the research states). --Roisterer 02:37, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Or just because gerrymander has become a standard term for electoral fixes that the difference between boundary design and different voters-seats ratios gets overlooked? I've certainly seen discussions where people have mixed up the two. (A classic was "But there can't have been gerrymandering. The electorates were equal sizes!") The Bjelkemander appears to have had some gerrymandering but was also primarily based in the seats to voters ratio, but Playmander says "The Playmander was not devised by Playford, and was not a Gerrymander..." Also Australian electoral system#Gerrymandering and malapportionment says:

Australian history has seen very little gerrymandering of electoral boundaries, which have nearly always been drawn up by civil servants or independent boundary commissioners. But Australia has seen systematic malapportionment of electorates...

Often terms get confused, especially when the label is a term of abuse. (The "Tullymander" in Ireland is even more complicated to strictly define because multi-member constituencies are used and the key point in STV fixes is often neither the boundaries nor the number of voters per representative, but the number of representatives per constituency - 3 member seats maximise a party/coalition's representation in a strong area, 4 member seats help it to hold on in a weaker area.) Timrollpickering 23:24, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

RFC

The following edit (modification of existing text) was made in the section Fall From Power with cites added to verify the changes. Please read the original section for context.

The conservatism of the Liberal and Country League did not keep up with the expectations of a modern-day society and South Australia had become widely known as the "wowser" state. There was dissatisfaction with the restrictive drinking laws where hotels closed at 6pm and restaurants could not serve alcohol after 9:30pm; environmentalists campaigned for more natural parks and more 'green' practices; police powers stood strong with 'no loitering' legislation remaining in place; gambling was almost completely restricted; shops were not allowed to open on Sundays and holidays; public transport stopped at 10pm and Adelaide's street lights were turned off at 1am.

The following grounds were given for reverting the edit:

• "Wowser" and "6pm closing" are WP articals so the edit should be in those not here.
• Thomas Playford did not implement the measures.
• The edit sensationalises the artical and is biased.
• There is no need to state why Adelaide was conservative.
• The edit is "silly" and a "mission against Playford".

My grounds for keeping the edit:

• There is no mention elsewhere that Playfords policies resulted in the name wowser being widely applied to the state.
• The edit gives insight into Playford as a person and the extent of Adelaide's conservatism under his leadership.
• Although Playford did not implement the measures he supported them and resisted pressure for change from both the public and his own party.
• The edit is relevant historical context of what was a major social issue at the time.
• The edit is a statement of fact and (I hope) NPOV.

Should the edit be reinstated or not? If not, comment on whether it should it be included (with modifications to suit) in another article (ie:such as Adelaide or South Australia) would be appreciated. 10:36, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

You added a notable quotes section with one quote about Playford, intending to ridicule him about the laws because of how bizarre it seems in a modern context. Then afterwards you decided to expand on this and sensationalise the text, which already showed that there was a lack of social reform under the Playford Government. I fail to see how this is anything but biased editing. michael ^talk 11:26, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

How does the quote ridicule him? It was notable because of context and gave a more human view of Playford that is lacking in the article which I thought is rather clinical. Many bios have similar quotes and they are not reverted despite numerous attempts because they were actually said and verifiable. I didn't even ask for the quote to be replaced (although I thought it of interest and relevant) as a compromise to your views yet you still attack me for it.

I lived under those laws and to me they are just part of our history and no different than many laws we still have today. I might call the laws inapropriate for the times but never bizarre. Just because they were repealed doesn't mean they should not be mentioned.

In what way was the edit biased? It is factual verifiable information on an issue of historical importance. Maybe I am wrong and it is not relevant enough to be in the article, which is why it is RFC but it is not biased as far as I can see.

You accuse me of intentially ridiculing Playford and sensationalising the text. I suggest you assume good faith as I did for your revert. I tried to discuss the edit with you but apart from the initial message informing me you had reverted the edit the rest of the messages were accusations, which is why I brought it here rather than continue to discuss the issue with you. I will leave it in the hands of the WP community. Wayne 15:35, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry Wayne, I support Michael's reversion of your additions, which were anecdotal and un-encyclopædic. Furthermore, the inclusion of a quotes section as trivia is something to be avoided in all articles, let alone a featured one. --cj | talk 16:36, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your input cj. I have no problem with leaving the quote out. I included it mainly as it had (I thought) relevance. I thought it was normal to include this type of quote as it is identical in type to other quotes included in WP articals for other Australian politicians.
I'm not sure if I understand what you mean by anecdotal and un-encyclopædic for the actual edit though as it still has the same style and content as the original paragraph. I only added a few important? facts not found anywhere else to the text, the wowser statement I added to the first sentence was something often mentioned in newspapers from the late 60's to mid 70's which i assume would have made it notable. Regards Wayne 04:05, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Quick query

Any reason in particular why an FA article has a lead devoid of in-line citations? Timeshift 15:18, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

This probably isn't the place to ask, but since you have: There's no hard-fast rule against it, and there are many reviewers who actually request cites in leads. My personal view, as in academia, is that citations are not needed in the introduction as it is a summary of the article, where the cites are more appropriate.--cj | talk 15:52, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

The whole article is rather light on them actually. 45 for the whole article. That's probably something that should be looked into. --Falcorian ^(talk) 05:51, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

why is this featured??

45 sources for are 50+ paragraph article? im not an expert in-wikipedia policies, but citations that low for a featured article is rarely seen....for good reason. and that's not the worst part! the included sources are drawn from only THREE BOOKS...and...err..one internet citation. over-dependence on few sources hinders credibility, and thus i must share my opinion that this article does not meet featured status requirements. then again, im not really an expert...:D just thought i should give my 2 cents. cheers Wikifan12345 (talk) 08:51, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

It is easy to ask for more references and a greater variety of them, but it is not so easy to do such a thing. Playford led a state of one million. Books on him are not legion, they are few. I would think it best not to judge, if one is to judge at all, before viewing the facts on the ground. Michael ^talk 13:59, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

well i believe that's more of a notability issue. three books and 45 sources for a long "featured" article is absurd. Wikifan12345 (talk) 21:33, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. As you said, there are 45 sources for around 50 paragraphs, which means there is one source per paragraph. That is actually very common on featured articles, particularly on less-notable topics. That said, it is not the quantity of references that counts, but the quality, reliability, and verifiability of references, as well as factual accuracy. Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 21:45, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

yes but if each paragraph simple contained one verifiable fact that's acceptable, but these are 10 sentence paragraphs. do you honestly believe a single source is sufficient to support many facts? the sourcing is redundant since it's all from the same books. we might as well just post the book and ditch the article. not to mention this article is very hard to critique when the references are from books are not available on the internet. 3 books and one internet source is not sufficient, definitely not for a featured status article. Wikifan12345 (talk) 21:57, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

For a simple answer to your question: yes, I do think that it is possible for one page of a book to support an entire paragraph. And books are actually encouraged to be used as sources, more so in some cases than internet sources. Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 02:38, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

maybe, but i cant find a single featured status article with such low source count and lack of ref diversity. unless im told the "committee" actually researched and went through each listed source and made sure it connected with the material, ill continue to protest. aside from that, i still dont see anything spectacular about the article (in terms of prose, mechanics, grammar, etc). makes me wonder why this article was chosen as one of the "best" in wikipedia. eh? Wikifan12345 (talk) 06:15, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, five people as well as the FA director determined that the article is one of the best in Wikipedia, just less than a year and a half ago. Before we continue to repeat ourselves over and over, is there any fact in the article that you actually question and believe needs to be verified? If not, I don't see what the problem is here. Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 14:19, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Everyone's a critic. Is there actually something in there that needs a cite? When I did my South Australian state election, 2006 FA I was told FAs needed a minimum of 30 refs. I also note this article seemed to pass the standards of the FA reviewers of the time. Timeshift (talk) 06:50, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

For a specific unverified fact, look down in the next section - the claim that Playford was the longest elected leader in the Commonwealth was wrong (and was quickly fixed once the article went onto the WP front page). This is what can happen when you don't have many sources, and most of them are old. This is not to diss Michael's excellent work - presumably be bought or borrowed all 4 books (not 3 as claimed by Wikifan12345), read them, then rewrote the article, which is probably more effort (and expense) than goes into many FAs, so all kudos to him. But perhaps 5 different sources (those 4 plus one internet ref), is not enough for a FA. Maybe a couple of years ago, but not now. Peter Ballard (talk) 07:02, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

This is ludicrous. Those resources are four books. Books are infinitely better resources than the websites which get relied on for many FAs these days, and since, y'know, they contain more information, more information can be sourced to them, hence less need for tons of website sources. We should be using this article as an example to follow. Rebecca (talk) 08:15, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, we would have liked to have had more recent sources to draw upon when writing the Playford article but considering he retired from politics in the 1960s, there is not a lot of recent sources to reference. Playford already has a number of thorough biographies written about thim, which doesn't leave much for the contemporary biographer to cover. --Roisterer (talk) 02:24, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Rebecca, that wasn't my only complaint. There is over 50 paragraphs and only 45 ref for the entire article. Do you honestly believe a single paragraph can be verified with only one source? And make that 50 consecutive times in a row? Wikifan12345 (talk) 20:23, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Er, yes. I'm getting the feeling that you're not a big reader. It's not only acceptable to cite sections to biographies, but it's a much, much better idea than using tertiary sources - which Wikipedians are more used to using than they should be because good secondary sources often don't exist on the sorts of topics Wikipedians try to get featured. Rebecca (talk) 04:49, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

u still didn't answer my question. i find it hard to believe that the o.a managed to verify 50 consecutive paragraphs with one source for each paragraph. Wikifan12345 (talk) 18:04, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikifan12345, you are obviously not understanding what we are trying to say. In short, a book contains far more accurate and legitimate information than a website, and thus can be sourced to an entire paragraph, rather than the 10+ per paragraph that we are used to seeing in FAs such as Barack Obama and Global warming. If you still do not understand and honestly do not think this article meets the criteria, feel free to take it to WP:FAR, as arguing in circles here is doing nothing to help. Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 18:15, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

It should be in better shape now. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 08:28, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Longest Commonwealth leader?

An observant editor noted that this claim was incorrect, and that Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore was elected leader longer (31 years). It occurs to me that Robert Mugabe has also been a commonwealth leader longer. I wouldn't be surprised if there were others. In the absence of a definite up-to-date list, maybe we should remove the claim?! Or just say it was the longest "at the time"? Thoughts? Peter Ballard (talk) 10:37, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually he's not even the longest serving premier in the Commonwealth - that would be George Henry Murray of Nova Scotia at 9683 days. Playford was in for a measley 9653 days. Quartermain (talk) 10:49, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. When I wrote the original article for Playford (which has been greatly improved upon from my poor effort) all the research stated that Playford was the longest serving leader in the Commonwealth. I eventually found that a former Belgian PM served longer but I was fairly confident that there was no one in the Commonwealth served longer. Then the article spends 24 hours on the front page and we find he's down to fourth. --Roisterer (talk) 04:24, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

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Generational numbering revisited

This isn't to continue the conversation of 13 years ago, but to open discussion on the format of the numbering itself. Tom was of course never known as Thomas Playford IV, since Australians have never taken up the practice followed by some families in the US.

To avoid American readers inferring that he was known as Thomas Playford IV, could the article be titled "Thomas Playford (IV)"? And similarly, "...(I)" and "...(II)" for his progenitors?

Or would these titles suit, with or without the numbers?: • Thomas Playford (I), 19th century preacher • Thomas Playford (II), 19th century South Australian premier • Thomas Playford (IV), 20th century South Australian premier.

Just a thought. SCHolar44 (talk) 04:21, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

1915 Photo

There is something wrong with this photo caption - in particular describing him as a Lt in 1915. Firstly, there are no (visible) badges of rank, secondly the uniform is not an officers' uniform, but a private soldiers', and thirdly the "info" of the original photo (State Library of SA - surely a reliable source) states that he was not promoted to Lt until 1919. I suggest changing it to something like "Playford in 1915, as a member of the 27th Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force".Baska436 (talk) 09:40, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Makes sense. The Drover's Wife (talk) 10:35, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Stewart Cockburn

What is Cockburn's standing as an historian? I've not read his book, but some of the assertions repeated in this article (". . . dragged Australian soldiers from the beds of Egyptian prostitutes") would make Frank Clune or George Blaikie envious.Doug butler (talk) 22:12, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

I think it'd be good to take a look at the book to really know what context these kind of claims were said in. Beneaththelandslide was a brilliant editor for his time, but our editorial standards have changed a lot since those days, and as his once-FA standard work is getting flagged for review people are picking up some issues. More broadly: I'm mainly familiar with Cockburn in the context of Don Dunstan, who (as far as I understand) he loathed and is generally viewed by Dunstan's supporters as being somewhat big on the hatchet-job. I'd probably side-eye any controversial claims he had to make about Dunstan that weren't backed up about other sources, but I'm not aware more broadly. The best thing I could find to give a generalised context is his obit in The Advertiser, which praises him for doing a bunch of important serious journalism but also suggests he had a tendency for "campaigning". The Drover's Wife (talk) 23:39, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

"Tom Playford" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Tom Playford and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 October 23#Tom Playford until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 01:45, 23 October 2022 (UTC)