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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3→Archive 5

Cleanup

This template requires a lot of cleanup! So far its just all the fields from all 3 major templates mushed together into one. It all needs sorting and working out! I dont think we should be attempting to maintain backwards compadibilty, or it will get very messy! --TheJosh 22:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for moving the template to its own page. As I suggested earlier, I put this together merely as a starting point so there is probably plenty of cleaning that can be done. I feel it is not an issue having all the fields "mushed" together in the actual code because this is not apparent in the final template anyway. If we specify which fields are to be used for cities, suburbs, and towns - as is done on the template page - consistency in the use of the template should be maintained. Backwards compatability was put in for some fields to make template changeover easier, I agree it would be simpler not having it but feel that its not worth the extra work at changeover (unless people are willing to change all the field names in such articles). I look forward to seeing further development of the template. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 23:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I still think having say, 2 population fields, is crazy...TheJosh 00:22, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I do too. If there's someone that wants to change "population" fields to "pop" (or vice-versa) in all the articles that use it then we can remove one... ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 02:43, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Of course we have to remember that all these articles will need their infoboxes changed over anyway, if your gonna change one thing you might as well change a few, and if we add or remove fields that should be updatd in the client pages as well...This will be a good chance to cleanup various infoboxes for many articles, and having a double-standard will become horrible TheJosh 04:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Just had a brilliant idea. Why dont we make a bot that:
  • Finds articles using out infoboxes
  • Replaces existing infoboxes with new Infobox Australian Place, keeping all infomation intact
Brilliant, eh? --TheJosh 05:11, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Don't know too much about bots but it sounds like the way to go. Great idea. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 08:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm with scharks on this one. Orderinchaos 09:47, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't like the pink with the purple text on the Mt Barker boxSauliH 05:05, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Colours are easy to change, their right up the top of the template source. TheJosh 07:16, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Quick one - I changed the Suburb template (as there's only 20 or so pages using it) so the fields where possible have the same name as the Town template, and added a few optional fields from the Perth one. I thought this would make sense for when a bot or whatever ultimately changes them all across to this one.

Im assuming you changed the articles as well? And while im here, i have begun work on the bot --TheJosh 10:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Yep, all except Ingle Farm and Para Hills which I'll do first thing in the morning. (Damn real life getting in the way :P) Orderinchaos 19:36, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Ah thanks for taking care of those :) Makes life nice and easy! Orderinchaos 04:48, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Field Suggestions

For each suggestion, add a subheading so we can argue cleanly

Type

Perhaps a type param that alters the colour of the box or something. see {{Template:Infobox musical artist}}, background field. probably with a different name. types: 'c', 't' and 's'.

What dirrerent lga types are there? All I can think of is council. If this was to be added, we would have to have the word 'lga' replaced with the type so it would say Council: Mount Barker...TheJosh 05:37, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
What I was proposing was that just as you have a 'city', 'town', or 'suburb' type of display, you could also have a fourth which would be for 'Local Government area'. In other words a direct replacemnt of Template:Austlocalgovtarea. Many of the fields have commonality with LGA's. pop, area, seat, state, electorates, image (for council coat of arms). SauliH 05:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Ah ok. firstly, 'city,town,suburb', wasnt going to display, but simply affect the background color. secondly, wont that make our template even more complex? i dunno...it should be argued properly...could work... TheJosh 05:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
In WA there is Shire, Town and City. Shire = under 20,000 OR no population centre (eg some outer urban ones), Town is under 20,000 with a pop centre (like Bunbury before 1979, or several western suburban councils today like Town of Claremont) and City is over 20,000 and has a population centre. In some cases (Narrogin comes to mind) there is a Shire AND Town with the same name. I reckon it's not that important what it is that we need to have a heading for it, and in cases like Narrogin one could have Narrogin (Shire) or something. There's also the Aboriginal corporations which have the status of LGAs Orderinchaos 05:58, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Oh, I did not expect to see the terms 'city town etc'. just that certain fields will display for certain types of places. Since I do not follow the technicalities of template design too well, I may be misunderstanding how this will work. Will people still have the freedom to enter 'nearby suburbs' for a town article? I wouldn't think so because it is pertinent only to suburb type articles. Am I wrong?SauliH 06:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
No all freedom will still be provided. the idea is to change sya, the title background color according to type. --TheJosh 06:15, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
If that is the case, include one for LGASauliH 06:24, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Really depends if we want to mearge with lga infoboxes. see bottom of this topic.
I have added type so we can get a feel for it, see if we like the idea. options: city, town orsuburb. No value results in original blue.
  • I don't think colours are a good idea – they tend not to have any significance. Also, I'm unsure about accomodating for LGA use in this infobox. If we did, I think it would be necessary to ensure that certain parameters only display when LGA type is specified; for example, Mayor.--cj | talk 03:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment type should be used to turn some content on and off, but not all. It would still be useful to be able to, if need be to create a box that services 2 different content types.

Climate

Subheading "Climate" with three climate fields next to each other (ie 3 columns), Annual Mean Maximum Temp and Annual Mean Minimum Temp, Annual rainfall.

Look at the suburb template on this page... imagine where it says 'Suburbs near Elizabeth' it said 'Climate' with three headings under Max, Min, Rain, and replace the 3 Elizabeths with the data. That is what I mean. nice and compact.
What is the standard practice with showing different units of measurement in wikipedia (ie where a temp is shown as say a Min of 0 celcius, and in parentheses next to it you would have the F equiv (32) - 0C (32F), 33m (100ft). Is this discouraged? SauliH 06:01, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
This infobox is targeted at Australia. Units should be in Metric (and be managed by the infobox, editors should only add values)
A little experementation. Look at User:TheJosh/Play2 it is technically possible to calcualte deg F from deg C --TheJosh 06:16, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Since wikipedia is global - I am an Australian living in the USA - could we do this to make it readable globally... I know that we Aussies love to stick it to the yanks, but if it can be done, why not?
What I would propose if someone would want to tackle it, is that as the data is entered, with the units type entered also, the template would convert depending on the data to the opposite unit of measure, and display in parentheses. SauliH 06:32, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
While mabey possible (although ParserFunctions is fairly limited, its defidently not Turing Complete) in my humble opinion, celcius should always be the primary unit of temprature in this infobox, because it is an Australian infobox. TheJosh 06:39, 25 October 2006 (UTC) (and yes i am addiced to wikifying links)
I don't think there would be any danger of Fahrenheit taking precedence over Celcius. If it made the computation and algorithmic design easier, just presume that all units are Cent, meters, mm etc, and the conversion could be made.
I guess my point is, that when I was in Oz, and reading an American text, with feet inches etc, I would always need to do the math. What do others think of this?SauliH 06:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Automatically determineing the units would be difficult, wheres forcing the values in the infobox to a unit and calculating the other is easy. lets do that. --TheJosh 07:07, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Good idea. I've put up a quick nasty example here of what it could look like. Orderinchaos 07:37, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I like the way your quick nasty version looks. Just abbreviate the terms metres etc. All in one row will not work for space I don't think - now that I see itSauliH 13:21, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I abbreviated the feet etc to shorten the line. I think it could workSauliH 05:09, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
What about superscripts for the imperial units...a but smaller. --TheJosh 09:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Nice! Of course, if one ofthe fields were missing, it should not show that column...with that i change my vote to Strong support --TheJosh 11:57, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Support I love the climate box. Adjust if field missing... but I cannot imagine the BOM missing one of these details.SauliH 13:40, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Support Very nice indeed Scharks! :) Orderinchaos

I'm neutral with regards to climate parameters. I can see it being useful, but it's also not necessary.--cj | talk 03:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Elevation

I have updated User talk:Orderinchaos/Temperature to show how other type-conversion fields could be implemented, i hope you dont mind Orderinchaos! --TheJosh 10:22, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I have updated User talk:Orderinchaos/Temperature also with abbreviated units. I hope you dont mind Orderinchaos!!!!SauliH 05:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
That's fine guys, it's a playpen anyway :) It was only really chucked up as a quick nasty, it'll get speedy deleted when this is all done. As a complete aside, I'm not sure I'd want to live in Woop Woop :D Orderinchaos 09:35, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Fields we will not add

  • Bus / Train / Shops
  • Telephone exchange

Field Removals

For each suggestion, add a subheading so we can argue cleanly

Fields removed

  • Coordinates (use coor dm and/or coor title dm and/or Mapit-AUS in body instead)
  • LGA field Austborn
  • LGA field Indigenous Origin

Mayor

I think mayor shouldnt be in this template because it has to do with the council area, not the town explicitly.

Conditional Support If a LGA area article exists for the locale, then I say Support. Otherwise Oppose for reason given by Orderinchaos.SauliH 06:20, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
So you would like to see it show mayor, only if the lga field does not exist?
Hmmm, I was thinking more along the lines of 'policy of usage' then of the template reacting... that would make sense though.SauliH 06:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Yep same. i.e. It normally doesn't get filled in at all but if the need arises it can be. Orderinchaos 19:41, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Should only be available for LGA use. It is incorrect to use it for other types.--cj | talk 03:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I have come around to this view myself. Conditional support for all except LGA (note Shire of Cuballing :)) Orderinchaos 22:52, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Property values

Not sure what the point is of this field, and not sure how much 'encyclopedic' value there is to including it... I can be convinced - but I would like to see other fields included before this one.

  • Nominate and withholding opinion till after discussionSauliH 05:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
  • weak oppose i have used it before, its easier that going to a dedicated website. TheJosh 05:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
  • As per Saulih. It's very important for suburbs, quite irrelevant for all except a few towns (may be useful for exceptional cases) Downside is how often they have to be kept up to date - usually every 3 months they all need changing. Orderinchaos 05:58, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak Oppose - Should be used for suburbs only. If this goes forward we should also agree on one national source for property values to maintain consistency. Also will need to quote the date of the valuation, which should hopefully mean that the values do not have to be updated so frequently. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 08:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
domain.com.au has a per-postcode listing of properyt values, and i think you can access it per suburb too. see Template:Infobox Town AU that template generates the link automatically from the postcode.

I wouldn't be sad to see it removed. If it is retained, it should be for use on suburbs only.--cj | talk 03:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Establishment dates

Every locale develops differently, and has its own story. I would drop the current field. If others want it, please change it to be more specific, ie date town gazetted, first recorded date of town name usage. It could be useful if framed better.

On some of the ones I've been working on recently, there seems to be very little formality about when a town arises, and the gazettal date can be decades after the fact. In at least two cases of which I'm aware a town has actually been gazetted several times under different names for different purposes. Orderinchaos 23:29, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Population estimate and Population estimate year

Currently "city" type infoboxes are using the population_estimate field for population data rather than the pop field used in town and suburb infoboxes. To maintain consistency the pop field should be used for all infoboxes. The population_estimate_year field could also be removed as it can be covered by the referenced data source. I know this doesn't affect many infoboxes but does reduce the number of fields to manage in the code. It would also be good to see population_estimate_rank renamed to pop_rank and population_density to pop_density, but this probably me being pedantic :)

I personally like having the rank although it would be a pain to update when the rankings change. I think I'll go ahead and make the changes I outlined above as it should not alter the appearance of the infobox anyway. Hopefully the bot can handle the changes. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 08:16, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
The bot can handle anything... TheJosh
  • Support removal of rank and density. The list is getting long, and if we are to chop anything, these would be the first two of the remainder that I would see go.SauliH 16:34, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Support removal of rank and density - density is only meaningful for LGAs and hard to work out anyway. Rank can only be worked out for major cities--Grahamec 12:26, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Locator_x / Locator_y

The pic of Australia

These are fields that cause a red dot to be overlaid at the x and y position of the image, Image:City locator blank-MJC.png. It is used by Aust City, but was only used in 5 articles. (ex: Wangaratta, Victoria) do we need this?

Timezone (city)

Why do we need this? Isn't it a detail of the state? Also check-out User Talk:TheJosh/Play, where I made a version which automatically calculates the time zone according to the state (when type=city)

  • Nominate and Support: as outlined above --TheJosh 12:34, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Question so you are proposing that instead of editing the time in with each infobox, the time would be automatically included via your version? I would support that. I am weak oppose about removing the field outright. So if you do include it, save us some typing and the chance of mistake, and auto-include the timezone.SauliH 16:39, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
That is what User:TheJosh/Play does. See and play with the example at User Talk:TheJosh/Play --TheJosh 02:55, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
I have made another suggestiong for this problem, have a look There...--TheJosh 05:34, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Merge of lga infoboxes

Should we merge lga infoboxes such as Template:Austlocalgovtarea with this template?

  • Support - one template to monitor and rule them all. Many of the data fields are common SauliH 06:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Nuteraluntil swayed - makes some logic sence, but harder to implement, although if we make a template-replace bot, then that would ease that strain a bit. TheJosh 06:41, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Support I have changed my mind, after some thinking. If we do this, then a town like Cuballing, Western Australia which is its own lga (and there is no point in having an lga page) the infobox on that page can contain both town infomation and lga infomation. Of course, this would widen our scope quite a bit...
  • Weak Support - Good idea, but I'm unsure of how much extra work it will take to implement (a bot would help). It is probable that the appearance will be very different than it is now for the LGA infoboxes, however the proposed "type" field may help. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 08:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I was thinking of making a bot that would convert pages using the current 6 or so templates that are in use over to this one, so extending that to also the lga templates would be a no-issue. TheJosh 09:07, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
All Adelaide LGAs and most SA regional LGAs have LGA infoboxes. I put a lot of them in, like the Adelaide Hills Council one :) ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 09:19, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
It appears that their is some form of support for this merge...The only problem is, what to merge? Some of the fields seem over the top, such as austborn, asti and seat...TheJosh 09:26, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
We need to add a note at the pertinent LGA template talk pages of our proposal to make a change.
I propose we drop some of the 'over the top' stuff - see above. The 'seat' is one I would leave in. It shows what typically is the center of commerce in the area, and where offices are located. SauliH 13:07, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I can, youll see it in a few hours --TheJosh 07:09, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
I've also been having a play, and trying to get all four types of boxes a little cleaner. Have a look here. If everyone likes it I'll update it to the main template. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 22:42, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Well I think it looks great. Keep up the good work.SauliH 22:48, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I know someone will probably spit the dummy, but i have used the infobox, the irony being its for an lga, the last feature that we added...District Council of Mount Barker. Looks good except the whitespace at the bottom...TheJosh 02:05, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Do you think we can finalise the infobox as it is now and start using it for new articles? Based on the number of posts lately it seems that there is not much left to discuss. Any other minor changes could then be made after it is "official". ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 06:51, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
If the glitches are out which I presume they are, I would say go for it. SauliH 14:30, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Sources of figures

Certain fields such as population should have a mandatory requirement for a source. Information can vary significantly depending on where it was obtained, so it is important to state where the figures come from. Not only is important that we have the right fields in the infobox but also that the information within them is factually correct. It may be worth listing such fields individually and discussing these requirements, or am I opening a Pandora's Box? ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 00:22, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

This is a great idea if the information can be easily sourced. ie online lookupSauliH 03:17, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Population can be looked up from the ABS website under "State Suburbs" or for out of town areas "Urban Centres and Localities", although it should always be noted that the population is correct as of 2001. The 2006 stats won't be available until November 2007. Any other estimate could be unreliable as everyone tries to talk up their population to sound big (especially developers and local councils.) These are arduous to look up but I have made collections of a few so they're on my hard drive categorised in a more useful fashion.
Does it have postcode lookup? If so we can automatically reference it like prop val in Template:Infobox Town AU --TheJosh 10:04, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Not from what I can see, best option is quickstats from the search page. Town, suburb and LGA population data all available. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 11:58, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Appears to be accurate to a single postcode, but way to much infomation to take in at a single glance. Personally i still like population estimates, easy to collect and well recognised...TheJosh 12:04, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
All of the ones I've been doing, I just take the figure from page 18 of the basic community profile in excel. What I've actually done is downloaded *all* of them and then repackaged them into zips like "N1-Inner North", "N2-Mid North" etc, or used main suburb names when I don't know the place too well (i.e. Adelaide). If you want the Adelaide one I've already made up, I could probably get it to you (it's 40.5 MB all up) Strangely, the good people at ABS never bothered to compile suburbs for QLD so postcode level info is the best you can get for Bris/Gold Coast etc. Orderinchaos 12:08, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
And then you get small cities like Bunbury, Albany, Wagga etc where the entire metro is one postcode :S Orderinchaos 31 Oct 2006
Lat/long can be obtained from Geoscience Australia
Altitude __anyone know?___
Property value I think state REI then domain in that order (domain is postcode only). (domain have just massively upgraded their data provision to be suburb/locality based. however, REI figures more reliable where available, so use domain when REI not available. Orderinchaos 11 November 2006)
Climate in many cases are on BOM.
Hope this helps :) Orderinchaos 09:32, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Climate will only be available for those locales that have long time weather records. Are we to take some 'editor's licence and use neighboring weather station's data for locales with an explanatory note that the data comes from 'xyz' locale. Or do we strictly only post climate data for the locale that has the weather station. I somehow feel we could do both - where towns/suburbs are neighboring closely and the liklihood of similar climate is high, but avoiding it where there is going to be a big difference (eg coastal towns vs country, sea level towns vs altitude towns, remote towns where nearest neighbor is 250 km away, forested towns vs clearcut towns). But that is presuming that I or others know climate and after listing the examples of the differences that could occur, I lean more towards a strict usage of the climate data, with maybe the only exception being neighboring suburbs.SauliH 14:20, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Maybe note where the data is for if not the locale? I think having it for suburbs is a bit silly when we only have data for, say, 5-10 suburbs in each of Perth and Adelaide and a proportionate number in larger centres. It would be sufficient I think to have it on Town and City pages. Orderinchaos 08:26, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Check this out, lga searchign and stuff, and maps! TheJosh 08:20, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Distance a great source that I will enter in to the table is travelmate.com. I recently completed a spreadsheet of driving distances for all towns and suburbs in SA from major locations - Adelaide, Port Augusta, Ceduna, Broken Hill, Mt Gambier, Renmark, and Alice Springs NT. Very useful.SauliH 21:04, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Bot

I would just like to say that i will make a bot for this merge, and as a result, we can change the fields in this future infobox as much as we want, coz the bot will map the old field names to the new field names, and will generally work everything out for us. Any syggestions would be helpful... TheJosh 07:13, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Im going to have all fields that get discared, and their values, listed in the talk page for altered articles, so that real users can add the data to the prose. also, work has begun on the script, it can currently download an article, take out its infobox and get the param names and values from it...TheJosh 21:29, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Sounds excellent. Keep up the good work. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 21:53, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

How is the progress on the Bot going? I think the time for template changeover is nearing... ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 21:53, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm waiting approval. (do you know anyone in the bots approval team?) I am going to do some tests on my personal wiki (http://josher.byethost8.com/wiki/) once the code is complete. TheJosh 08:00, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't know anyone on the team. Looks like we'll have to wait it out :( ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 08:20, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
And sadly I couldn't get it to log into my wiki, appears the server its on (not mine) is weirdly set up, so there goes my leverage for a quick approval...The bot is almost done though, it can log on, check its talk page for commands, load a page in edit mode, phase its html, phase the wiki-text to find an appropriate box and create the new box using params from the old one. The only thing it is missing is the virtual click of the save button, which I cant add till I get approval...TheJosh 09:35, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Special cases

ACT - Districts

I noticed the Canberra suburb template is up for replacement. Theres one thing that may not have been considered, ACT doesnt have LGAs (the territory govt does most things a LG would) but it DOES have districts. These being Canberra, Belconnen, Gungahlin, Weston Creek, Woden and Tuggeranong (queanbeyan is part of NSW but is part of canberra so is covered by canberra infobox also). is there any way to have district represented as a field or something for ACT? cheers. 220.235.3.35 04:43, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Tricky! :) I think new fields for specific cases are a bad idea (we already have a few but they're general and widespread enough to be widely relevant). One possibility is modification of the #if for LGA| to have a line saying "act = District:" but this doesn't cover Queanbeyan (which is in NSW but in every sense a dormitory suburb for Canberra, being closer to the CBD than Tuggeranong). I would recommend this solution given that there is no case ever in which ACT will have an LGA, but it just means Canberra people having to fill in the LGA field with the district knowing it will turn out right. Another possibility is to have none at all and treat the district as a city, so we have for example "Stirling" "Weston Creek, Australian Capital Territory" at the top. Any other ideas welcome :)
Update: Queanbeyan City Council is an LGA so we probably don't need to treat it any differently to any other NSW area, as it will be blindingly clear that it is Queanbeyan. Orderinchaos 04:55, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
We can do a district thing when state = 'act', or just dont have any lga infomation for act, or set the lga infomaiton to 'canberra'. We have to remember that the act really is pathetic and only exists for political reasons coz they couldnt pic between sydney and melb. (and chose a spot 1/2 way between the 2...) --TheJosh 05:08, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Haha... Um, I'm not sure my (ex-Perth-and-Melbourne) Canberra mates would appreciate that comment :P In political terms there's probably nowhere more shafted than the ACT - they have the fairest system in the country (alongside Tasmania) for electing their government, but the Federal Government can strike down any legislation it doesn't like, and they have less federal MPs per head of pop than anywhere else yet get blamed for everything. Anyway - that belongs elsewhere. :) On looking at the coding for LGA it seems that adding one mere line of code would fix the problem. I might copy Stirling to my userspace and have a play. Orderinchaos(t|c) 05:14, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
{{ #ifexpr: }} is your solution. TheJosh 05:22, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Just created two options treating it as an LGA and treating it as a city. The latter one actually causes some unforeseen problems as there's no page listing suburbs for each district, for instance.
Can we use the region field for these districts? That would obviously make things easier! ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 22:37, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Treating it as an LGA, with the term lga renamed to district for act, as long as the title-bar only contains the state (isnt that how it works at the moment?) TheJosh 09:21, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Isnt district just the name for an lga in the ACT, like council in SA and shire in WA? Shouldnt we just treat the districts as lgas? TheJosh 22:02, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

No districts are not just the name for LGA in Canberra - unlike the rest of Australia we have only two tiers of government. Districts are not quite as fixed either though there is usual concensus but Inner South and Inner North can sometimes be merged into Central .... Districts have no standing, they are useful ways of dividing up the city. There are electorates at state level and the boundaries are regularly redefined - three electorates but aligned to suburb boundaries [1]--Golden Wattle talk 22:32, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
PS I do find the comments above about Canberra offensive even if made in jest--Golden Wattle talk 22:37, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Sorry --TheJosh 23:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Yep, beat me to it :P It's more of a "supersuburb" and is used in urban planning and navigation. An approximation would be the satellite city of Elizabeth in Adelaide, but an entire metropolitan area made up of those (obviously the distinctions fade a bit over time due to population increases). Orderinchaos 22:51, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Why dont we just not have any lga data for these suburbs then? Because fields are optional, if the ACT does not have LGAs then dont use that field. TheJosh 23:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Because, for example "Stirling" makes little sense at all to anybody, whereas "Weston Creek" does. Some sound similar or are easy to mix up. Also, districts are already marked on (nearly?) all Canberra articles anyway.

Cocos, Christmas, Norfolk, others

Territories which have their own pages are going to be interesting - they don't have a state. While some would argue Cocos (see also shire) and Christmas Island (see shire belong to WA, they don't - they are administered by DOTARS which provides state-like services on behalf of the Minister for Territories, but each has an elected shire council. They vote for the Federal Member for Lingiari and for NT Senate candidates but can't vote in WA state elections. Much the same is true of Norfolk Island. There's been proposals to change this into an NT-like Indian Ocean Territory and Norfolk Island Territory but I don't see either happening. Anyway, the issue is, no state.

(Note Torres Strait (QLD) and Lord Howe Island (NSW) are fine as they are part of the state in question, and all others are effectively unpopulated and can be treated as Australian geographical features) Orderinchaos 16:32, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

The state field isnt an entireley accurate field anyway. it already has N.T. and A.C.T., as well as provisoin for expansion, because you can give it an abitary value ie State=Christmas Island while not technically accurate, it forfills the pourpose of the field correctly. --TheJosh 05:00, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Have a look at User_talk:TheJosh/Play2 Its called data links.

What are peoples thoughts? --TheJosh 00:38, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Good feature. It allows for a few possibilities - it's #Demographics in some, #Geography in others and in still others it's the only reference to the population on the page. Orderinchaos 06:03, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
So does it automatically detect if a section in the article contains the heading 'Population, or does it get entered as a parameter? Either way it is a neat addition. One question though. Is there anyway to link to the Nairne census page at the ABS website? Or are we doing this another way?SauliH 04:29, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Currently it doesnt automatically detect a section, but this may be possible. One thing we could do is have the template insert a <ref> tag automatically, which refers to the abs website in the <references/> section. TheJosh 05:11, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Just looked at that link. With rationalisation I got it down to ___ (gotta love these autogenerated messy system thingies! :)). The key is UCL418200 (UCL = urban locality), changing it to SSC51011 (state suburb) for example gives Alfred Cove while POA6230 (postcode) gives Bunbury. This parameter could be coded in as an optional field. Orderinchaos 06:00, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Looks good - though wouldn't it be better to use the key as above, to allow for suburbs and localities which can be a lot more specific than postcode? (I know of one extreme example in Perth where dire levels of poverty and a wealthy coastal estate of about equal population exist in the same postcode). Orderinchaos 07:46, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree with this. Population of Nairne by locality = 2,777, however population by postcode = 4,294. I would assume population by locality is more relevant. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 08:07, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Sadly the abs website is not very automation-friendly, and in my opinion, has too muct infomation at a glance for an area, its too confusing, even if we get the right codes. TheJosh 08:16, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Does the ABS publish a list of their locality codes? It could be a mini project for one of us to go through and eneter the numbers at some point in the future. While the ABS does provide a load of data on one page, someone who is going to use the link, may very well be on top of their statistics and can navigate the 'confusion'. I do think it adds a lot to be directed to THE page that the data is located on, rather than a search page generic to any locality. You have shown us that it can be done, I say we put the capability in to generate the link. Oh, and I agree that it should be the locality code, not the postcode. SauliH 05:50, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
I have a list for metropolitan Adelaide, Perth and Wollongong. Orderinchaos 10:53, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
I originally thought of data links for linking to a section in the article. If we were to have abs links, it would be better to only tell the infobox the abs code, and let the infobox build the link from there. We could even use PF somehow, to, if the value begins with # do as an internal link, if it begins with UCL make into a link to abs. --TheJosh 21:25, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
This idea has a lot of merit. With potentially thousands of pages, a change in the addressing structure at the ABS, could mean days of editing URL's (of course a bot could be built to). Chances are high though, that they will retain the codes regardless of website upgrades. It would be simple then to change the template code, and instantly the links are updated. In fact this method has a lot of merit for all standardised website sthat are used as links. BOM is like this. Maybe it could be designed for other links also. SauliH 02:50, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Distance to neighboring town etc

On the guideline it has for this field it has distance to another location (range: 1-5). What is meant by 'range 1-5'. We need an explanation of this, and how it should be entered with the actual number of kms. I am not sure but does it mean that the '#' symbol is replaced by the 1-5 number? And what is the definition of the '1' or the '5'. We should detail this better.SauliH 21:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

There are 10 fields, but only 2 listed for space reasons:
  • dist1
  • dist2
  • dist3
  • dist4
  • dist5
  • location1
  • location2
  • location3
  • location4
  • location5
The dist/locaition fields must be used in a pair (such as dist1 with location1 or dist4 with location4) --TheJosh 05:02, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Yeah so you might have dist1 = 30|location1 = [[Perth, Western Australia|Perth]] or something. I think it is useful, as in the snapshot view it tells you where the place is right away. While this information can theoretically be enclosed in the prose (as can anything else), I ask anyone how Nannup - a rare example that actually needs all 5 - could be done in prose without being confusing. Orderinchaos 17:52, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree that this info is good in a snapshot infobox.SauliH 20:54, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's a particularly useful parameter in any case.--cj | talk 10:42, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

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