Template talk:Infobox Australian place/Archive 7

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Really nice feature

AussieLegend, just a note I was pleasantly surprised to see that when I fixed the {{error}} in Alpine National Park, the infobox map auto-magically changed from the whole of Australia to zoom in on Victoria. Nice! Though with Capoompeta National Park, I needed to get the numbers from the coordinates parameter {{Coord|29|23|34|S|152|00|32|E|type:landmark_region:AU-NSW|display=inline,title}} and populate the separate parameters:

| latd                   = 29
| latm                   = 23
| lats                   = 34
| longd                  = 152
| longm                  = 00
| longs                  = 32

to make the magic happen. Not sure whether there is anything else to do before it's safe to remove the deprecated coordinates parameter?

BTW, I guess no response at Talk:List of The Simpsons episodes is a good response? Seems everyone is happy with how I implemented that split. Regards, wbm1058 (talk) 16:25, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: Thanks. When I converted this infobox to use {{Infobox}} in 2013 I tried to automate as much as possible to make it easier for editors, while still allowing for some flexibility. |coordinates= is still used by a lot of articles (I have no idea how many). I'd love to see it gone but it's a big job replacing it in all the articles, and some articles, mostly LGA articles, use an image of the state with the LGA highlighted so they don't use the locator map.

Yes, The Simpsons has been pretty quiet. I thought the masses would have objected to such a significant change. Ironically, at Talk:List of Vikings episodes, I'm getting grief from two editors just because I want to make some minor changes to some column widths. --AussieLegend (✉) 17:02, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

This update generated a lot of {{error}}s that I've been fixing. Note that there were

• about 40 cases

where the type was either "headland" or "peninsula" – concentrated in South Australia – and I changed them all to "other". I don't suppose that this is the only place on the continent that has headlands ;)

Also I changed one "wine region" to simply "region". wbm1058 (talk) 22:40, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

I saw similar errors. The original valid types were "city", "suburb", "town", "lga" and "region". In the past three years I've added "cadastral", "protected" and "other". Nothing else was ever valid but editors seem to think they can add anything. --AussieLegend (✉) 12:03, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm seeing someone updating a number of articles about "Bounded Localities" (LOCB) types in the SA gazetteer (and Geoscience Australia replicates it) from |type=locality to |type=other. These would in general be better converted to |type=town out of that set. Most of them once had a railway station, church and/or post office and a concentration of settlement if not a recognisable town, maybe even a gazetted town or a sheep station, and all are legal addresses now. I wonder if the "headland" type also came directly from a government gazetteer (I haven't checked them). --Scott Davis ^Talk 13:08, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

I've finished fixing the {{error}}s now: more of my edits

That would be me changing "locality" to "other": fix parameter "type" error, replaced: = locality → = other using AWB

I did replace village → town as some categories are for "villages and towns", but didn't feel comfortable doing that for all the "localities" - seemed like too vague a description, as even a simple road junction could be called a "locality".

Feel free to revert any of my changes; I've never been to Australia, but learned a lot about it from doing this exercise. Kind of reminds me of Texas: hot, and most of the people and water are in the east. 24–27 million people, concentrated in about 4 or 5 big cities: Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, San Antonio – and one big city way out at the western edge (El Paso). Except Australia is more than ten times bigger. That's awesome.

In hindsight, it might have been better to have updated the template to allow some of the common terms I found being used.

Another common term was "community", used for aboriginal communities in Western Australia. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:37, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

New South Wales, by itself, is bigger than Texas. There's some perspective. Sydney and Melbourne don't look that far apart – but about the same distance as Boston – Richmond, Virginia. wbm1058 (talk) 15:18, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Locality is a contentious term. It is defined in official sources as being a bounded area that is rural in nature, while a suburb is defined as being a a bounded area that is urban in nature. Essentially a locality is a rural suburb, so it's not really a town, especially as a locality can include, but not be exclusively, a town. Changing "locality" to "other" is really the safer option. --AussieLegend (✉) 15:35, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Keeping with my Texas analogy, and introducing an outer-space theme, I present the parish of Houston, New South Wales, which perfectly illustrates the complicated nature of "bounded areas that are rural in nature" in Australia. Whether anyone lives there, I don't know, but it is the home of the Parkes Observatory, as is the town of Alectown. I suppose the town may lie inside, or beside the parish – or is the parish inside the town? It's one of the parishes of Kennedy County, but it's also in the LGA of Parkes Shire, and the 141 Counties of New South Wales (Cadastral divisions) and 152 Local government areas of New South Wales are two different and distinct subdivisions of New South Wales. While some other Australian states don't have any fully subdivided "bounded areas that are rural in nature", hence they have a mix of bounded and unbounded areas. Do I have it right? It's interesting that such a sparsely populated state as NSW goes to the trouble of subdividing down to the parish level. Ohio, a more densely populated state (it has almost half the population of Australia and is about half the size of Victoria) has townships, e.g. Berkshire Township, Delaware County, Ohio, but Texas doesn't bother with them; in Texas counties are the smallest subdivision. Only 20 of the 50 states have townships. – wbm1058 (talk) 17:17, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

This discussion is a mess. Localities are clearly defined in each state and territory, and form a clear, easy, verifiable basis under which to cover geographical content. Cadastral divisions have minimal relevance outside of South Australia (where they only dragged their geographical gazettal scheme into the twentieth century this century), and while I wouldn't vote to delete other ones, they're basically unimportant for all Wikipedia purposes and anyone who isn't a property lawyer or real estate agent has basically no need to even know they exist.

This is not complicated: there is no gazetted locality of Houston, "parish" is such a minor and insignificant level of cadastral division that it'd need an exceptionally good argument to warrant not being nominated for deletion, and it needs to be redirected to the relevant locality (I'm not digging out their resources at 4am, but one would assume Alectown). The American analogy doesn't work in any way a) because their system is completely different (the American concept of "county" and the Australian concept of "county" have absolutely nothing in common besides using the same word), and b) because unlike theirs, ours is uniform. The Drover's Wife (talk) 19:55, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

I wasn't sure whether to call it "complicated" or "confusing"... I think the reason may be that Australian editors working on various localities aren't being consistent with each other... it's mid-afternoon here, thought I'd need to wait longer for a response :) "parish" is such a minor and insignificant level of cadastral division that it'd need an exceptionally good argument to warrant not being nominated for deletion - I was kind of getting at that; nice to see someone more local and knowledgeable confirm that. Right, I figured that one of these systems was redundant, and I assume you're saying that local government areas function more like American counties. So cadastral divisions are relevant for property lawyers and real estate agents; I see we have Public Land Survey System which is probably just as obscure to most Americans as your cadastral divisions. Interesting. I understand your rationale for redirecting Houston, which I'm guessing may have been created because of this "Houston" – and because the observatory is there. wbm1058 (talk) 21:15, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Australian has a number of systems for different purposes.

• We have counties and parishes for cadastral purposes. Most Australians only encounter these when they are buying/selling land; they are not used in any ordinary way. In early European settlement, county names were used in the same way as people use British county names, but this has died out. So county/parish names do turn up in when writing about Australian history so we should have at least the counties as Wikipedia articles (having parish articles would be nice, but not a priority IMHO).
• For practical everyday purposes of addressing, Australia is partitioned (in the mathematical sense of that word, meaning fully covering and not overlapping) into a set of suburbs and bounded localities - the boundaries of both are gazetted. The distinction between suburbs and bounded localities is loosely whether you are part of an urban area or a non-urban area, but there are plenty of exceptions to that principle. We use suburbs/BLs whenever we give a street address. So for the purposes of this template, a bounded locality should be type=suburb.
• Unbounded localities are just placenames in common use, but are not suburbs/BLs (although some are former suburbs/BLs that have been amalgamated into larger suburbs/BLs). Many people will use them as an alternative to a suburb/BL and this will work with human-mediated systems (like the postal system) but not in a lot of IT systems (which demand a suburb/BL from predefined lists). Many unbounded localities are officially gazetted but by a centrepoint, not a boundary. Generally I add mention of unbounded localities within the article for the suburb/BL that encompasses their centrepoint, or do redirects to them. For the ones that merit their own article (usually ones with lots of history and the name is still in active use), I don't usually include this template at all (largely because I am uncertain what the type would be - I guess "other") but use a chunk of Open Street map, e.g. Stones Corner, Queensland.
• Towns are like unbounded localities, gazetted by centrepoint and not by boundary. In Queensland at least, towns are effectively a historic construct. Typically though, most town names are gazetted both as a town (historically) and as a suburb/locality (of the same name or close variant, e.g. Brisbane City is a suburb within the LGA of City of Brisbane) for its centre. For these town/suburbs I use type=town but add in the extra fields associated with suburbs. Although people think informally that towns "have" suburbs, in fact they do not so in terms of their gazetting - it is the state that "has" suburbs and BLs (at least i Qld). But fortunately this template lets us handle this informal notion of towns possessing suburbs as we can use type=suburb and city=townname, e.g. Woolloongabba is a suburb of Brisbane. When I am using this template for a BL that is not part of a contiguous urban area centred on a town, I use type=suburb and leave the city field empty to reflect that it does not form part of the contiguous urban area centre on a town.
• LGAs are a separate set of boundaries within each state and their boundaries do not respect suburb/BL boundaries, thus a suburb/BL can end up in two (or occasionally 3) LGAs. Smilarly, state and federal electorates are two more sets of boundaries that respect state boundaries but neither LGA boundaries nor suburb/BL boundaries.
• The Australian Bureau of Statistics has its own complex set of boundaries for all manner of purposes. They respect no other boundaries, except in some cases state boundaries (and then not always, e.g. Gold Coast-Tweed Heads is a single urban area for the ABS which crosses a state border).

I guess the summary of all this is that we may need to provide some clearer guidance about using this template with bounded and unbounded localities (that seems to be the greatest area of confusion). And I would not mind if we updated some of the "blank" templates to reflect this town/suburb duality (and added a few minor things like pop_year and pop_footnotes which are widely used). But I think the template itself is actually in pretty good shape. I use it a lot and am not aware of any showstopper problems with it. Kerry (talk) 22:10, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Each state of Australia has its own history, and slightly different land settlement and tenure patterns. South Australia's white settlement spread out in stages from Adelaide, and a couple of other points along the coast. The climate means that the land use is quite different in the temperate south than the arid and desert in the north of the state. Counties and Hundreds are cadastral land tenure concepts, declared as farming spread out. They do not cover the entire state. Around about the turn of the 21st century (I haven't found specific legislation yet), boundaries have been formalised so that the entire state is covered by SUB (in urban areas) and LOCB (farming and remote areas) bounded localities. These are used to unambiguously define addresses for use by Australia Post, emergency services, utility companies and so on. The names are derived from original towns in the more densely settled areas, Hundreds on the fringes where closer settlement didn't quite happen, pastoral leases (sheep or cattle stations) and other historic settlements in the outback. Local government areas (using various terms including councils, shires, cities, corporate towns, parishes) do not cover the entire country, but do cover most of the areas people actually live. They are the third (and only) tier of government below our federal and state governments. The terms used don't quite match up in different states across Australia, so probably don't directly translate to the USA either. For family history, I am trying to work out the relationship between Mill Creek Township, Washington County, Kansas, and Morrowville, Kansas. Australia certainly does not use the term "city" for a place with a population of 155. Is Morrowville a city inside of a township which has a population of 274? --Scott Davis ^Talk 22:17, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Having now read Kerry Raymond's comments from a Queensland perspective, it looks like we have been pretty similar in SA. LOCU unbounded localities are mentioned in the enclosing LOCB where it seems relevant (e.g. Craneford, South Australia is in the bounded locality of Flaxman Valley, South Australia). In SA wikipedia articles, we have generally used either |type=town, or apparently |type=locality if there is no extant centre, for rural LOCBs. For the scale of some of these, Wbm1058 might be interested to see the size of Anna Creek. Property Location Browser is a good source for seeing how boundaries and locations line up. Turn on the "Suburbs and Localities" and "Place names (gazetteer)" layers and zoom in. --Scott Davis ^Talk 22:29, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

I think there's been a strong push over the last couple of decades to be more consistent across the states. I suspect it's driven in part by the demands of IT systems to do address validation. As far as I know, the main difference is that some states/territories (e.g. SA, WA from memory) are not fully covered by a system of local government because there are just some areas too remote and low population to make it realistic to have local government. But I think all states have the system of suburbs/BLs to cover every part of the country, even though some of the remote BLs are very large and very unpopulated. I visited Anna Creek some years ago (the photos in the article are from my trip); yeah, it's big. Kerry (talk) 22:38, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I just discovered that there is a difference in the United States between Survey townships and Civil townships... in states that have both, the boundaries often coincide... which is probably why I didn't know the difference.

I see there is an Unincorporated Far West Region. Silverton and Tibooburra have village councils, so that unincorprated region actually has two LGAs! I believe the only US state that still has unincorporated county-equivalent-areas is Alaska. So AUS only has one level of local government, unlike the U.S. which generally has two (or maybe three in some places, i.e. a village contained inside the jurisdiction of a town(ship) which in turn is governed by a county). But what gets confusing to me is that there are so many... count 'em, 13 different types of local government and you need a scorecard to tell the difference between a town that is a local government and a town that is merely a "a geographic interpretation". Can the localities that are just "geographic interpretations" have clearly defined boundaries (some have boundaries, and some don't?)

I'm not super familiar with Kansas, though I've been there a couple times. Most states would call something that small a "village"; it's unusual to call something that small a city. Perhaps the better term is "incorporated community", Kansas may have one-size-fits-all for that, and just call them all cities. From one of the sources: "The village of Morowville became incorporated as a city of the third class under the laws of the state of Kansas on October 8, 1929. The population of the town at that time was 248." So in Kansas, they have the concept of a "city of the third class". That's a new one on me, and something, I'm pretty sure, that most states don't have. I wouldn't be surprised if the locals, in common usage, did not call their town a "city". Some of the twenty-five townships in that county have only a couple dozen people... it's hard to imagine them having much of an independent government. I think Morrowville is likely considered governmentally independent from that township. In some states I think small villages are not independent of their townships, but in others they are. Here in Ohio, big cities will keep expanding by incorporating additional land from surrounding townships. Some townships can become patchwork quilts of relatively small parcels, all surrounded by city, until eventually the city may incorporate the entire township, which then disappears into history. wbm1058 (talk) 00:20, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Parishes and counties date back to the early days of settlement, when New South Wales covered most of the country and are lands administrative divisions. They're included on every property title document in NSW and are actually more consistent than other divisions, like suburbs. While suburb boundaries may change, the parish borders are static, but they don't reflect suburb boundaries. For example, Tomago is in the parish of Stockton, but it's not in the suburb of Stockton, which is in the parish of Stockton. Both are in Gloucester County, which is nowhere near Gloucester, which is also in Gloucester County. Alectown is in Houston parish, which is a gazetted place,[1] and notable per WP:NGEO, along with other places in the area. I agree with Kerry that having articles on the parishes would be nice, as they are important historically, and certainly in the ongoing process of property administration. It's also true that for the purposes of this template, a bounded locality should be |type=suburb. In the early 2000s the NSW government tried to get LGAs to clean up their suburb lists. Some LGAs separated bounded areas into localities and suburbs, while others did not. As a result, we have places like Bobs Farm, which is mostly rural with no central shopping district, registered as a suburb and not a locality.[2]

Regarding Kerry's statementFor the ones that merit their own article (usually ones with lots of history and the name is still in active use), I don't usually include this template at all (largely because I am uncertain what the type would be - I guess "other") but use a chunk of Open Street map, e.g. Stones Corner, Queensland. |type=other was added because of the number of invalid types that were being used. I noticed people using the infobox for Australian places that weren't one of the valid types, but still could use an infobox, so "other" was a way of retaining the infobox in the article. At Stones Corner, Queensland, other would be the appropriate type and both the image and the map can be used in the infobox. Not all fields have to be used, only those that are useful. The only real limit to the infobes use in articles is that they have to be Australian places, although I did find an article about a beach in Aruba ithat had been using it since 2008.[3] The two are used interchangeably.

As for cities, we don't seem to have a consistent definition between the states. In NSW, LGA boundaries are used to define the city boundaries. That supposedly makes things easier, but some places that aren't really cities are still called cities because they once were. Cessnock is such a place. Cessnock itself was once a city, but today is just a large country town with a population of 13,700. The Cessnock LGA, which has a population of around 51,000, is primarily rural and there are some houses in the middle of nowhere that can claim to be part of a city. At the same time, Raymond Terrace, with a population larger than Cessnock is just a town. The NSW government has proposed that some NSW LGAs merge and, if that happens, Raymond Terrace will become part of the city of Newcastle, as will the previously mentioned Bobs Farm, and the rural "suburb" of Duns Creek, which is 52 kilometres (32 mi) from the Newcastle CBD.

Regarding the 13 different types of local government, some of the types listed are effectively just different names for the same thing. Cities, councils, regional councils etc all control a local government area. In the Hunter Region we have 11 LGAs (at the moment) with 4 being cities, 4 shires and 3 councils. For all intents and purposes, there is no real difference between them. The article is wrong regarding cities in NSW. We actually have 44 cities, but 17 of those are part of Sydney, leaving 26 cities outside of Sydney. --AussieLegend (✉) 04:41, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

In South Australia, we (@Donama:, @Cowdy001: should also be aware of this conversation) are aiming to eventually have articles covering every LOCB, Hundred, County, and historic District Council (LGA in current language). In many cases, the earliest district council corresponded to the Hundred, and often they match up to one of the towns/suburbs/localities contained in the hundred too (or closer to the outback, the modern LOCB might actually contain several Hundreds), so the four articles (five if there is also a Conservation Park or National Park) that could theoretically be written for a placename will generally be coalesced into one or two. It is difficult to decide whether the "type" should be suburb or town if it once had some or all of post office, church(es), hotel, blacksmith, railway station, district council, hall, (shops are harder to find records for), but most or all of these are now closed and the district council merged into a larger district. I have generally used |type=town, as most of the ones I have done so far have a road intersection or point on a closed railway line that works as the town site, but some are more diffuse, kind of like very sparsely populated suburbs. Many of the Hundreds declared in the later part of the 19th century were surveyed with a town near the centre (small commercial and residential blocks < 1 acre), parkland/reserve ring around that, "suburban" farm blocks < 10 acres each surrounding that, and larger farm blocks further out. Some of these towns have survived, some never got going and a competing town survived, some have faded out as transport has improved. It feels somewhat arbitrary to decide that some should be "town", some "suburb" and some "other" without clear objective criteria that endure as the population waxes and wanes.

It looks like a US Survey township is functionally equivalent to a Hundred in SA, and civil township and county (United States) are both broadly equivalent to LGAs here, but we only have one level, and the local vs state responsibilities don't always line up the same. --Scott Davis ^Talk 08:56, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't have much to add to this beyond "yep" to nearly everything said above, but I think that getting into whether LOCBs are suburbs vs. towns vs. localities is kind of splitting hairs - unless you're heavily into statistics and familiar with a particular system it's a meaningless distinction for the vast majority of our readers. I also think reading anything into what LGAs call themselves is a bit of a meaningless exercise: there's no functional difference in the vast majority of cases no matter what the language used (unless for example there are specific different laws about an individual council). The Drover's Wife (talk) 10:05, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

|type= is used for the following:

1. set the infobox colour
2. if |type=protected certain parameters associated with protected areas are enabled
3. if |type=cadastral certain parameters associated with cadastrals are enabled
4. certain links and categories are enabled
5. the appropriate title is displayed in the compass area

If you're unsure as to what type should be set, "other" sets a default option until the correct type can be determined from reliable sources. In NSW it's just a matter of checking the Geographical Names Register to determine the correct type. I assume other states have something similar. Queensland does, but the last update was a bit dodgy, like the change from Windows XP/7 to Windows 8. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:26, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Is colour the only difference between |type=suburb and |type=town? It feels really dumb to try to describe Bundey as a suburb. Dowlingville and Australia Plains and Tooligie are or were towns, and probably would still be identified as such by most people, but not as "suburbs". If colour is the only difference, I'd say any LOCB that is not clearly "part of" a larger town should be identified as a town in its own right, not a suburb of no particular urban area. --Scott Davis ^Talk 11:46, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

It really depends on how a place is legally registered because that is what is verifiable. Bundey, Dowlingville and Australia Plains are all listed as suburbs.[4] I understand your thinking though. New Lambton was once a town and then a municipality, but when it became part of Greater Newcastle it became a suburb. Other places have suffered worse fates. The rural suburb of Karuah contains a village of the same name. Anyone driving through it would call it a town but the part of the village on the Port Stephens side of the Karuah River is registered as a locality, while the smaller chunk on the Great Lakes side of the river is a village. It makes no sense but that's what it is. --AussieLegend (✉) 12:09, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

The reference list you provided has "SUBURB/LOCALITY" as the column heading. The map I usually use is the property location browser also provided by the South Australian Government. The map layer with boundaries is called "Suburbs and Localities", with entities of types SUB and LOCB (bounded locality) partitioning the state. The places I listed are all LOCB, not SUB. The list you referenced contains SUB and LOCB but not LOCU (unbounded localities). I read that as saying they are correctly described as Localities, and colloquially as towns, but nobody would think of rural areas nowhere near a major town or city as "suburbs". The coordinates in the gazetteer for a LOCB are the location of the town/concentration of settlement/subsumed Government Town, not the geometric centre of the boundary. Do you really want to try arguing that Anna Creek is a suburb (it's in the list)? Perhaps the |type=town needs to have a new synonym of |type=locality that would be more accurate for most places with defined boundaries set to partition a state. Would this work? --Scott Davis ^Talk 14:05, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

What he said (much more eloquently). The Drover's Wife (talk) 14:29, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

No, that wouldn't work because a town is not always equivalent to a locality. The Gazetteer of Australia and some states use the more vague "LOCB" to refer to towns, village, populated places, local government town and town site (no population) - in other words - just about everywhere. Some states, including NSW, use more strict definitions, with locality being equivalent to a suburb. That's why the document heading is "SUBURB/LOCALITY". For want of a better comparison a suburb is an "urban" locality and a locality is a "rural" suburb. Neither a suburb nor a locality has to have kerbing and guttering and houses on 500m² blocks. That's not a requirement. They're just "a bounded area within the landscape that has an 'Urban' or a 'Rural' Character." It's the character that determines whether it's a suburb or a locality. A town, on the other hand, is "a commercial nucleus offering a wide range of services and a large number of shops, often several of the same type. Depending on size, the residential area can be relatively compact or (in addition) dispersed in clusters on the periphery." --AussieLegend (✉) 17:03, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

What is the benefit in splitting hairs about what and isn't a town if it isn't a gazetted distinction, and what is the benefit of doing it for "suburb"/"locality" when we're acknowledging that they're the same unit with (potentially) different names depending on the location, and only a different infobox colour to show the reader anything different for it? The Drover's Wife (talk) 00:30, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict)OK, what if |type=locality was a synonym for |type=suburb as far as the template goes? I still don't feel this properly meets the needs, but is a better compromise than describing rural and remote areas as "suburbs" of no centre. Neither Suburbs and localities (Australia) nor Suburb#Australia and New Zealand attempt to claim that Australians would use the word "suburb" to refer to entirely rural areas or small rural towns or former towns. There are no objective criteria I can think of that would say "this place used to be a town but now it is a suburb" because the people left (e.g. Dowlingville or Australia Plains. Towns turn into suburbs because commuters come to it (e.g. Smithfield or earlier, Dulwich). I'm finding historic evidence of "ordinary shops" and commercial activity quite difficult to find. Churches, railway stations, post offices, hotels are much easier to find. --Scott Davis ^Talk 00:59, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

If we were to make locality an alias for suburb, this would be an error is some states where locality does not specifically mean suburb. Many editors think LOCB=locality, but, as I've already mentioned, the the Gazetteer of Australia and some states use LOCB when referring to towns, village, other populated places, local government towns and town sites that have no population. None of these are suburbs. The error checking in the infobox code specifically aims to ensure editors pick the correct type. If you have a place area that is obviously not a suburb, "other" is really the way to go until you can find a source that resolves the problem. The issue can be explained in the prose. Perhaps contacting the relevant SA authority might clear up the actual status of the problem SA locations.

There are no objective criteria I can think of that would say "this place used to be a town but now it is a suburb" because the people left - It's unfortunate that other states have not followed the lead of NSW by producing a publicly available Glossary of Designation Values that expands on the basic definitions. Glen Oak is one of those places where the status has changed "because the people left". It is now registered as a suburb,[5] although it was once a small town. That is explained in the prose. --AussieLegend (✉) 08:53, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

What is the point of specifying suburb here? Like, why is "suburb" necessarily worth having an entire field in this infobox for as distinct from " towns, village, other populated places, local government towns and town sites" when most places don't even make the distinction and where they do, it is a functionally meaningless one (leading to absurd results like Anna Creek)? We're necessitating a correct "type" where that there is no such thing in any meaningful way, and there are no "problem SA locations" because one pitfall SA's geographical authorities didn't make was this one: in that state at least, you're getting into original research and creating category systems that literally do not exist. Who cares which synonym for "gazetted bounded locality" a particular person calls Glen Oak when the Australian Bureau of Statistics, like everyone else, just calls it a gazetted locality The Drover's Wife (talk) 09:08, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Even in Australia where the meaning of "suburb" is apparently slightly different to the rest of the English-speaking world, a suburb needs to be associated with an urban area of some kind. In SA (and I suspect some other states), the LGAs do not (any more) centre on a relevant town so that it would be reasonable to call all of the LOCB localities in that LGA suburbs of the "main town". There is no way that Hewett or Ward Belt are suburbs of Kapunda, despite that being the council seat for the Light Regional Council. (they might be suburbs of Gawler, but they are not in the Town of Gawler LGA).

There was no "problem" to need clearing up until this week. "Locality" == {{LOCB, LOCU}}; "Suburb" == SUB; "Town" ~= "LOCB"; There is nothing in the SA gazetteer of type "TOWN". The entries of type GTWN are all now historic, with an annotation of " Now incorporated in the bounded locality of <X>", and not all historic towns were ever GTWNs anyway, and a few were "declared ceased to exist" and are now LOCUs in a different LOCB. What (if anything) do we break if we rigidly enforce (for South Australia) SUB -> |type=suburb, LOCB -> |type=town and LOCU->|type=other in those cases where it does not just get a mention in a LOCB or SUB article? --Scott Davis ^Talk 11:11, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

• What is the point of specifying suburb here? - Suburb has always been one of the default types and is used in thousands of articles
• why is "suburb" necessarily worth having an entire field in this infobox for as distinct from " towns, village, other populated places, local government towns and town sites" - "other populated places, local government towns and town sites" have never been catered for in the infobox. Villages generally use |type=town. The infobox originally covered just "city", "suburb", "town", "lga" and "region", but over time editors have been adding the infobox to all sorts of articles that don't fall into those categories. "Other populated places" are now covered by |type=other, as are all of the uses for which the infobox not designed. "Town sites" are generally covered by one of the orginal types and "local government towns" - well, to be honest I have no idea what they are.
• a functionally meaningless one (leading to absurd results like Anna Creek) - Anna Creek doesn't use this infobox, but if it did, it fits into the "other" category since it isn't one of the types for which the infobox was designed.
• in that state at least, you're getting into original research and creating category systems that literally do not exist. - Are you saying that SA doesn't have cities, towns, suburbs, local government areas, regions or places that don't fall under those types?
• Who cares which synonym for "gazetted bounded locality" a particular person calls Glen Oak when the Australian Bureau of Statistics, like everyone else, just calls it a gazetted locality - It's not a particular person, it's the Geographical Names Board of New South Wales, which is the official NSW authority for place names, so it has authority. The ABS calls the portion of Glen Oak in Port Stephens Council a suburb.[6] The "gazetted locality" is just a variant of the suburb data showing the entire suburb, including the portion in Dungog Shire, which it includes in the data for Clarence Town, along with a couple of other places.[7] Note that the Clarence Town data excludes some of Clarence Town. The ABS uses "gazetted locality" only as a convenience term for "the officially recognised boundaries of suburbs (in cities and larger towns) and localities (outside cities and larger towns)".[8]
• a suburb needs to be associated with an urban area of some kind - I can't really disagree with that. In fact I've sent an email off to the appropriate person/people in New South Wales Land and Property Information asking why places like Glen Oak and Bobs Farm are registered as suburbs when they are clearly localities per the official definitions.[9] Unfortunately, that's the situation that exists here in NSW as well as in Queensland, and I suspect elsewhere.
• There was no "problem" to need clearing up until this week. - There was, but you didn't know it because the problem was undetected, often for years, at least since before I first edited this template in September 2007. For example, the infobox was added to Kudla, South Australia on 1 July 2008 with |type=locality.[10] Since this wasn't a valid type, it was the same as not defining the type at all, as you can see in the testcases that I've added to the testcases page, using the version of the infobox from February 2016. On the left is the infobox as it existed then. In the middle is the infobox with "locality" removed from |type=. As you can see, the two infoboxes are identical. On the right is the same infobox with |type=other. Other than the lack of colour in the third, the three infoboxes are identical. Between us, Wbm1058 and I fixed about 700 articles where type was specified incorrectly, resulting in the same undetected errors.
• There is nothing in the SA gazetteer of type "TOWN". - But there is in other states, and I notice that Category:Towns in South Australia and its subcats include 727 articles.

There really seems to be a perceived problem here where none exists. Using |type=locality never worked in the past and it still doesn't. Nothing has changed. if we were to add support for locality, it would just be giving it a colour. --AussieLegend (✉) 15:04, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

I agree. The template works fine for Australian places (and we should not care how well it work outside of Australia since that's irrelevant to its purpose). Where we find unexpected values (e.g. type=locality), it should be easy enough to lookup the place names and establish if it's a bounded locality, in which case we use "type=suburb", otherwise we use "other". While towns appear to be a deprecated construct in the minds of the gazetteers, I think most contributors (and readers) know what a town is (something with an urban centre where people gather for some reason - shop, church, pub, hall) and will use type=town when they think it appropriate, even when not gazetted. I'm no expert on South Australia, but I think most readers would agree with me that Ceduna, South Australia is a town, Quorn, South Australia is a town, etc, even if they are not gazetted as such. Kerry (talk) 21:00, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for noticing Kudla. It is gazetted as a suburb, so I have corrected that entry. I think that if the template could be coded to require that |type=suburb must have a corresponding value for |city=, and we otherwise use |type=town for LOCB entities, we'd be doing OK. I don't think I have found a LOCB yet that has never had at least one of railway station, school or post office at some time in its history, so they probably counted as at least "villages" (type=town) at that time. Does NSW gazette places as "TOWN" that are contained in larger LOCBs with the same name, and Wikipedia (could) have separate articles for each, or is TOWN part of the partition along with SUB and LOCB? --Scott Davis ^Talk 21:32, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, not all gazetted suburbs have an associated city. Port Stephens Council is not a city yet we have numerous places that are most definitely suburbs and are gazetted as such. Tanilba Bay, Mallabula, Lemon Tree Passage, Soldiers Point, Salamander Bay, Corlette, Nelson Bay and Shoal Bay, which have a combined population of more than 25,000 (about 36% of the LGA total) are each "a bounded area within the landscape that has an 'Urban' Character". NSW doesn't really use LOCB, as it is too vague. Instead, places are more specifically designated. Where you have a place like Nelson Bay, where the town centre is fairly substantial, but the place is primarily residential, it is usually registered as a suburb. On the other hand, where you have a large area, like Karuah (73.7km²), any towns or villages are separately designated. Karuah is registered as a locality,[11] that contains a village of the same name.[12] The NSW register includes pretty much everything, including cemeteries, parks, schools, trig stations and so on. We could have separate articles for each of the same-name places but in most cases I've found it's just as easy to have a single article. Karuah includes the locality and village, Tanilba Bay contains the suburb and the adjacent bay, One Mile includes mention of Anna Bay, which is not in Anna Bay and so on. Of course there is nothing stopping creation of individual articles. --AussieLegend (✉) 08:24, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. I notice all of those are in Category:Suburbs of Port Stephens Council, however none of them have |city=Port Stephens Council in the infobox, nor |city=Newcastle, even for the southern ones that are closer to Newcastle than Raymond Terrace. At least one is also in category:Towns in New South Wales. I think that is possibly a similar level of uncertainty as to whether to identify Gawler as a town with its own suburbs, or to describe Gawler and nearby suburbs as suburbs of Adelaide. It is commuting distance and part of the Adelaide Metro rail system, so lots of people do commute, but a lot of people rarely go in to Adelaide, as well. It often depends how distant the audience is, Gawler is separate to Adelaide up to perhaps 100-200km away, but to you, "I live in Adelaide" is probably more help than "I live in Gawler". Elizabeth (now City of Playford) and City of Salisbury are even more uncertain about whether we should identify them as separate urban areas with their own suburbs, or they are just suburbs of Adelaide. In rural South Australia, the LOCB is their address, and there is generally little distinction needed between living in the town/village or on a farm out of town. Maybe some of the lesser-known LOCBs in the marginal areas could be seen as suburbs of a larger town, but most have or had a village or town centre of their own with a school, church, railway station, post office, hotel or similar. --Scott Davis ^Talk 12:05, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

All are in Category:Suburbs of Port Stephens Council because they are registered as suburbs and are in Port Stephens Council. |city=Port Stephens Council is not in the infobox because Port Stephens Council is not a city. None are in Newcastle so |city=Newcastle would be quite wrong. The distance from Raymond Terrace is irrelevant. What is relevant in NSW is the LGA boundaries as, in this state, they determine city boundaries. I don't know how this relates to SA.

"I live in Adelaide" is probably more help than "I live in Gawler". - This is a discussion I've had plenty of times recently. As you may or may not know, the NSW government has proposed multiple mergers of LGAs and the proposal to merge Port Stephens and Newcastle came out of nowhere. My alternative proposal is to merge Newcastle and Lake Macquarie. A lot of Lake Macquarie residents don't even realise that they don't live in Newcastle. A photo of Redhead Beach was recently featured in "My Newcastle", but Redhead is not in Newcastle. How does SA define a city? In NSW Sydney contains several cities in their own right. --AussieLegend (✉) 13:59, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

The Metropolitan Adelaide region contains 19 LGAs according to the Local Government Association of South Australia. They are Adelaide Hills Council (which encompasses the semi-rural area to the east of the metro area), 2x "Town of" Town of Gawler on the northern edge and Town of Walkerville nestled next to the City of Adelaide in the middle and 16x "City of" LGAs. I'm not exactly sure what status changes with the definition of "city". I believe there are six or seven regional "cities", but don't think that gives them any different status as either towns or LGAs. In common usage, "Adelaide" covers the broad metropolitan area, which is most of those councils, but there are still rural bits round the edges. There are a few "country towns" in the outer metro city councils gazetted as LOCB rather than SUB (examples One Tree Hill, McLaren Vale). At the moment, all the suburbs in between are in Category:Suburbs of Adelaide. Should they be split out into 19 smaller categories by LGA? --Scott Davis ^Talk 01:06, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

I feel like this is unnecessary and would lead to some bizarre outcomes. Everyone would describe St Clair, South Australia as a suburb of Adelaide, but if you described it as a suburb of Charles Sturt I think a lot of people might look at you funny. The Drover's Wife (talk) 04:37, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

I agree that would be bizarre. I'm slightly stumped that Virginia and Angle Vale are SUB but One Tree Hill is a LOCB on the other side of the City of Playford. The Playford Council considers all three to be rural townships, although Angle Vale will be urban in the state government's 20 year land release plan, and Virginia is next to Buckland Park, which is also proposed for major urban development, but currently entirely rural, which might explain the distinction. There are possibly similar oddities on the east and south of the urban area, but I am not so familiar with those. --Scott Davis ^Talk 09:55, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Native or indigenous name parameter

It would be excellent to add a parameter to this template allowing for the addition of the indigenous name for a particular place. Such parameters exist on other infobox templates (such as the island infobox template). I would add this myself but I don't have the necessary know-how to do so.Ljgua124 (talk) 03:08, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Most of the places using this infobox don't have indigenous names, like Newcastle, Melbourne and Sydney, or use the indigenous name as the official name, like Wagga Wagga. Australia has a number of dual-named places, like Uluru and Kata Tjuta, where the indigenous name is used in place of the English name. Where an indigenous name does exist, it usually only refers to a small area, or a feature, within the place. Karuah, for example, is thought to mean "native plum tree", but I've never actually seen one in Karuah. Arthurs Seat, Victoria is named after a hill, and the indigenous names for the hill are "Momo", "Wonga" and "Tubberrubberbil", but that doesn't automatically mean that any of these are the indigenous names for the whole area. --AussieLegend (✉) 05:26, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Removing colour from infobox

I propose removing the colour for the type of place (suburb, town, city, etc.) from the infobox. Doing this will not only keep continuity with other infoboxes in use for similar places on Wikipedia (e.g. Template:Infobox settlement, Template:Infobox Australia state or territory, Template:Infobox UK place, Template:Infobox German location, etc.) but, I believe that it will make the article appear "cleaner" with less unnecessary colour. This type of colour coding is not used anywhere else on Wikipedia for locations and I'm not entirely sure why this was implemented in the first place. – Nick Mitchell 98 ^talk 12:31, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, the colour was initially included to identify the different types of place, as it still is. I have raised the issue of colour several times but most editors seem to prefer it. Colour is widely used in infoboxes. --AussieLegend (✉) 13:18, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

I haven't been able to find infoboxes that use colour in the way that this one does, could you please give me some examples? – Nick Mitchell 98 ^talk 04:29, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

former names

Is there a way to capture former names in the infobox? FOr example, there are quite a few places in List of Australian place names changed from German names that have had other names. I have also found towns that were established next to railway stations with different names, then later renamed to match the station. --Scott Davis ^Talk 14:18, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

This would be great to have. The Drover's Wife (talk) 15:09, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

I assume this is something that was never an issue because there are so few places that this applies to. There are, for example, only 29 places in List of Australian place names changed from German names that have articles. Infoboxes aren't meant to capture everything about a topic, just the significant information. A name change that happened 100 years ago is not really significant. --AussieLegend (✉) 12:09, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

I guess I have just been lucky to have edited a significant proportion of the twenty articles so far (including places that aren't settlements) for such places in South Australia. {{infobox settlement}} has |other_name= that could be used for this purpose, but I don't feel inclined to convert to a different infobox template just for that. --Scott Davis ^Talk 13:09, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

other_name could be used to capture indigenous names as well as former names. Neither former or indigenous names are widely used, but together they might justify the addition of another parameter. --AussieLegend (✉) 14:16, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

This is not something that only applies to a few places - I've written a lot less place articles than Scott and I've still written a whole bunch on places with former names. Name changes that happened 100 years ago are absolutely significant, especially when it comes to (as in a lot of these cases) places that saw their peak in the nineteenth century. Not a fan of an "other_name" perimeter, because these aren't other names (which implies still used) - they're former names. The Drover's Wife (talk) 14:38, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

When you consider that this infobox is used in over 10,000 articles, the number of articles that this field applies to is relatively few. There are a lot of things that are significant to the history of a place, but are not significant enough to include in an infobox. Name, state, location etc are all things that are significant but is the fact that Holbrook used to be called "Ten Mile" important enough to include in the infobox, which is not supposed to be a substitute for reading the article? Infobox settlement uses other_name for "former or more common name[s]". --AussieLegend (✉) 15:00, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

It's odd that you bring up Holbrook, because as a settlement that was known by other names for a substantial portion of its history, and was quite prominently also known as Germanton prior to the WWI renamings, it is absolutely the sort of thing that needs to be specified in an infobox - considering that you can't search for period information on Holbrook at its peak without it. Germanton is not an "other name" for Holbrook, but it is a former name, and an important one. The Drover's Wife (talk) 15:13, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

pop parameter, can we ask for commas

Currently the pop parameter (population) has the instructions "number. should be plain, either with or without a comma. i.e. 12345 or 12,345". Can we change this to "number. should be plain. Please use commas for larger values i.e. 12,345 as it makes it easier to understand for visually-impaired people using a screen reader." Thanks to User:Graham87 for pointing this issue out to me; I am currently AWB-ing my way through them updating those population values over 999 with commas. Graham, are there other parameters in this template that are a problem if not written with commas? Kerry (talk) 08:13, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

As I've indicated on your talk page, the infobox uses {{formatnum}} to format the numbers correctly, so there is no need to include a comma. However, {{formatnum}} will accept formatted numbers. Strictly speaking, we should probably be saying "number. should be plain, without a comma. i.e. 12345 not 12,345". It would have been nice if you had waited for a reply before starting to change articles. --AussieLegend (✉) 08:56, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

@Kerry Raymond: When you say that I pointed the comma thing out, I assume you're referring to this edit of mine to Mackay, Queensland. In that case the problem was not really the lack of the comma, but the use of the space as a number separator, as described at the relevant section of the Manual of Style. The presence or absence of a comma in a number like 1,764 is only really relevant when it has four digits; with the comma, the screen reader says "one thousand seven hundred [and] sixty four", while without it, it says "seventeen sixty-four". That's why I thought this edit was superficially a good one, and I thanked you for it. I'd forgotten about the Mackay edit so I'd thought you'd been talking to some other screen reader user in a GLAM, for example, abut this issue. Graham87 10:20, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Sorry that I misunderstood. Kerry (talk) 10:29, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

latd parameter caused issue

Please see these two stories:

• Microsoft's maps lost Melbourne because it used bad Wikipedia data
• Microsoft can't tell North from South on Bing Maps

for an interesting case where this template may have violated the principle of least surprise regarding the Melbourne article. Jason Quinn (talk) 14:22, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

No, nothing wrong here. The template simply accommodates the fact that everywhere in Australia is south of the equator and east of the Greenwich meridian. It does this by forcing |lat_dir=S and |lon_dir=E to be passed to {{Location map}} so that editors don't have to input it manually in the 10,000+ articles that use the infobox. If there was a problem with the infobox, the whole country would have been upside down in the northern hemisphere, and west of Greenwich. The fact that it was a single location, and that location was only north of where it was and not 10,000 km west of where it's supposed to be, indicates that it wasn't Wikipedia. --AussieLegend (✉) 14:50, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Okay. Thank you for the reply. I don't have the proper time to look into this but earlier I did glance at the edit history for the article and I didn't see anything recent like what they claimed. There was a recent change of the latitude to 5 but it was quickly reverted. But that's not consistent with the article's claims. Confused at the moment. Maybe bad journalism or faulty report from Microsoft. Jason Quinn (talk) 18:57, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:IAP listed at Redirects for discussion

I've only just realised that there was never a formal notification of this matter here so, better late than never, the purpose of WP:IAP, which currently redirects here, is being discussed at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2016 September 14#Wikipedia:IAP. All editors are invited, and encouraged, to comment at the discussion. The discussion has been underway for 30 days now, so interested editors should comment soon, or you may miss out. --AussieLegend (✉) 19:26, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Maps

• I have generated (but not uploaded) maps for every locality and every municipality in Australia. I'm approximately following some standard I found on Wikipedia; but there are many choices.
• I am therefore making three proposals:
  • Locator and location maps of municipalities will be replaced by the locator maps and location maps I have generated. This will make them consistent between states. Template:Location map module data for each will be created when they don't exist, or updated when they do.
  • Locator maps of localities will be uploaded.
  • A change will be made to this template to allow location/locator maps to be viewed at a zoom the user is comfortable with (i.e. they will have the ability to select national, state, city or municipality zooms).
• You can see two example of the changes to the infobox with respect to localities here: User:Run to the hills, cos the end of the world is soon!/sandbox/Infobox AP/doc
  • I intend to remove the captions from the final (i.e. in the bottom of the locator maps, there's currently text like "WARRAGUL in Baw Baw Shire". This text I will remove.)
• I will shortly upload some locator maps of municipalities and replace this with a link, but not until this evening.
• Unless I receive strong disapproval I intend to do this, and I'm asking for any concerns you might have that I can address. I don't think the current lack of standard regarding maps is good, and I cannot think of any reason to force a particular zoom level on the user given that we can provide a user-selectable option.

Run to the hills! (talk) 05:12, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Raymond Terrace New South Wales

I'd like to see more testcases to ensure this will work for all locations. Remember, this infobox is used in 10,000+ articles, so it has to be tested thoroughly. We can't have any errors like the one on the right. --AussieLegend (✉) 07:10, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi. Of course I fully understand that it needs to be ready before it gets incorporated. I'm asking for feedback at an early stage of development. Run to the hills! (talk) 13:29, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

To be clear, the changes to the infobox are secondary to the maps. The maps need to be uploaded and prepared, because the infobox will depend on them. But at the moment, I've only uploaded about three places worth as a manual process. Consequently, I'm asking: Do you think the maps are good and worth using; do you think the changes to the template are in principle a good idea. Do you have any concerns. Consider this as a first reading of a bill in parliament. I'm certainly not asking for a go-ahead to change the template yet. Run to the hills! (talk) 13:33, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Instead of locator maps, aren't location maps, as used in {{Location map}} and stored at Commons:Category:Location maps of Australia, much more versatile and useful? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:15, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

No? The Drover's Wife (talk) 14:33, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

I have to agree with the Drover's Wife. In any case, I'm generating both and I'll probably only enable locator maps when specifically requested just to avoid the possibility of bugs (e.g. sometimes a town isn't a locality with actual boundaries, it's a settlement with a name—and therefore I can't give a locator map). Run to the hills! (talk) 22:13, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

I like the look of this: the amount of text options is a bit of visual overkill in the infobox but the maps are much more useful than the single maps, and it's helpful to have the choice. The Drover's Wife (talk) 14:33, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand what you mean about the amount of text options. Can you clarify? Run to the hills! (talk) 22:13, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

The radio buttons for the maps extend the length of the infobox quite substantially - Kerry said exactly the same thing just below. The Drover's Wife (talk) 02:50, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm a bit conflicted on this issue. Certainly it's nice to have the maps at different zooms to cater for readers' differing level of geographic knowledge.The downside though is the increase in the size of the infobox, which then pushes photos (which default to the right-hand-side) even further off-screen far away from the associated text (which is already a problem with the current infobox). We know that readers prefer articles with images so pushing images so they are not visible on the first screen displayed is probably a negative factor for retaining reader interest. So there's a definite trade-off here in the reader experience. If we could make those zoom options a single line of radio buttons rather than multiple lines, it might not be as bad. This is the sort of question that really needs "user experience" experts rather than editors to decide how best to serve the reader. Given that we have readers on tiny mobile phone screens through to giant desktop or wall-mounted screens and we have mobile-vs-desktop interfaces, these questions become increasingly difficult to decide. The danger of our discussing it as editors is that we are probably using larger screens (because it's much harder to edit from mobile) so our experience may not be representative of the broader reader experience (about 40% of Wikipedia pageviews come from mobile devices). Kerry (talk) 23:39, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

To be clear, the changes to the infobox are secondary to the maps. No, not at all. The infobox changes are far more important than the maps. We should not be getting any errors in the case that a map file does not exist. The default display also needs to be the state, not the country, as that is the convention we have been using for many years. We normally only select the entire country for the capital cities, and locations that span two or more states. The default image sizes in the infobox have been chosen based on the states, to avoid excessively large images, especially in the case of WA, where a 270px wide image is far too tall, resulting in concerns similar to those expressed above by Kerry Raymond, specifically The downside though is the increase in the size of the infobox, which then pushes photos (which default to the right-hand-side) even further off-screen far away from the associated text (which is already a problem with the current infobox). The maps, so far, look OK and I don't see an issue with using them, but we have to make sure viewability, especially on mobile devices, is not adversely affected. --AussieLegend (✉) 05:04, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

I think we need to see urban, rural, and remote examples for each state, at least, to make the test cases anything like complete. I'm also not sure the colours are "right" for the "Embleton in Bayswater City" level, but I can't remember where I found the "correct" colour scheme to be confident. I think it's right in the SA LGA locator maps I made, as shown for example in Elizabeth North, South Australia. It usually has three quite distinct and standard colours for the subject, the enclosing entity (Bayswater City) and other surrounding things of that level (other LGAs). I'd like to see some Adelaide examples, as the urban area is quite "tall", as shown in the few boxes that use |alternative_location_map=Australia Greater Adelaide (like Davoren Park, South Australia). --Scott Davis ^Talk 13:11, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

There is also a process described at Help:Coordinates in infoboxes that is gradually "correcting" place infoboxes to use |coordinates= rather than individual parameters for each coordinate. That project will eventually reach this infobox too. This work should at best not hinder that work, and even better if they can go together somehow. --Scott Davis ^Talk 13:26, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

I've only just become aware of that process. Ironically, this infobox specifically uses individual parameters to reduce the load on editors who clearly do not understand how to use {{coord}}, as evidenced by the number of errors that I found when I was converting this infobox to use {{infobox}}. At the moment, creation of most of the parameter string is automated. Only the raw coordinates need be added, the infobox adds "S", "E" and everything else automatically. Not using automation will only increase complexity. --AussieLegend (✉) 09:51, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

The discussion was pretty much over when I found it too, else I'd have posted an alert here too. I think the previous mess with {{coord}} can be mostly mitigated with a clear example(s) on the blank templates page that shows all the parameters and what to add. It seemed like an odd conclusion to the "problem" to me, too, given the good experience I have had using this template's split-out parameters. --Scott Davis ^Talk 06:22, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

It certainly wouldn't be an easy conversion to remove the parameters, since creation of the string requires not only the actual coordinates, but inputs from type, coord_type, state and coordinates_display in order to build the string correctly. Many articles have had |coordinates= removed entirely. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:34, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

By the time "they" get to the bigger, more complex templates like this one, "they" should be able to write a custom bot script that accurately mirrors the template code to get the same answer as the template generates to display the locator map and title coordinates. "They" seem to accepted that it is a big task, and are taking it slowly, with the simpler infoboxes first. This one would be less-used than {{infobox settlement}}, but I haven't seen a transclusion count list to see how many others in their target set are more heavily used. If I read the result of your recent edit correctly, there are just over 1200 uses of |coordinates=. I suspect there's a lot more that use |latd= etc. I think the current content of Category:Pages using deprecated coordinates format shows it will be a while before they get to us. --Scott Davis ^Talk 13:07, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Category:Australian place articles using missing parameters seems to show that there are currently 6619 articles using this infobox with latd. That is more articles than the total for the three infoboxes currently being tracked at Category:Pages using deprecated coordinates format, so I expect the processes will be sorted out when/if this infobox ever needs to be changed. --Scott Davis ^Talk 03:20, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Sorry for my delayed responses. I'm about to go away on holiday and so I wanted some responses to consider before I went away; but also being about to leave means I haven't had much time to reply. I also haven't had as much time as I'd hoped to make changes in response to concerns which have been raised or which I have noticed. It might be a week before I have the time.

ScottDavis, the colors for Embleton are coming out that way because Embleton/Bayswater is wholly within an urban area. I don't entirely like the way it comes out either. I wonder if I should ignore the coloring for these metropolitan places. The contrast is better at the Embleton/Perth level because I've slightly tweaked the theme.

Regarding the concerns raised by AussieLegend and Kerry Raymond about the size, I don't know what control I have over the radio buttons. They're provided by the Template:Location map. I've never seen them in actual use yet tho, so maybe I can work with them over there to improve it. Can you somehow illustrate an alternatives? I can't see how "Australia Western Australia Perth Bayswater" could ever fit in a single line. Maybe small iconic representations? Replacement by just "zoom in" and "zoom out" with dynamic interpretation?) I certainly appreciate your concern; it frustrates me when I have to scroll past a massive infobox containing largely irrelevant information on my phone or computer (because they take up "text space" even on computer screens) — but I hadn't noticed the WA controls take up as much space as the national map in the first place! And I find it unfortunate that it loads all four images first, then hides the other three.

AussieLegend, regarding the default view, I've used national because most people who visit Wikipedia aren't from Australia. I think it's more polite to give extra information to a majority who are legitimately ignorant, than to assume everyone already knows about Australian states. By defaulting to Australia, we can also have a consistent experience with regard to the size of the infobox without unnecessarily constraining the detail of the map in the case of WA or Adelaide and other log skinny places. "We've been doing it that way for years" isn't an argument that I find particularly persuasive; but there's no technical reason I can't change it (I would just pay attention to the existing parameter). Of course, I have no independent power to implement this — I would like to hear other people's opinions so we can come up with a common understanding.

Regarding the error, I want to re-emphasise that what is in my user space is not something I'm submitting for inclusion into the template right now; it's just an early proof-of-concept for feedback. I want to release bugs into production rather less than you want to see them, because they're not just annoying, they're also embarrassing. However, my plan for ensuring that kind of error does not exist is this:

• Most pages and infoboxes (at least in Victoria) do not use the official names of councils/LGAs. When they deviate from official names, they may not use council names consistently
• The content stored on Commons is accessible to speakers of multiple languages and therefore it shouldn't rely on someone's intuition of the most popular English name for entities with relatively low salience (and therefore relatively more subject to change in popularity)
• It is possible some infoboxes have erroneously encoded places that cross into multiple municipalities e.g. as "lga = A, B, C" instead of "lga = A | lga2 = B | lga3 = C"
• It is possible that, after I have finished this project, some state will rename, create or merge their councils into larger ones. It needs to be possible for those pages to work without a map.
• For these reasons, I can't simply rely on the content of the lga field.
• I'm not aware of any particular way to check whether a file or template exists.
• My solution will be to use the "short names" of the councils (this usually excludes any "City", "Shire", "District" etc part except in Tasmania). I will create a template to translate from reasonable (i.e. official and wikipedia-esque) names into the short names. If a given name isn't in the list, it will return empty string. If the template returns empty string, then a council-level map isn't shown.
• I've probably thought about that more now because you've brought it up, so thank you for your help.

There's more I want to say, but I have to leave now and I don't want to make you wait for a week for me to say it.

Run to the hills! (talk) 22:13, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

I think you'll find that most of the people looking at the locality articles are from Australia. I certainly don't go looking at obscure locations in the United States, yet many obscure locations have plenty of page views. There is more value looking at the states because it gives you a better mid-range view of a location's position. You should always start by looking at a mid-range view and then working your way to either a close-up, or an extreme view. In the US, because there are 50 states, a country view is reasonable but, in Australia we only have a few states, so the state gives you the chance to zoom into the LGA, or out to the country. Because the infobox sets the sizes to accommodate the sizes of each state, it affects other images in that state. The Australia map, for expample, will be smaller in WA than in NSW.

It is possible that, after I have finished this project, some state will rename, create or merge their councils into larger ones. That is happening now in NSW.

I'm not aware of any particular way to check whether a file or template exists That's a problem. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:12, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

That's a problem. but what's the solution? The current template exhibits exactly the same behavior (and potential bug) as I've proposed?—it switches over the state abbreviations and turns them into template parameters no less fragile than my suggestion. The current implementation was the basis for my proposal. I would inherit its bugs, but nothing prevents me from making it better to the extent that it's possible. Do you know if something is possible?

I do want to come up with some agreement with you—something at all. Is there any way at all that I can get you to support this change — not in its current draft status, just in principle. Is Wikipedia better if there's only a single map per article, which is sometimes national, sometimes state and sometimes local? or would it be better if the user has a choice? Please, completely disregard the coding. Please, completely disregard the details of how we present the choice and how the user selects it. Please, completely disregard the styling. We need a foundation before we can do anything. We can—I'm sure we will—discuss those other matters later. Do you want me to put no further effort into this and leave the infobox as it currently is?

Run to the hills! (talk) 10:10, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

The current infobox requires an editor to manually select a map for each location individually if the default map is not wanted. That means there is no chance of an error unless an editor causes it. Your version make no check to see if a map exists, and would affect every article, so even if nobody had selected a map, as is required now, the error would exist automatically. This is not a problem in the current version so we need some way of checking. I did try some time ago, but had problems with this and got busy elsewhere. --AussieLegend (✉) 11:39, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

I picked a random place in the USA, Fort Benton, Montana, and the locator map shows where it is in the county, with an inset to show the county in the state. Australian states are larger than a lot of countries anyway. I wonder if the radio buttons for multiple scales can be condensed to a single row, possibly with scale in/out symbols at the ends. I've only seen multiple scales a few times in articles. --Scott Davis ^Talk 06:22, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi. From your first sentence, it sounds like you prefer to retain the current default of state level? I'm certainly open to suggestions for changing the radio buttons. I would like to hear what you think it might look like to put it all in one line. Something like one of the following lines according to zoom level:

Embleton in Australia [zoom in]

[zoom out] Embleton in Western Australia [zoom in]

[zoom out] Embleton in Perth [zoom in]

[zoom out] Embleton in City of Bayswater

I don't know best how to represent "[zoom out]" and "[zoom in]". The full text would be pushing it a little. Perhaps just + and −? Or else maybe two lines: one describing the current image, and another with "zoom in — zoom out" on it?

Run to the hills! (talk) 10:10, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I think Australia is too big to be the default zoom level. State for rural/remote places, Metro area or LGA for places that otherwise would all look like they are in the same place.

Your idea would work. I was thinking a single row something like this, doesn't really need visible text (just alt text for screen readers), noting the - and + icons I chose are difficult to distinguish at that size, so others are probably needed. I imagined the (correct) caption to be rendered between the map and the row of buttons, which I guess is not quite as compact as yours, but does not require clicking through all the intermediate scales.

The radio button changes probably belong in other template, as I first saw multiple maps on a non-Australian page. The choices take up way too much space on Gulripshi and should find a neater way of representing them. I also find it weird there when the map gets shorter so my mouse is no longer near the button I just pressed. --Scott Davis ^Talk 06:36, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

timezone footnote

Is there a "correct" way of providing a reference for the timezone of a place? See this edit for an example of failing to properly fix a formatting error. --Scott Davis ^Talk 11:17, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

The parameter footnotes is provided as a general purpose field for parameters that don't have a unique footnotes field. --AussieLegend (✉) 12:04, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you (and for fixing my error). I read and misinterpreted Any references should be placed within the respective "_footnotes" field and not within the field reserved solely for a numeric value. For example, place the reference used for the area of City X in the parameter {{{area_footnotes}}} and not in the {{{area}}} parameter. Otherwise, an error may result. in the documentation as applying to every unformatted field. --Scott Davis ^Talk 13:12, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

"near" parameter - is this a bug?

I notice that there are a number of articles with the "near" parameter in the infobox but without a value. The effect of this is to put an apostrophe in the centre of the "adjacent suburbs" matrix, e.g. see West Rockhampton, Queensland. If one removes the "near" parameter, the suburb name appears in the centre of the "adjacent suburbs" matrix, which is what I expect to see. Is there some good reason for this apostrophe appearing or is this a bug? Kerry (talk) 21:14, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

I don't know why the apostrophe was appearing, it never used to. Regardless, it's now fixed. --AussieLegend (✉) 16:48, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks AussieLegend Kerry (talk) 03:48, 25 November 2016 (UTC)