Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 55

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Australian or British ?

Some editors have taken issue with the designation of whether Australian english is a valid English variant in tags on articles, usually by reverting...

This may have been dealt with before, and may have been very clearly explained, but I am sure it would be great for a clear reason why engvar designations on very clearly Australian items in the full range of Australian articles might have something else added like EngvarB ...

The parallel universes are intriguing...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Use_Australian_English

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:EngvarB

Perhaps the proponents or explainers might wish to return and explain, but like most things perhaps there will be deadly silence. JarrahTree 13:40, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Some editors have taken issue - links to relevant edits would be helpful here. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:46, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Answering Mitch - ::Pointless and quite confrontational and of no long term benefit to anyone to do so. I do not wish to take issue with the editors doing either side of the intriguing parallel conceptions of what articles should be designated.

It is not a personal issue, it is specifically whether the Australian project as totality of the over 200,000 australian articles [1] actually deserves to fit into in multiple language designations for whatever reason. JarrahTree 14:02, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

We did have a discussion sometime ago after an editor started tagging untagged articles with EngvarB, which was only marginally better than being untagged. I can't see why anyone would claim that Australian English isn't a valid variant. Australian and British English are certainly not the same anymore. They used to be but the influence of American English has had different detrimental effects on both. --AussieLegend (✉) 13:53, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Answering AussieLegend - still at it... JarrahTree 14:02, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Queen's English please, and may G–d bless her with another century. ~ cygnis insignis 13:58, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

I agree, we should be speaking the Queen's English. Unfortunately even Britain doesn't speak that anymore. As for another century, we're still 7 years away from the end of her first. --AussieLegend (✉) 14:03, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

According to {{EngvarB}}, it is suitable to use on any article that is not American or Canadian English, if the tagger can't work out which of the other 16 variants of English with more specific templates to use. It is read by bots to ensure they don't "correct" spelling to North American when it clearly should not be. It seems to be perfectly valid to replace EngvarB with the specific dialect when known (and almost all articles about a thing or person in Australia will be in Australian English). --Scott Davis ^Talk 14:04, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for that Scott - if that is uncontested at this point - this discussion, and there is no technical argument against what you present, then the recent substantial additions of Australian items to the british english are in error, intriguing. JarrahTree 14:07, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Theres an argument to be put that in Western Austraia we speak a southwest australian variant of Australian English. Such is the need for someone to temper their way of speaking when on the otherside of the paddock, and that once outside Australia its even more difficult to communicate with those in that little island on the eastern side of the north atlantic puddle. Gnan garra 16:13, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

If you speak a variant of en-AU, then use {{Use Australian English}}. If you think it's a different variant of English, I guess it needs to be {{EngvarB}} until someone creates {{Use Western Australian English}} and gets whatever bots fixed to recognise it.

{{EngvarB}} is explicitly neutral (not British or anywhere else except North America) according to its documentation. {{Use British English}} and {{Use British English Oxford spelling}} are for tagging British English. Sometimes, template documentation changes and people who use it all the time don't read the changes. Maybe the people using things an old way need to be gently brought up to current use. --Scott Davis ^Talk 22:20, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

See the discussion at TFD No-display English variant types: short answer: consensus was keep Australian English & other varients. Main source of reverting is the editor whose script ~~does not work on other variations~~ Find bruce (talk) 22:24, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

I assume the editor is not Ohconfucius because I'm using his script and it most certainly does handle Australian English. --AussieLegend (✉) 08:38, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Interesting - I had understood that was the reason that Ohconfucius & acolyte referred to Australian English and others as a ghetto language - but your posts shows that to be hollow. Despite the consensus keep from TfD, Ohconfucius keeps facing into the wind [2], as you have noticed [3]. They obviously have skills & commitment to the project, sad that it is not coupled with an ability to peruade people of his fervently held cause. Find bruce (talk) 09:56, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Ohconfucius & acolyte referred to Australian Enlgish and others as a ghetto language - WTF?!? --AussieLegend (✉) 10:00, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for quoting my typo, delightfully ironic given the subject. I will switch to direct quotes Incidentally, I don't think it's helpful to entrench language ghettoes that these other templates seem to imply. [4] and there is no benefit in having a multitude of [country] English templates other than creating minority English ghettoes[5] Find bruce (talk) 11:46, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

I didn't mean anything by quoting the typo. Referring to variants as "language ghettoes" seems rather racist. --AussieLegend (✉) 12:30, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

And typically as this particular conversation actually clarified something - the tagging of Australian items with the EngvarB continues enthusiastically and unabated, pity we have so few editors who are even cognisant of this problem, less interested in resolving the issue JarrahTree 02:44, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

MOS:TIES says An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the (formal, not colloquial) English of that nation. I create a lot of articles but always tag them with {{subst:Use Australian English}} {{subst:Use DMY dates}} when they are created. I have not noticed anybody breaching the instruction at the top of {{EngvarB}} An article tagged with one of the specific language templates must never be changed to {{EngvarB}}. I have noticed people tagging pages with EngvarB when they had no language variant specified. Is the concern about wrong tagging or just imprecise tagging? --Scott Davis ^Talk 14:12, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterside_Workers%27_Federation_of_Australia - in view of what has been said above so far, I fail, so far to understand why or how the item is British, specially in view of the nature of Australian trade unions being in any way anything other than Australian. JarrahTree 14:55, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

There really is nothing wrong with this edit. EngvarB is not British, it's the generic non-US English variant. The correct thing to do is simply replace "EngvarB" with "Use Australian English". --AussieLegend (✉) 15:37, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that is the correct thing to do. Unlike British English, Australian English is codified in the Commonwealth Style Guide, so we know exactly what forms should be used. I do have a solution in the form of a Bot that can replace {{EngvarB}} with {{Use Australian English}} on articles in this project's scope per MOS:TIES. (The concern is not just about the wrong tagging; the EngVarB script is buggy. Note how "pickup" became "pick-up", which is incorrect.) Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:33, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn't say "buggy", just more traditionalist. When I did English at school in the 1960s we were taught to join words by adding a hyphen, not just create a whole new word of our own by combining them as the US does. e.g. Over there they've just added "dadjoke" to the dictionary. To your suggestion of using a bot I say good idea (or should that be "goodidea"?). --AussieLegend (✉) 03:30, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

JarrahTree, I can't see that Waterside Workers' Federation of Australia has ever been tagged with , so Ohconfucius' edit was not wrong to mark it as {{EngvarB}}, it was simply imprecise to effectively just tag it as "Not North American English" rather than specifically Australian. @Ohconfucius: - is it possible to update your bot/script to specifically insert {{Use Australian English}} on articles it finds that are in Australian categories? That would be a better long term outcome than having Hawkeye7's bot trotting along behind yours and making a second edit. --Scott Davis ^Talk 22:52, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

There are more misunderstandings here that seem to take on a life of their own, and hard to know whether the classic say nothing pr style response would not help anyways. Scott Davis - I had reverted the WWFA edit, and would have thought a simple look at edit history would show that. Also - I did not want to take issues with any individual editor per se, it was much more the generic issue, not individual editors. Having had eloquent explanation from editors that engvarB is a way of saying, 'not-US' rather than engvarB = British usage, I could have left it that, and perhaps this is the first time (in a while, or at all?) that the Australian project has had the explanation of engvarB as being 'not-US' clearly explained to place the au variety in context. As for aussielegend and hawkeyes comments it looks like that perhaps there are other things to consider as well. JarrahTree 00:29, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

@ScottDavis: - The script used to do Australian spelling but that was removed in February 2014.[6] --AussieLegend (✉) 03:38, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

@AussieLegend: I wonder why Australian English was explicitly removed from that script. It appears there is a call for it to be reinstated here. @Ohconfucius: do you recall why Australian English was removed from your script in 2014?

@JarrahTree: I did look at the edit history of Waterside Workers' Federation of Australia. You recently reverted the addition of {{EngvarB}} but I failed to find then or any other time that it had ever had {{Use Australian English}} removed, in particular not at the times the bot added EngvarB. --Scott Davis ^Talk 04:02, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

EngvarB is a superset of Use Australian English, Use British English, etc. If an article that appears to be connected fo Australia is untagged, there is nothing wrong with tagging it with EngvarB but it is probably better to tag it as Use Australian English. But as our history is very interwined with British history, there are a lot of articles where I am not 100% confident in saying it's definitely all Australian or all British, so I opt for EngvarB to keep both options open. Kerry (talk) 23:04, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

The problem with that, it is a personal preference, not a useful guideline, the understanding of engvarb as being a basically 'not-usa' designator has nothing to do with whether an article is english or british either in context or subject matter - I was sure when I started this discussion, was about whether articles in the scope of the Australian project, as to whether the parallel tagging could be corrected to either one or the other - or whether editors of the australian community can handle a split system with little guidance as to how to go forward - it seems we are in a sense no closer or further from an clearly understood means of either standardising a commonly accepted guideline that even non Australian editors may actually acknowledge. JarrahTree 23:20, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

It's not a personal preference, but a reflection that there is more than one country with a "strong tie" which prevents a more precise determination. I see the problem a lot in biographies of British-born people who immigrate to Australia. If they are only notable for things in Australia, then it's easy (Use Australian English) but if they have notability in both, what then? A similar problem occurs with ship articles. Kerry (talk) 16:55, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

This discussion ostensibly about my Engvar script appears to conflate several issues more generally related to WP:ENGVAR and how that applies to the Australian code. I would like to re-centre it on the central premise of my script.

I created the script and initiated the tagging of articles using the {{EngvarB}} template to track article maintenance. As stated in the script documentation, it stems from the recognition that, as far as spelling variants are concerned in the context of the script, the major variants of spelling here on WP can be conveniently grouped under "US", "Canadian", "Other Commonwealth", and (to a limited extent) "British Oxford". Internal to the script, there are modules catering to each EL group and specific tags to reflect each EL group consistent with the output. None of what I have said or what I will say negates the existence of various other codes of English in general, nor is there any intention to insult speakers of these codes grouped under "other" and globally tagged {{EngvarB}}.

Please note that there is a semantic difference between "language ghettoes" and "ghetto languages": I never referred to Australian as a "ghetto language", and one could be forgiven for questioning whether anyone who cannot distinguish between the two notions ought to be editing en.WP.

The Engvar script evolves according to the needs that I perceive when editing articles here. I have a number of them, and like the Engvar script, each has a test and production version that I take pains to maintain and keep up to date. The decision to stop maintaing the {{Use Australian English}} template was taken to ensure ease of script maintenance, especially considering that there are no differences that I am aware of between Australian spelling and standard Commonwealth spelling in the context of the script. No purely-Aussie words are modified by the script.

I am not a programmer, and I would not be able to parameter my script to tag according to which category an article belongs to. Thus {{Use Australian English}} will continue to be unsupported going forward, unless some significant differences emerge between the codes so grouped. However, you will be pleased note that the vast majority of these other "Use xxx English" templates were put in place by User:Dl2000, and I believe this user continues to do so.-- Ohc ^¡digame! 20:44, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

No worries. A crucial difference between Australian English and the others is that it is codified, and not just a Wikipedia construct. So we can always tell if something is compliant, and it therefore lends itself to automation. A proposal a few years ago to create a standardised Commonwealth English was rejected by the UK. There are enough differences between Australian English and the other forms to warrant special processing. I will file a bot request. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:54, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

There are no grammatical differences. The only difference in spelling is program/me, and some Australians still use the -mme form (though I change it when I see it). I discourage unnecessary silos on en.WP, so I'd prefer not to see a specifically AusEng tag, just over one spelling variant that's optional in Australia. It's bad enough having US and non-US tags; but we can't avoid that. Tony (talk) 06:37, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

The "-mme" form is no longer part of Australian English. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:17, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

There are grammatical differences. I've been caught a couple of times when editing articles outside of my usual sphere. The most recent was when I set out to "correct" the grammar of an article about a band. I obviously wasn't the first, as there was an HTML comment in the source to alert me that in British English, it was correct to use plural pronouns/verbs to refer to a singular band. Sorry - I can't find the precise reference tonight, but it read "wrong" to me to use plural for for a single object. --Scott Davis ^Talk 12:08, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Indeed, formulations such as "Queen are a British rock band" are commonplace in British English, but I cannot see why we are arguing over grammar for the purposes of script maintenance, as it seems to me to be an utter red herring. These differences are not acted upon by the Engvar script - only spelling differences are. -- Ohc ^¡digame! 22:26, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

@Ohconfucius: I was responding to Tony1 who asserted that there are no grammatical differences between Australian and British English. I have not personally encountered issues with your script, but it is being discussed here because it is tagging Australian articles with {{EngvarB}} when the authors and project members would in general prefer articles on Australian topics to be tagged with {{Use Australian English}} instead. --Scott Davis ^Talk 22:50, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

@ScottDavis: First of all, let's correct the stinking grammar that no WP editor should be perpetrating—whether American, British, Australian, or anything: outside OF. The outside of the apple, and the inside of the tennis ball, yes. But please drop the low-down insertion of "of" where "outside" is not a noun. Otherwise we'll have kids doing it when they see it in WP articles. Second, this. plural/singular for sporting teams and companies is a moveable feast in Britain and most other places. And it's pretty trivial. Is that the best grammatical "difference" you can cite? Tony (talk) 23:05, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

I think that it is very difficult to identify grammar distinctions in modern spoken mainstream English given the ubiquity of television. Sub-national regional dialects do not get wide coverage. I felt "of" was appropriate in the sentence above, you clearly didn't. Whether that has to do with regional grammar/dialectal difference or the fact that I did poorly in high school English subjects, I have no idea. The (paper) Macquarie dictionary at hand (1988 reprint) does not define "outside of" in the way I used it, but the online Merriam-Webster does,[7] with 180 years of history. I tend to write "spoken English" on talk pages, and may have found a different grammatical form for article-space. This discussion started from whether it is appropriate to tag articles about Australian topics with {{EngvarB}} rather than {{Use Australian English}}. What constitutes "correct" for either of those should be a separate issue. --Scott Davis ^Talk 01:59, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Australian English follows US grammar. The only grammatical difference between the two I am aware of is the -t ending in words like "dreamt" and "learnt", which would be "dreamed" and "learned" in US English. However, for many Americans the two forms sound identical. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:17, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Back to the crux of the matter.....

To me, none of the templates mean anything to me except {{EngvarB}}, and many of the language codes that are tagged with variants aren't codified (unlike Streyan) yet I'm left with an unsatisfactory situation where I replace or update tags during maintenance, and it sometimes risks over-writing existing templates such as {{Use Australian English}} or {{Use Hong Kong English}}. Any suggestions as to what I ought to do? -- Ohc ^¡digame! 18:35, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Any article that is already tagged with "Use XX English" should not be changed without local consensus of the editors of that article. Even if the spelling or grammar variations are not codified, it's likely that the native speakers can tell the difference. For pages not already tagged, the decision could be a little more complex. Does your script currently use categories or text analysis or what to guess if the article could be {{EngvarB}} or {{EngvarA}} (or anything else)? Maybe an edit summary that includes "You may replace EngvarB with a more specific tag" would satisfy everyone. --Scott Davis ^Talk 22:24, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

That is indeed the crux of the matter - to the vast majority of editors "EngvarB" is meaningless - it is an artificial construct that does not exist outside wikipedia. People understand what "use Indian English" or "use Hong Kong English" refers to, even though they probably don't understand the differences between variants, let alone the effect of the template. Trying to force editors to adopt something that means nothing to them has met with active opposition from a large number of editors. The whole point of scripts etc is to make things easier for editors by automating routine tasks. I would suggest you need to review your script to work with what is a clear preference that has been repeatedly expressed by editors. I am sorry that I do not have the technical skills to assist with how to do that. --Find bruce (talk) 23:11, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Like {{EngvarB}}, {{Use Australian English}} is a maintenance template. It is only visible in edit mode and isn't visible to the average reader.

From the views expressed above, it now seems necessary for me for my script to ignore the {{Use Australian English}} template and insert a {{EngvarB}} template. It's not an ideal solution because it contributes to clutter, and in addition, it will potentially render inaccurate the figures I rely on to tell me the number of artices treated because of double-counting (articles that will have both tags) going forward. -- Ohc ^¡digame! 14:58, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

@Ohconfucius: It would be more helpful if the parse phase of your script recognise any {{Use XXX English}} and treat them as {{EngvarA}}/{{EngvarB}}/{{EngvarC}}/{{EngvarD}} and remember which one it found. The rest of the script can do whatever it currently does, and put back the tag it found at the end. There should be no need to add the generic tag to any article that already has a specific one. There would therefore be no articles with two tags. Is there something I have missed that would make it desirable to have both {{Use Australian English}} (or {{Use Indian English}} etc) and {{EngvarB}} on the same article? A and C redirect to two specific national variants. It seems that every other dialect of English is lumped in group B. --Scott Davis ^Talk 14:45, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

James Park Woods

Views sought here about whether article introduction is ambiguous. Thanks, Meticulo (talk) 14:50, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Victoria for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Victoria is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Victoria until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. Certes (talk) 20:46, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Lawrence power station

Is anybody aware of a current or former coal-fired power station that might have been called something like Lawrence power station? It features in Wikidata as Lawrence Energy Centre (Q19379100) with a very short article in Norwegian, and a dead link as reference. I can't find anything to match it to. The article seems to say it had 4 steam turbines for a total output of 600MW, but does not give a location more precise than "Australia", constructed(?) 1954–1971. There appear to have been a number of stubs in Norwegian with similar references. I have matched most of the others and merged the wikidata entries, but this one has me stumped. Thanks. --Scott Davis ^Talk 07:10, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi Scott, Australia as location may be an error? There's a Lawrence Energy Center in Kansas. This mentions dates of 1955 and 1971. JennyOz (talk) 08:40, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you Jenny. @Bjoertvedt: is it possible that the location of that article is wrong and it should be updated in Wikidata and Norwegian to Kansas? The Lawrence Energy Center is in a list at Evergy#Generation portfolio. Thank you. --Scott Davis ^Talk 23:38, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

I think you've solved it. 2 Lawrence power stations of the same size and dates are listed in no:Liste_over_verdens_største_kullkraftverk, Australia & Kansas. That user did also later create no:Lawrence_kullkraftverk_(Kansas) with virtually identical text. They did create it in between making other Australian power plant stubs, such as Vales Point, Kwinana, Swanbank and Torrens Island, but everything else points to a mixup. This source has no mention of a Lawrence or Laurence Power Station in Australia. The-Pope (talk) 04:28, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Peanut Allergy Staple Products page. Where to begin? Advice to start up?

Hi, I've only ever made minor edits to wikipedia pages before now, but have just had an idea which I'd like to float by you all beforehand. When shopping for an Australian with peanut allergies, there are 2 main types of warning printed on packaging: "Contains" and "May contain traces". The former is obvious, but the latter means something like "We made 10,000 chocolate bars with peanuts, cleaned the equipment, then made 10,000 bars without peanuts. The first 100 bars out of 10,000 might have peanut residue. 9,900 will be fine, but we don't know which ones." This makes shopping for basics difficult as Coles and Woolies sometimes only use 2 or 3 suppliers and the warnings change.

Rather than setting up some kind of whitelist website which I would never be able to keep up to date by myself, it would be great to have a wikipedia page/website where people could list where to go just now to find items such as soup mix or jars of garlic which can be hard to find when planning and shopping.

I'm happy to learn how to do it, and can use those skills to do some of the other to-do list jobs here once I get my head round it. Thanks in advance.

PS, what's the best way to get alerts or messages when you reply? — Preceding unsigned comment added by F4fvs (talk • contribs) 02:53, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi F4fvs, thanks for your idea, but that isn't really what Wikipedia is about. You are probably better off looking for a Facebook group or a forum where they could maintain a list. We rely on secondary sources, not original research, so we'd need a reliable source to confirm all of the information, not just people reading labels. And, to be honest, you couldn't trust that someone isn't being malicious and adding items that don't qualify. The-Pope (talk) 04:07, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

I suspect that answer is that Wikipedia is not the right place for this information.

Compiling and maintaining such a list would probably be original research.
Such a list would probably fail WP:NOTCATALOG, WP:NOTADVICE, WP:INDISCRIMINATE

@F4fvs: The best way to get notified of replies is by watching this page. I've {{ping}}ed you this time, but normally I wouldn't, and you should not generally rely on others to do so.

Mitch Ames (talk) 04:17, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks both. Your advice is gratefully received. F4fvs (talk) 16:39, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Australia

Proposal to delete all portals. The discussion is at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposal to delete Portal space. Voceditenore (talk) 08:37, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

While I am generally inclined towards inclusion, I am really failing to recognise the value of most portals. Does anyone here have any argument at all that any of the state-level (or city-level if any exist) portals should be kept? I think I am more inclined to allow the stepwise deletions to continue rather than cut the whole concept off, but I'm open to being convinced either way. I neither use nor routinely maintain any portals. --Scott Davis ^Talk 12:36, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Historical concept, that had some success and which a many still act as designed. I think its best that they are kept of the part they play in Wikipedias history. Gnan garra 06:17, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Fully support the idea - {{historical}} - better than a bad faith delete JarrahTree 07:37, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

@Gnangarra and JarrahTree: You need to go over to the main proposal and make your opinions known. At the moment, after cleaning up the Portal:South Australia Did You Know.. section, I would be inclined to delete that on the grounds that nobody had maintained it for almost a decade. --Scott Davis ^Talk 14:53, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

read the proposal and discussion in full - and then think about it - on my part no comment. JarrahTree 04:56, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Relatedly, per bold-revert-discuss there's discussion required at the portal talkpage on the addition or otherwise of a "Good Article" section, and some other technical changes. -- Euryalus (talk) 05:18, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Irvin Rockman RfC

There's a new RfC on whether criminal allegations against the late Irvin Rockman, former Melbourne mayor, should be mentioned in his article. [[8]] ClearBreeze (talk) 14:49, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Thinking of joining but...

...where do I start? I currently live in Australia and might add some pages that I personally know, but I might require a broader topic. Any suggestions? Dibbydib ^💬/_✏ 02:00, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

@Dibbydib:In a way, it isn't always a good idea to write about something you know well, because it is easy to start writing things that you "know to be true" rather than by providing a citation. When you write about something you don't know so well, you are forced to rely on sources to learn about the topic so everything you write ends up properly cited . Having said that, it should still be a topic where you are familiar with the context that surrounds it so you can understand the source material (don't write about some chemical compound if you never studied any chemistry). Having no idea of your interests, I note there is a large To Do list of Australian topics, some of which may take your fancy. Kerry (talk) 02:45, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Sure. I'll get cracking on some of the articles on the To-Do list. Thank you! Dibbydib ^💬/_✏ 05:06, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

University course creating articles on female Australian artists today

You may notice a number of new or expanded articles relating to female Australian artists. These have arisen from a university course that has been supported by Wikimedia Australia and I was there this afternoon helping get the final drafts into article space. My sense is that the articles are not too bad (they had to submit the article as a Word document for review prior to creating their Wikipedia article which will have improved the quality) but of course they will not be familiar with all our policies and Manual of Style, so please be welcoming them and offer any advice in a friendly way or just fix any problems you see yourself. The students all felt very positive about what they had achieved. Being of a generation which automatically turns to Wikipedia for information, they seemed to understand the importance of what they were doing and the need to do it to their best ability. Kerry (talk) 08:32, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for this note Kerry, and this sounds like a great initiative. Is there a central listing of these new articles somewhere? Nick-D (talk) 09:36, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Not that anyone gave me, but it seems they were using Outreach Dashboard, but it seems it is not working at the moment, but watch this space. Kerry (talk) 12:32, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

@Nick-D: Ah, it is working again. See here for the list of articles edited. For anyone not familiar with the Outreach Dashboard, it is a convenient tool to track activity by a group of users at an event. All you do is input the user names and it does the rest. What is very popular with the partner organisation and the usually new-ish users is the metric of number of page views which counts the number of times the articles edited have been viewed since the first edit done by the group (that is, the number of times a reader is now better informed thanks to the group). Unlike the input metrics (# edits, # articles, # references) which tend not to grow after the event is over, the page view count keeps on growing to often quite staggering numbers of page views (currently 810K), which really helps to bring home to the group the multiplier effect we have when we contribute Wikipedia. I will stress that this is not a perfectly calculated metric but a quick and dirty one (it assumes the edit done persists throughout future versions, so even a reverted vandalism will continue to accumulate page views, but events of this nature are usually good faith albeit inexperienced contributors). Kerry (talk) 02:19, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks a lot Kerry Nick-D (talk) 08:45, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Mingoola

Notofication that I have proposed a merge of Mingoola, New South Wales and Mingoola, Queensland to an article called Mingoola for discussion at Talk:Mingoola, New South Wales. For convenience sake, Please keep discussion on the topic at the article talk page please. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 22:23, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Useful source material website - https://www.academia.edu/

I'm increasingly finding this site a useful source of publications. The purpose of the site is to be "a platform for academics to share research papers". What this means is that you are likely to find papers there that normally live behind journal paywalls. While they are not CC-licensed (indeed, probably the copyright of most of the papers had to be assigned to the journal), nonetheless you can read them and cite them at that URL where our readers can see them too (they may need to sign up for a free account?). The value-add that you get with Academia (even with a free account) is that they will email you from time to time with details of new papers that seem to be on similar topics to ones you've previously looked at, or by the same author, which is a lightweight way to discover new papers, and provide tools to let you download a whole bunch of these related papers in a single click. And if you haven't already discovered it, Google Scholar is also a useful site for finding source material and will happily tell you about other copies available on the web (usually on university websites) apart from the publisher's official paywalled copy, and you may prefer to use these more accessible URLs in your citations than the paywalled versions. Kerry (talk) 02:47, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Admin to protect Joh Bjelke-Petersen

Persistent vandalism from a series of IP addresses (but essentially the same edits, saying Joh is a poltergeist inhabiting the body of the current Queensland Premier) going on now for 2-3 weeks. No point shutting down the IP as they are using different IP addresses each time. Thanks if you can help Kerry (talk) 12:59, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

I've just semi-protected the article for 10 days. Please let me know if further protection is required beyond this time. Nick-D (talk) 21:44, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Portal

Could we get a few members over at Portal talk:Australia#‎Rebuild as we have a problem editor blocking any progress on portal updates.--Moxy 🍁 03:07, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

What's actually happening is that we have a bunch of editors who have no demonstrable expertise in or experience of topics related to Australia, trying to make sweeping changes.

Moxy does a fairly consistent line in outrage rather than reasoning, and right now is particularly outraged at my thoroughly wicked suggestion that a task such as making a selection of articles about Australia should be done in consultation with this project rathrer than just by Moxy and his pals. I hope that maybe some members of this project can point to the Wikipedia Firing Squad, so that I can ask them to shoot me for my evil notion that the encyclopedia's navigational tools on a topic should be built with the involvement of editors who have some expertise in the said topic. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:41, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

As demonstrated above lots of talk with zero help....as all can see article selection was on its way till we had the above editor step in a waste our time with walls of righteous text that do not related directly to the portal at hand. Us trying to update the portal would love some input actually related to portal at hand--Moxy 🍁 03:49, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

That's an outright lie, Moxy. A complete inversion of the truth.

Here's Moxy's outraged response[9] to my request to involve this WikiProject.

My detailed analsyis of the issues involved is at Portal talk:Australia#Comments_and_analysis_by_BHG, which Moxy shows no sign at all of having read and comprehended. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:56, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

All are free to visit the page and see why the majority of us are upset with Brown's deliberate attempt at blocking progress because of their distain for another editor (not me) All are welcome to come down the brown rabbit hole and help try put this editor on the right path.--Moxy 🍁 04:05, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

As usual, Moxy avoids reasoned discussion, projects his on assumptions of bad faith, and simply lies. I made a reasoned case, which Moxy made no attempt to comprehend, and whose very existence Moxy prefers to deny. Moxy's response my request to involve this project was to say that I go out of your way to block progress ... which Moxy now prefers to deny.

I am sorry that this page is being disrupted by Moxy's antics. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:14, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

You can see who posted this thread and who replied with an attack right? PlS join us guys get us going in the right direction because we can't now as all can see from above.--Moxy 04:21, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Moxy, that is just more of your usual FUD tactic of lies, lies, lies.

Just read your own first post in this section: it is an explicit attack which you initially made under the heading of a blatantly false accusation of vandalism[10] and your own response to my note about the need for project involvement. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:30, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

It's not an attack but a statement of fact....your reverting multiple editors over a long period of time that EVERYONE at the page sees as disruptive. Can't just say lies lies liea when all can see what is going on with your harassment of the editor. As the community has told you before....best step back when you see them.....and you should also keep your word that you won't revert over and over again. What we are looking for is integrity in your contributions....not a deliberate attempt at blocking progress.--Moxy 🍁 04:42, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Moxy, your repeated lies are evidenced by the diffs above.

Whether a given edit is "progress" depends on how it is viewed. Simply labelling it as as progress is just a logical fallacy: proof by assertion.

As you well know, I set out detailed reasons, which you are either unwilling or unable to address. You also know that I have proposed an RFC, and offered to work with NA1K to draft it neutrally ... and that NA1K has refused that request. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:52, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of how things work here.....NA1K does not need your OK to improve the page (nor do the 5 others involved)....all your suggestions have been noted some taken into account and other rejected outright. We don't need an RFC when only you have a problem. Again members here we need help in fixing the portal and trying to move forward.--Moxy 🍁 05:04, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

On the PTA page, Moxy wrote[11] that all you do is tell us we can't do anything. At the start of this thread, Moxy wrote that I was blocking any progress. Then Moxy writes all your suggestions have been noted some taken into account ... but if all I was doing was blocking, there'd be nothing to take into account.

Do try to make up your mind, Moxy. And if you have changed your mind from your angry rejection my request to involve Aussies, and you do now want the input of Australian editors into the article selection, then why the rush to reinstate the selection made by the North American editor? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:13, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

:::This is the problem we are having at the portal.....lack of understanding.....even when the problem is said in different way as outlined above they are still confused going around in circles....or are they doing it on purposes.....will let others judge.--Moxy 🍁 05:30, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

What a pair of babies. Ivar the Boneful (talk) 10:26, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Some recent changes to Portal:Australia have been reverted. Portal talk:Australia#Portal expanded and the following sections discuss whether there is consensus for those changes. Although parts of the debate have become heated and personal, there are still open questions of content presentation where input from editors familiar with the topic might be helpful. Please assist there if you can. Certes (talk) 11:44, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

crickets chirp

@BrownHairedGirl and Moxy: Judging the response received from Australians on your Portal debate above, I respectfully suggest you are both flogging a dead horse. The Australia portal was on life support over a decade ago and nobody has had the balls to put it out of its misery since.

Portals were the buzzword craze everyone thought they needed back in 2005 when they first began appearing on Wikipedia, but they've aged like milk since. Local portal news was updated just once this year to mention the 2019 federal election before portal news updates were automated. If you think that's stale, Did You Know trivia bytes at the portal have sat idle without anything fresh being added for the past 9 years... 9 years! The rest of the portal content looks to be static Australia info alongside randomly generated content here and there pulled from lists. I didn't check but I'll bet those lists are long forgotten relics also.

Just over 2,000 visitors arrive at the Portal each month on average. I'll dare say most of them are probably lost and looking for something better... compare to over half a million plus visitors arriving at the actual Australia article which actually has something to offer on the topic. As for the remainder of potential portal uses, the portal doesn't appear to be driving any substantial traffic to the local WikiProject(s) if I listen to what a few regular editors here have told me.

Us Aussies can become quite passionate about changes to Wiki stuff concerning us... just try changing the conventions for local place names or dare fiddle with infoboxes and see what happens here. I think the local crowd has spoken on their care factor for the future of the Australia Portal, both in responses or lack thereof above, and actual portal activity in maintaining it.

Wheel her out to the glue factory I say... the portal has been long dead and nobody has cared enough to bury her. -- Longhair\^talk 07:46, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Nor sure how that helps.... it'd being fixed ...new DYK etc.....Portal:Australia/sandbox.--Moxy 🍁 14:13, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Tending to agree with longhair, many can go to the glue factory, how ever inappropriate such a suggestion is in Australia at the moment. Though I think there is cause for some of them to put behind glass cases just for their Wikipedia historical significance in relation to building of communities. Gnan garra 14:06, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Agree with Longhair - it isn't being maintained, it isn't being viewed. There isn't the interest in the relevant editing community to change either of those facts. Rather than spend effort resuscitating it only for it to fall over again in six months, better for it to retired and local editors can focus on priorities. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 20:50, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Agree with Longhair, Gnangarra, Mattinbgn. I'd meet any definition of a very active editor and I have a huge to-do list and the portals just don't rate in my priorities. Search engines are pretty good at finding the Wikipedia article you want, as is Wikipedia's own search tool. I'm not sure we need portals as a navigation aid.Kerry (talk) 03:29, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm with Gnangarra. I only recently discovered portals through an earlier edition of the portal deletion debate. Their closure makes sense but I agree with him that they are of historical significance. Archiving somehow and somewhere seems preferable to deletion, which is final. Oronsay (talk) 03:41, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

After just under 14 years and 165,000 edits I can honestly say I've never found any use for a portal on Wikipedia. I know about portals but I don't understand them. I just don't see the point. --AussieLegend (✉) 04:19, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Requested move

An editor has requested that {{subst:linked|Coat of arms of the Australian Capital Territory}} be moved to {{subst:#if:|{{subst:linked|{{{2}}}}}|another page}}{{subst:#switch: project |user | USER = . Since you had some involvement with 'Coat of arms of the Australian Capital Territory', you |#default = , which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You}} are invited to participate in [[{{subst:#if:|{{subst:#if:|#{{{section}}}|}}|{{subst:#if:|Talk:Coat of arms of the Australian Capital Territory#{{{section}}}|{{subst:TALKPAGENAME:Coat of arms of the Australian Capital Territory}}}}}}|the move discussion]]. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:45, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Bulk adding of 'heritage listing' texts

I've started a discussion over on Wikiproject Australian historic places about the concern I have with the block copy-paste addition of "heritage listing" text from the NSW heritage register into articles - people here might be interested in that. Please read and comment over at:

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Australian_historic_places#Heritage_listing_texts.

Thanks, Witty lama 11:33, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

POV-pushing

I don't know if it's too early to do anything about this, but for a few days now there's been an assortment of editors - mainly IPs but also a couple of names, and I suspect that they may all be the same person - who have a bee in the bonnet about Bruce Pascoe and his book Dark Emu. It's all getting a bit tedious - I've been trying to stay neutral and present a balance, but some of the edits have been just completely off-topic, including long quotes from the negative reviewers (e.g. Keith Windschuttle, Andrew Bolt and Quadrant contributors), etc. Looking at the history of one of the editors' contributions, it looks as if some or most of them are POV-pushing too (trying to counteract anything positive written about Indigenous Australians). Is there anything one can do? Can an admin watch them, investigate their IPs, and/or anything else at this stage? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 10:22, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

proposed and cancelled wind and solar farms

We seem to have multiple lists, each with different content and references (if we are lucky), for wind farms that have not been built. SA seems to have three different lists, and I think the other states are similar:

List of wind farms in South Australia includes a status column with a range of descriptions of built and unbuilt wind farms.
Wind power in South Australia#Wind farm proposals
List of proposed power stations in Australia#Wind doesn't currently have any SA ones, just QLD and Tas.

There is an analogous problem with solar farms:

List of solar farms in South Australia
Solar power in Australia#South Australia - prose, not a list
List of proposed power stations in Australia#Solar

Does anyone have suggestions for reducing the replication of three lists containing slightly different sets of proposals, and how to maintain them when developers give up? Should we keep cancelled proposals listed forever? How serious does a proposal need to be before it is added? Thanks. --Scott Davis ^Talk 13:20, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

As a first step to reducing replication, I would suggest that the overview articles such as Wind power in South Australia should only contain a short prose summary, and link to the list articles for the full details – e.g. using hatnotes like Main article:..., or Further information:..., or For ... in ..., see:... (WP:Summary style). Likewise the national articles could link to the state list articles. Not really sure about the rest of your questions – perhaps limit proposals to those with coverage in independent reliable sources? - Evad37 [talk] 04:34, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Locations in Victoria

I noticed some edits by AlexiBeck123 (talk · contribs) that might need checking. I reverted a couple of them because they seemed to clearly damage the map in the infobox. Would someone please have a more thorough look. Apart from the maps, I'm wondering about edits like these which changed the place type from suburb to locality. Johnuniq (talk) 01:15, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

These are completely unhelpful edits which should be rolled back.--Grahame (talk) 01:53, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Comments please

While I'm here... I wonder if I could ask for some input on my move proposal for European settlement of South Australia? I put a bit of work into this and related articles recently, as it was a learning experience for me, and quite interesting, but I'm just not sure about that title. I just added detail to stuff that was already there - did not broaden the topic or timespan. (Not looking for backup only, just more discussion before it gets closed with little input.) Thanks. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 01:05, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

I commented on the talk page, but this is really something we need to address on a broader scale: "settlement" is not neutral language for how white people came to be in Australia, as has been pointed out in libraries worth of reliable sources, and we have a perfectly neutral (and inarguable) alternative in "colonisation". The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:22, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, The Drover's Wife - now moved (and I'll be adding a bit more over time). Agree that colonisation is definitely the term for what was being done in that era. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 00:48, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Bishops

Is an assistant bishop in the Anglican church in Australia automatically notable? Bearian (talk) 17:51, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

In general, I would say a bishop would be but an assistant bishop would not be. However, I can think of cases where it might be, and if this conversation is a reference to Genieve Blackwell (who I was just reading about on WP yesterday and who I would imagine is one of the few people with articles in this boat), then she's one of those cases, and there's plenty more that's not in her article already. The Drover's Wife (talk) 23:24, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

The Drover's Wife, actually I was thinking of Andrew St. John, who's now retired and preaching in New York City. Bearian (talk) 00:22, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Given your history Bearian, I am assuming you are familiar with WP:BISHOPS & are checking if there is some local custom & like The Drover's Wife, I don't think there is. Happy to be corrected but of Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran and Anglican, I thought only Anglican's used the term Assistant Bishop while Catholics used auxiliary bishop. I was suprised at how much there already is on assistant bishops,

Whilst most would appear to be notable, from a quick look suggests that this is because most are or have subsequently become bishops in their own right, eg in Sydney they are bishops for a region as well as assisting the archbisop. I thought this was the case with Andrew St John - while he was an assistant bishop, he was also bishop for the western region. --Find bruce (talk) 00:35, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

"An assistant bishop in the Anglican Communion is a bishop appointed to assist a diocesan bishop." So even someone in the role of assistant bishop is consecrated as a bishop, and therefore covered by WP:BISHOPS and WP:CLERGY which both say "yes". --Scott Davis ^Talk 01:16, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

RfC?

I don't know whether it's okay to post this here, but there is a discussion going on at the Bruce Pascoe talk page which could probably do with a bit more input from some experienced Australian editors, or is it at the point where it needs a general RfC? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 00:48, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Just to let people know, the "discussion" has become rather long, tedious and ridiculous in places, even after I raised an RfC the other day. I have now posted a Voting section, which I hope that people will use to just state their preferences, so that the RfC can be closed. If anyone wants to have another look (be warned - loins will have to be girded!) and/or state their preference, please do. The page traffic of the talk page has risen sharply, which makes me wonder if someone has posted something in a more public sphere? (Or perhaps WP editors are looking and just throwing their hands up in despair when they see the thread!) Laterthanyouthink (talk) 01:39, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Requested move

An editor has requested that {{subst:linked|Wyndham Vale}} be moved to {{subst:#if:|{{subst:linked|{{{2}}}}}|another page}}{{subst:#switch: project |user | USER = . Since you had some involvement with 'Wyndham Vale', you |#default = , which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You}} are invited to participate in [[{{subst:#if:|{{subst:#if:|#{{{section}}}|}}|{{subst:#if:|Talk:Wyndham Vale#{{{section}}}|{{subst:TALKPAGENAME:Wyndham Vale}}}}}}|the move discussion]]. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 14:30, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Referring to Aboriginal/Indigenous people

Can anyone point me to an actual style guide about this? I posted this comment on the Manual of Style a couple of weeks ago, but nobody has responded there as yet. Shouldn't we be following some kind of style guide? I know I came across a discussion about this somewhere once, more or less supporting the ABC and other style guides I linked to re capitalisation and naming, but have been unable to find it again. Is there a way that this can be added to the Style Guide to point to when trying to ensure consistency in articles we're editing? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 09:34, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

I don't have one, but it's something we should absolutely have in there. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:18, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

@Laterthanyouthink: (presume that relates to this) I have read the question you raised on MOS, I'd suggest the reason its not attracting comment is its too complex to be addressed in a global one size fits all sense, so I wont even try.

From an Australian perspective in an ideal situation we would refer to person by the community they identify as being from. So the recent death in Yuendumu in the Northern Territory you would refer to person as a Warlpiri man. For someone from Perth Whadjuk Nyungar if known in preference to just Nyungar, which is more precise than Aboriginal which would be acceptable as last resort. Be as specific as you can avoid generalisations as there are over 300 different language groups with many more cultural groups. Where the topic is about both Aboriginal and/or Torres Straight Islanders then the preference is to use Aboriginal and/or Torres Straight Islanders, short hand Indigenous Australians is ok as an alternative but can be offensive. Alternative options include Traditional Owners when talking about a localised place, ie the Traditional Owners refer to this lake as..... Further reading can be had at https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/articles/indigenous-australians-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-people but be cautious defer to the local land council or other similar organisations for more precise terms suitable to the subject. Where ever possible dont refer to things or words as being Aboriginal in origin, consider the same way you wouldnt say Champagne come from Europe. There are many historical terms that outright offensive these should be avoided, if you really need to put specific quote from someone then include [sic] to indicate its a direct quote. If a subject causes you to use native police use it sparingly then refer to them as police, the authorities, or more generic terms. example Roe set off inland with a corporal from the 63rd regiment and 4 Native police officers Later you'd say the Corporal and 2 Officers headed north while Roe and 2 officers set off to the east. Roe's party came across an Aboriginal camp. If you know the area you could also say a Nyungar camp even though this will have been described in the source as one of my native police officers pointed out a recent native campsite". With that there might be a direct quote of

Corporal Jones found a group of three natives[sic] hiding near our camp and shot them.

Hope this helps Gnan garra 13:04, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Ideally this thread should be indicative of the issues that should be established and standardised and agreed upon at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Indigenous_peoples_of_Australia, and also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Noongar

And where possible editors who are curious as to MOS and appropriate usages have something to refer to, as it is there is a need to establish standardisation across Australia Indigenous peoples project articles. JarrahTree 22:50, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks all for your input. It's useful to have that extra detail, Gnangarra. I have edited a few articles in recent months where I have corrected others' usage (recently the massacres one), which has led me to this issue, because I would like to have a WP rule to point to, in case of disagreement. I would think that there are lots of editors out there who are not involved in these projects (myself included - I have only started looking in occasionally recently) and/or who just don't know, and/or are wilfully using disrespectful language. Is it possible to set up a style page which could be set up something along the lines of the Article titles section in MOS:LAW, where each interested country project could set up their own rules? I'm sure that all of the countries colonised in the recent past (2-4 centuries) have their issues and rules which they could add there too? We could refer to the style guides I mentioned in my other comment, and the AITSIS one mentioned by Gnan above. (I don't know what the protocol is for setting up these style pages in WP, so just asking the question.) Laterthanyouthink (talk) 01:03, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

@Gnangarra: can you shed any light on why "Indigenous Australians" can be offensive? AIATSIS says "many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people do not like to be referred to as ‘Indigenous’ as the term is considered too generic". I can see that "Indigenous" (without mentioning Australia) is generic because it potentially covers people from many countries/continents, but is "Indigenous Australians" more generic than "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people"? Are there Indigenous Australians who are not Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people? Mitch Ames (talk) 09:23, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

"Traditional Owners" — I suggest that "traditional owners" is not a proper noun and ought not be capitalised. AIATSIS appears to agree. A search of their website shows primarily uncapitalised terms (other than page titles, which use Title Case). Mitch Ames (talk) 09:37, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Also, "traditional owners" should only be used if the specific sources being cited use that term. To assume that any particular group of people are "traditional owners" of a place without a reference to support that term is WP:SYN. Mitch Ames (talk) 10:01, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

"if you really need to put specific quote from someone then include [sic] to indicate its a direct quote" — No, that's not what sic is for. Sic indicates "either an actual textual error or text that appears to be an error", but that is not the case when quoting historical sources that use language that is now considered offensive. The quotation marks (or appropriate formatting) already indicate that it is a direct quote. Note that in some other contexts sic "may also be inserted ... to show general disapproval or dislike of the material", but that ought not be done in Wikipedia articles, because it is contrary to WP:EDITORIAL. Mitch Ames (talk) 09:56, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

firstly the correct term is which is what I quoted Aboriginal and/or Torres Straight Islanders not Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders. as per the AIATSIS link Indigenous is offensive and the least preferred usage as being Neutral something thats a Wikipedia pillar if it's offensive isnt neutral. As per the Australian Government style guide [sic] is a neutral device which says - That is how it was. It's used by scholars immediately after the word in question when they quote from an earlier source to show that the quotation is exactly as written even if the choice of words seems inappropriate. - source: Australian English style guide published by Macquarie University Department of Linguistics. Gnan garra 11:10, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

firstly the correct term is which is what I quoted Aboriginal and/or Torres Straight Islanders not Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders. as per the AIATSIS link — The AIATSIS page that you linked to, https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/articles/indigenous-australians-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-people, uses Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples ten times, and Aboriginal and/or Torres Straight [sic] Islanders or Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders zero times, however my question is not about "and/or" it is about the difference between Indigenous Australians (which you said is offensive) and Indigenous (which AIATSIS says is offensive, along with the reason). My questions remain - is Indigenous Australians the same as Indigenous? Why is the former offensive? Is Indigenous Australians more generic (the reason AIATSIS gives for Indigenous being offensive) than Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people - if so, why? What people are included by the former but not the latter?

I'm not disputing that any particular term is offensive; I'm curious to know why it's offensive. It's a lot easier to use appropriate terminology if we understand why some terms are offensive and some are not. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:33, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Really I'm curious to know why it's offensive. the why needs to be bold, what point are trying to make. Offensive words are derived from the way in which they have been used to diminish the value of, dismiss, abuse, marginalise, make a novelty of, racial, sexist, and alienate people from society. We have a policy called WP:AGF for when you dont understand Gnan garra 01:37, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm not trying to make a point, I'm asking the questions in an attempt to improve my understanding of the subject. If you don't know the answers, that's fine. Another look at https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/articles/indigenous-australians-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-people suggests that AIATSIS might be implying that Indigenous and Indigenous Australians are equivalent, given the text:

... the term ‘Indigenous Australian’ ... many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people do not like to be referred to as ‘Indigenous’ ...

and the image caption:

... Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, rather than the generic term Indigenous Australian.

Presumably, although the scope of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander is the same as Indigenous Australian (if that is the case) the former is preferred because it explicitly mentions and thus acknowledges the "two broadly described groups", rather than implying that all "Indigenous Australians" are the same. But rather than making such assumptions (and risk causing more offence) I ask specific questions, in the hope of getting specific answers. Mitch Ames (talk) 03:11, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

I feel like you've just answered your own question and that it might be time to listen to Gnangarra's general advice about the language you should be using and redirect your energies to more helpful endeavours. The Drover's Wife (talk) 06:35, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Can anyone advise me further on the process by which things get added to the style manual? If people agree in principle that it's a good idea to have a guide, then I can look into how and where to start the process of creating such a thing. Then further discussion here or on the talk page of that new MOS page - does that sound like a reasonable way to go? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 01:05, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

start a sub page on this project, invite everyone to give input and expand on it. When it appears to have reach at point of stability bring here again to get support as guide for Australian topics, then take it to MOS as an example. Sorry if that sounds like bit long winded but the community moves slowly in these processes and there will be a lot questions some good, some just just needing to humoured or ignored. Gnan garra 01:37, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Gnangarra. I will add it to my list and try to get it going soon (ish). Laterthanyouthink (talk) 04:05, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Progress update/discussion on style guide

For whoever is interested, my first pass at collating relevant info from various sources is at Draft style guide 1. This is nothing more than a dump of info and not intended to be presented in this way, obviously. I've created a talk page there for further discussion on this. Phase two will be to somehow condense the info and present it in an appropriate style for a WP MOS page. As most of the sources say the same things on the basic terminology and style, this should not be too difficult, but in the course of cutting, pasting, typing and linking, quite a few other issues have occurred to me. One is that the two articles on Aboriginal Australians and Indigenous Australians will need review in the light of the intended MOS, perhaps as a first task, so that they're all in sync, although there will inevitably be some overlap or repetition. I have other questions but will save them for the draft talk page. At this point perhaps people can just scan the list of sources and let me know if there are any good ones I haven't captured (even if they say the same thing). Laterthanyouthink (talk) 05:47, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Another spelling evangalist

Yet another spelling evangalist has decided that Adelaide Gaol is a typo & that Wikipedia is improved with such erudite statements as "The Old Melbourne Gaol is a former jail..." [12]. Similar edits were made to Sydney, Tasmania, Canberra, Adelaide, South Australia & Norfolk Island. Has started a discussion at WT:Manual of Style § Gaol vs. jail & asserts that commonality overrides Australian english. Feel free to comment there if you have a view. --Find bruce (talk) 01:37, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

I've fixed the link, in Find bruce's post, to the MOS discussion. Mitch Ames (talk) 01:54, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Warrowen massacre review request

Can editors familiar with Australian history please review Warrowen massacre. All the sources are offline, and I have no ability to verify anything. I only noticed the article, as I was looking at the contributions of an editor who seemed to have a bias in related topics. I also, I'm not sure of the accepted terminology to use (though I know, we stopped using the term "Aborigines"). --Rob (talk) 02:13, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Rob This might be helfpul http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p110711/html/Text/ch08.html?referer=&page=15 Aoziwe (talk) 10:27, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

AfD?

I'm a novice at this process, so not sure my AfD has been properly posted, but having stumbled upon Indigenous peoples of Australia and noting all of its problems (including almost total absence of sources) and overlaps with other articles, came to the conclusion that it may be better just deleted... Or perhaps merge with Indigenous Australians. There's no hurry and I'm sure we all need a break for a while, but thought I'd better post this here for some Australian editors to have a look at and comment at some point. (This is partly related to the style guide which I started working on - see above - which is going to take quite a while because I think before going further I/we have to look more closely at and improve the main articles (Indigenous/Aboriginal Australians) first.) Thanks. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 02:28, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

I'd noticed that overlap in the past, wondered what to do about, then moved on to other things. Thank you for looking into it more deeply. Your suggestion makes a lot of sense. HiLo48 (talk) 03:05, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, HiLo48. In case you want to participate further, a couple of other editors have commented here (which I'll get back to when able). Laterthanyouthink (talk) 07:44, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

2019 NSW Fires

Are these fires that are currently happening in New South Wales notable enough to have their own article as I do feel like they might be at this point in time. HawkAussie (talk) 05:49, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Some might have considered WP:NOTNEWS as a restraint on some content, however considering the extent of damage, there are good examples from earlier disasters like 1967_Tasmanian_fires, Ash_Wednesday_bushfires, as a possible indicator of the way articles have been done on similar events. JarrahTree 06:03, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I think it's been such a bad bushfire season already that it's hard to break it down or give it a any more of a specific framing than 2019–20 Australian bushfire season: there's been basically constant massive fires all over the place for weeks and the only thing they've really got in common is that they're in NSW and their combined smoke is drowning Sydney. (There's also massive and possibly unprecedented fires burning elsewhere, like in East Gippsland.) Perhaps the best solution for this year might be time to start breaking the bushfire seasons article down by state. The Drover's Wife (talk) 07:54, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

The 1967_Tasmanian_fires and Ash_Wednesday_bushfires both involved considerably more fatalities (62 and 75 respectively) than these current fires. That would have been the primary justification for the creation of those articles. The suggestion of an article for the current fires strikes me as both an example of recentism and a kind of NSW centrism. The fires in Queensland and eastern Victoria are all related to the massive drought impacting a huge swathe of eastern Australia. There is nothing unique or separate about the NSW fires. They are just part of a larger complex of fires. Note that we also already have an article called 2019–20 Australian bushfire season which, naturally enough, covers the fires in NSW in a lot of detail. HiLo48 (talk) 08:55, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't think it's a case of WP:RECENTISM at all: there has been more than enough deaths to warrant an article and the scale of the fires and the smoke situation in Sydney is unprecedented in this country at least. It's just practically a matter of working out an appropriate scope. The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:59, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Are you sure about that smoke claim? What I see is the Sydney headquartered national media networks currently influencing coverage all over the country. The same would not apply for similar situations in another city. There would be big coverage in that city, but less so in Sydney. Melbourne has had many days with huge amounts of smoke in the 50 odd years I've lived here. I wonder if they got any coverage at all in Sydney. And we really must recognise that, to the bushfires, state borders mean nothing. Is there really any point in separating NSW bushfires from southern Queensland bushfires? HiLo48 (talk) 10:11, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't think that's true at all: our media networks are no more Sydney-focused than Melbourne-focused, and we've never seen smoke problems like this in Melbourne - this isn't just "oh there's a bit of smoke in the air", it's air pollution levels that've smashed records to smithereens, forced mass cautions to limit time outside and made outdoor workers go on strike and take leave for their own safety, and smoke levels that are so severe they've been setting off random smoke detectors in buildings across the city and forced the evacuation of the RFS headquarters. As a Melburnian, I well and truly call bullshit on the suggestion that we've had "many days" of that - that's just absurd. As for the state boundaries: we haven't had significant bushfire complexes that are crossing state borders, and there's no way we're going to be able to do justice to this bushfire season in one article considering we've got major fires in a bunch of states (and had them for weeks) and the season's barely started. The Drover's Wife (talk) 10:38, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I humbly stand by my point about media coverage distortion. And from when I first saw the way the idea of a nationwide bushfire season was being used, I was concerned. In Queensland, the rains come in summer. Winter is the dry season. Fires are more likely there in late winter and spring. And I repeat, the fires are, at least to some extent, a consequence of the drought. Neither respects state borders. HiLo48 (talk) 10:46, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Now you're talking about differences in bushfire seasons between states, which would surely support the concept of splitting them up by state to account for said difference. The fires being a consequence of the drought is neither here nor there for either our notability or editorial purposes. Bushfire complexes that cross state borders (of which we have had none) are a perfect fit for the national article, in the event that a bushfire occurs that crosses state borders. The Drover's Wife (talk) 12:34, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

The real problem is that our state borders were defined by humans, primarily for political and economic reasons, and have little relationship to natural divisions. (Apart, perhaps, from the Murray River, but even then....) Perhaps because I've been employed for much of my life in organisations that had to take a national, even international, rather than a state based view of things, I don't see state borders as very important at all when it comes to describing natural phenomena. HiLo48 (talk) 21:12, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

If a bushfire crossed the Tasmanian border, that would be notable. Mitch Ames (talk) 09:56, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

I might pop out to Boundary Islet today and light a fire, just to get an article here. Though it's satellite pic suggests I might not be able to find much to burn. HiLo48 (talk) 21:16, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Okay it's just an opinion but a strong one as I'm inclusionist. We definitely can have a specific article about the east coast bushfires of November/December. The amount of media coverage to date suggests history will back me up on this. Definitely notable as 2015 Pinery bushfire for instance (which I happened to create the day after the fire started in Nov 2015) and if this complex of fires cross into Queensland then that's fine. The current detail at 2019–20 Australian bushfire season NSW and Qld sections is confusing and hard for follow. Please move ahead on this! Donama (talk) 02:31, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

I specifically agree with what the Drover's Wife said about scope. If it was easy to figure out a title and scope of the fires the article would already exist. That's what we should be discussing here. Donama (talk) 02:38, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm an inclusionist too, but we DO already have 2019–20 Australian bushfire season, which should obviously contain everything this article would include. Yes, the contents are currently messy, but that's because it's a current event, with a lot of novice editors contributing. (If it bothers you, please help fix it.) It's normal practice to wait until things settle down a little and let experienced editors raise the quality. That article is part of an ongoing series, so is not going to go away. To create another article, one that should have no content that's not already in the existing article, is a perfect recipe for TWO messy articles, with probable inconsistencies. That's more than inclusion. It's overreach. HiLo48 (talk) 04:14, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

It shouldn't obviously contain everything this article would campaign, because the coverage and notable content has well and truly hit the point for a summary style breakout of it. There's no point to specifically cut down the content about the most objectively notable fires of the season compared to everything else because you're down for some interstate rivalry wars, because there appears to be no other logic to it at this point. The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:47, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

To my mind the 2019-20 bush fire season is clearly notable, from the events themselves, to the impact on people and property, to the impact on flora and fauna, to the political response, and to public opinion reponse. I suggest we do not worry about how the article/s grow right now. There is still another five or six months of the ever lengthening season to come. Perhaps we come back and rationalise/split the relevant aticles in a couple of months time? Aoziwe (talk) 12:55, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Extinction events

My various plant sources are getting hit by unconfirmed reports of plant and pollinator extinctions from the fires so far Wollemi pine and Hakea dohertyi. Lots of people are countering it with "it will take a while until specialists can get into the areas to check, also some will depend on whether the seed bank is damaged and that may take few years to confirm". There is also suggestions that Landcare NSW is putting together a panel to explore, test, and establish what the impact is. For many of the threatened and critically endangered species seeds have been collected for preservation so it may only be wild populations lost. Please tread carefully on how you describe what sources are saying and wait for them to be formally declared extinct before being definitive. Gnan garra 04:39, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Lachlan Macquarie

This article is currently ineligible for a January 1 OTD appearance because the section of the article on places named after him needs sources. I'm wondering if anything named Macquarie in Australia is WP:BLUE? I've looked at the articles on some of these places and checked some of their sources, and most of the sources don't come right out and say the school/river/building/whatever was named after Macquarie. Can someone give some advice? --valereee (talk) 21:35, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

I've added a few sources. The Sydney ones are more challenging because they were all basically named by Macquarie and the more authoritative period sources weren't crass enough to point out that he was naming half of Sydney after himself: there's a bunch of people pointing this out but not in particularly high-quality sources. I think you'll just have to make a judgment call as to which is the best of that lot. Some of the modern ones are a bit more challenging (e.g. Macquarie Centre) because it's bloody obvious but doesn't seem to have been the subject of enough academic interest for anyone to point it out. I think it'd be feasible to fix it up in time, even if a couple have to be removed for being unsourceable. The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:29, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

According to the disambiguation page Macquarie, "[all geographical and business entities in Australia named Macquarie] are directly or indirectly named after Lachlan Macquarie". There's no reference for that statement, but I think there should be. See Talk:Macquarie. Mitch Ames (talk) 02:33, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Does that apply to Mrs Macquarie's Chair and Macquarie Culvert? I assume the Lachlan River can be linked back Mister Macquarie. HiLo48 (talk) 09:17, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

I think it does for the first one and definitely does to the second, but the claim in Macquarie is by definition unverifiable: it's entirely possible that there could be some geographical place somewhere in Australia called Macquarie that's named after some entirely unrelated Macquarie; "most" would be a statement of the bloody obvious but probably a still difficult to attribute statement of the bloody obvious. The Drover's Wife (talk) 09:20, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

with Mrs Macquarie's Chair it would technically correct as at the time she would have formally been addressed as Mrs Lachlan Macquarie not as Mrs Elizabeth Macquarie. Would it be a long bow to draw without a citation, to say every place and business when the white pages show that there are many living people who have this surname. Gnan garra 10:10, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Per Talk:Lachlan_Macquarie#Whose_culvert? I suggest that the culvert was more likely for Elizabeth Macquarie rather than Lachlan. Elizabeth_Macquarie#Places_named_after/in_honour_of_Elizabeth_Macquarie agrees. But given that she took his surname when they married, one could argue that it is named indirectly after him. However I agree that the assertion that "[all] are directly or indirectly named after [either of them]" is effectively unproveable. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:20, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

This is quite revealing. (BTW: Mrs Macquarie's Chair is on page 2). I suspect if someone (I do not at this time) has the time to wade through a lot of these then there will be all the ref/s needed for the statement/s on Macquarie, and also ditto for Lachlan, etc. Yes I too think the/a CN on the Macquarie DAB is needed. Aoziwe (talk) 12:26, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for all the help, all, and the additional sources. Definitely an improvement, though there are enough still unsourced that it probably doesn't get it over the hump. --valereee (talk) 20:43, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

I've gone through and added sources. So far I have turned up a source for each one I went looking for. I suggest if more people jump in and do it, most will be sourced in no time. Kerry (talk) 21:15, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Crown Street Women's Hospital

Which part of Crown Street Women's Hospital in Sydney has been demolished? The building in the photo appears to still be standing and is heritage-listed. It's possible an annex was demolished around 1983. Trying to update the year of demolition for various buildings which don't have it, and came across this one, so any help is appreciated (please ping me if you respond.) SportingFlyer T·C 10:23, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

@SportingFlyer: The building which was demolished in 1983 was Canonbury (see photo), a gothic mansion on what is now McKell Park in Darling Point. The house was used as an annex for the Crown Street Women's Hospital. --Canley (talk) 10:55, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Cheers, much appreciated, I'll do what I can to update the article. SportingFlyer T·C 11:05, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

reference required ?

some years ago there were quite fascinating discussions about the functionality of in popular culture in articles...

currently in the article about the Great Victoria Desert - Great_Victoria_Desert#Popular_Culture there is an unreferenced item, it would be interesting what the current crowd of this notice board might consider - find a reference? or remove? JarrahTree 11:19, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I'd remove it - I'm not sure you'd be able to find a secondary reference anyways. SportingFlyer T·C 11:21, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
"In popular culture" sections are fine, but that's vague (what did it have to do with the Great Victoria Desert exactly?) and unreferenced and I'd just cut it. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:25, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

am currently watching the actual episode of doctor who - will leave it for the moment and see if there is something in the programme that is worth keeping... JarrahTree 11:36, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

amazingly good part of doctor who - I'd leave it in - JarrahTree 12:01, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Can it be sourced or is it WP:OR? SportingFlyer T·C 12:19, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Does this one count: https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2020-01-01/doctor-who-spyfall-part-one-review/ Aoziwe (talk) 13:19, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I removed it as part of my regular watchlist check, before finding out about this discussion. Popular culture sections can easily snowball into trivia coatracks, and a trivial mention in a single episode is a horrible way to start one off. Graham87 14:25, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

haha - the wikipedia article had temerity to identify the location in oz as the Outback - gah JarrahTree 14:31, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

NSW and Victoria just jumped 1.8m north

This may be the wrong place to raise this but does this change require any changes by Wikipedia, Wikidata etc.? -- Mattinbgn (talk) 21:38, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Most coordinates here shouldn't be affected, since they shouldn't be overly precise. Per MOS:COORD, buildings should have coords accurate to ~10m, and larger things should have less precise coords - Evad37 [talk] 22:04, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

The last change was in late 2016 and even in situations with more precise requirements, such as augmented reality games like Pokemon Go and Ingress, the change was barely noticeable. --AussieLegend (✉) 11:00, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

surely there is an article that incorporates or explains the drift ? JarrahTree 11:21, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

none of the articles: -

Australian_Plate

Sahul_Shelf

Australia_(continent)#Geology

Have any mention of the drift at all as far as I can see... JarrahTree 11:27, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

That's probably because global plate motion and adjustment of spatial reference systems to compensate is not specific to the region or the Australian Plate. It's explained in Plate tectonics, but this happens all the time, all over the world, so it's not some unusual event unique to Australia or Oceania. The need for dynamic geodesy could probably be better explained in a general article, I just wouldn't mention it specifically in the context of the Australian case. As mentioned in the article (and is apparent in the NASA diagram to the right), the Australian plate does move quite fast relative to the others—the speed and direction of the shift are mentioned in the infobox of Australian Plate and one could compare this to the other plates—I suppose the higher relative shift could be worth a mention: there are some international articles about Australia "moving too fast"! By the way, for the technical aspects of how the CRS is updated, see the Geocentric Datum of Australia 2020 Technical Manual. --Canley (talk) 00:39, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks - well explained - interesting if an article could emanate in time from this discussion, I would argue it is a notable topic JarrahTree 00:45, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Governor-General of Australia needs help - broken timeline

Does anyone know anything about the timeline feature? It appears to be broken in this article and the article terminates at that point. Kerry (talk) 14:15, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

I seem to have fixed it for the moment, but I think the problem will occur again in 12 months. So if you know anything about this, can you still have a look at it. Kerry (talk) 14:18, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

I think I've automated the end date to be next year at all times. The-Pope (talk) 14:36, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

An article (H. W. F. Kayser) I cleaned up that still needs fixing

Hello. I happened to stumble upon this article. Having noticed how poorly this article was written, I suspected that it might have been the work of a malicious editor, so I checked the history. It turns out that it was created from a very crude outline by a user (a certain Doug Butler) who most likely did not speak English as his first language. I have therefore set about to give it a massive overhaul (perfect timing for the New Year!). I tried my best to improve the grammar, style, and sentence flow; however, there were several spots that I either did not know how to fix, or fixed anyway yet wasn't sure as to the acceptability of my edits. Here they are:

Was the article's subject commonly known by his initials (akin to, say, E.B. White or J.J. Thomson), or his full name? The sources are ambiguous about this. Six of them are newspapers and one of them are not; the non-newspaper refers to Kayser by his full name, and the newspapers either use his initials or avoid mentioning his full name at all. Yes, I know that the source using his full name is outnumbered by about four to one, but the statistics are skewed due to the others all being newspapers, and besides, the newspapers mention everyone else by their initials too. If the latter, then I suggest that we move this article to Heinrich Wilhelm Ferdinand Kayser, or something along the lines of that.
The name of the article's subject was originally listed as "Heinrich Wilhelm Ferdinand "Ferd" Kayser M.E. F.R.G.S. MAusIMM MIMechE". Are those extra letters at the end honorifics? They were not present in the original, and I can find no such honorifics in any other article on Wikipedia.
According to the article, Kayser's reforms to the mine at Mount Bischoff made "around ₤1,250,000 for its investors". But that's not the pound sign before the numbers; that's the lira sign! The linked source has a sentence reading "The mine has paid nearly 1½ millions in dividends", but fails to specify a unit of currency. I'm assuming that's simply a typo for the real pound sign, as Australia used the Australian pound at the time before switching to the Australian dollar.
- The main question I'm trying to ask here is: are values in historical currencies acceptable on Wikipedia, or must I convert them into the country's modern equivalent? If the former, must I provide a conversion?
How am I supposed to format the "Family" section? How are the names of the people supposed to be presented, and are the bullets and dashes correct? What sort of relationship do Agnes and Bertha have to Kayser? Daughters? Sisters? Nieces? The article is very vague on this. How come none of the (other) children have names? And they can't possibly all still be alive today if all of them were born prior to 1900, now can they? Last but not least, where are the sources for all of this?!?!?!?! Unsourced information itself does not make me angry, but once I see unsourced information as egregious as this, I start fuming. That's it; I've removed the "Family" section until we can supply citations.

(For reference, here is the latest revision of this article before I initiated cleanup efforts. Good luck, all of you.)

Thanks, HighwayTyper (talk) 20:38, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Answering one question, the "M.E. F.R.G.S. MAusIMM MIMechE" postnomials are rot really part of the name but indicate academic qualifications, and society memberships. Perhaps they can be linked eg MAusIMM but not bolded. see List of post-nominal letters (Australia). Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:53, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

To answer your specific question about historical currency. Generally for measurements you write in terms of the units used in the source material (which in Australia for historical content would involve units like miles) and provide conversions to current units where appropriate (e.g. miles converted to kilometres). The {{convert}} is available to do this, e.g. The mine was 10 miles (16 km) west of Somewhere Else. However, it is almost impossible in practice to meaningfully convert historic amounts of money into present day amounts as the value of money reflects a range of the goods and services available at that time and there is no simple way to convert that to a meaningful amount of present-day currency. Just leave money in its historic form.

The lire symbol looks a lot like the pound symbol; it's a common mistake people make when clicking on the special characters menu in the various edit tools; I've made that mistake more than once myself. It's quite ok to fix something like that if it is unambiguously incorrect without the need for discussion, same as typos. Kerry (talk) 02:45, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I've added references for all the family members—birth notices from Trove—this is where they would have been sourced from and as you can see from the detail in the notices this is why the names and dates of death are not known. --Canley (talk) 03:22, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Edit:

How convenient. The article creator has a list of articles that he has created or substantially edited on his user page. That would definitely help in cleanup. HighwayTyper (talk) 20:41, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Please do not shoot the piano player. He is doing his best. Doug butler (talk) 21:06, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

(REDACTED) — Preceding unsigned comment added by HighwayTyper (talk • contribs) 22:58, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

User:HighwayTyper, I’m not sure what issues you’re seeing in the article that suggests that Doug’s first language is anything other than English. I suggest you dial back your rudeness. Step hen 23:30, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree. It is trivial to tell from Doug's user page that he is almost certainly a native Australian English speaker and trivial to establish that he is a highly experienced editor. There was a complete lack of civility in HighwayTyper's post and further comment above and I think an apology would be in order from User:HighwayTyper, someone whose user page suggests is not a native speaker of Australian English which, in light of the comments above, might suggest they should not pass judgement on an article clearly flagged as being written in Australian English. Kerry (talk) 00:59, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Coming to a national noticeboard - with a word-bomb with unnecessarily bolded expressions about a biography of a Tasmanian mine person, and basically personally attacking an editor and his edit history over a spurious notion of english usage deserves nothing short of serious reprimand, we dont do things like that here in Australia, and we expect a much higher level of respect for all editors here - new and established. JarrahTree 01:10, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

User:HighwayTyper, your "massive overhaul" seems pretty trivial at best, and I can see no significant issues with the spelling, grammar or language in the late 2018 versions—certainly none that warrant such invective and invalid assumptions about another editor, particularly one with nine years more experience on Wikipedia than you. While your work to improve the article is appreciated, your tone and accusations of malice and incompetence in these posts are not. --Canley (talk) 03:25, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I totally agree with Canley.--Grahame (talk) 02:08, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

External links

There are comments at Talk:Blackrock (film)#External links that may be of interest to some members. Otr500 (talk) 10:14, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Ethnic enclaves in Australia

Anyone feel like taking a look at Category:Ethnic enclaves in Australia? There are a whole bunch of suburbs randomly tagged with this category with no basis for the claim and it's a bit of a POV mess. The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:20, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Needs deleting. Onetwothreeip (talk) 10:13, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

I have commented and significantly pruned it. Bookscale (talk) 11:16, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

CFD 'test case'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2020_January_7#Category:History_of_Australia_topical_overviews - because there is no onus in cfd discussions to shsre with related projects (as opposed to Afd where some effort is usually taken) - this one is being discussed so far by eds not usually seen on this noticeboard... JarrahTree 04:40, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion on photomontage for Sydney

Hey there! A discussion on what to illustrate, and which images to include, in a potential {{Photo montage}} for the Sydney article is currently taking place at Talk:Sydney#Selection of images for a photomontage. Feel free to join in on the discussion and share your thoughts on the matter! – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 22:30, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Big push to reach 6 million articles by Wikipedia's birthday 15 January! Create those stubs!

On the current article creation rate, we won't make it in time, so the call is out for everyone to create a few more articles. Even a stub counts (two sentences and two citations!).

The count is here but you probably have to purge it to get the up-to-date number.

Looking for topic ideas, well, ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Australia/To-do/Australian_Dictionary_of_Biography. Try any letter of the alphabet and you should find lots of redlinks. Double check the person really does not have an article on Wikipedia, perhaps under a variant name. Write a stub. One citation is obviously to the entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. If you pick people who died before 1955, the Trove digitised newspapers will probably have an obituary or some other material about the person, which gives you a second citation. Stub done! Kerry (talk) 05:10, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia/To-do if people aren't your thing. Though if you can find a couple of good sources, it isn't hard to make a stub – I created John Nicholson (Western Australian politician) earlier today (the main challenge was editing on a phone) - Evad37 [talk] 10:57, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

For any Auspol/WA editors, Evad37's article highlighted to me that we've still got a whole bunch of WA Legislative Council members without articles - I'd long ago thought we'd done everyone who'd ever been in parliament in all the states. The Drover's Wife (talk) 12:55, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

All states and project/subjects are far short of even comprehensive coverage of lots of things more than politics, it is a falsity to think coverage of notable topics in any state project is any where near reasonably covered. JarrahTree 12:59, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Before I saw Kerry's call to action this morning, I'd already created one bio of a living writer today. Have since added an artist from the ADB, not as stubby as she suggested, but habits are hard to break. Don't think I'll be able to keep this pace up though. Oronsay (talk) 07:00, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I know many bemoan the number of sport bio stubs on here, but if you want a list of redlinks, with a lot of minor and female athletes on it (and no footballers), I made a list of Aussie Olympians without articles a while ago. User:Lugnuts is slowly getting througn most of them, but still quite a few redlinks remaining. Before you make any, check that they don't aleady exist under a name variation, as articles created from the official IOC records generally use the full names, not common names. The-Pope (talk) 16:32, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Excellent list, thanks The-Pope. Am working my way through the women equestrians as stubs - it's quite addictive. I'm being bold and moving the blue links to the relevant section, after checking they are about the correct individuals. Oronsay (talk) 01:57, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Lead in bushfire season articles

Just in case any one has not seen this, it relates to multiple articles Talk:2019–20 Australian bushfire season#Bolding in lead. Aoziwe (talk) 00:04, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Nick McKenzie

Interested editors may like to keep an eye on Nick McKenzie, where a supporter of Ben Roberts-Smith is adding solely negative material. Thanks, WWGB (talk) 15:23, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

I've come across this editor at Ben Roberts-Smith where I and others have reverted their blatant soapboxing. On one occasion, that editor seems to have invented a citation. On the other hand, the edits at Nick McKenzie seem well supported by reliable verifiable sources. Criticism is a valid part of biographical articles. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 00:38, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I've pruned the article. Although the sources are generally correct, the paragraphs added by the editor are generally POV and go well beyond what the source says in criticising the subject. I have put a disruptive editing warning on his page too. Bookscale (talk) 10:22, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Whoever pruned it did a good job. I think we need to be careful in thinking about dealing with defamation/other legal cases in journalist articles of this length, because including three in an article of this size generally carries the implication that he has bit of a tendency to get sued, as opposed to being an investigative reporter in a notoriously easy defamation jurisdiction who tends to report on people with the resources to sue him. I don't think it's worth removing any of those three (the Labor database leaks and the Chau Chak Wing cases were both very high-profile and the Helen Liu case is legally significant) but I still feel like it's a bit of an WP:UNDUE situation. The Drover's Wife (talk) 23:19, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

@The Drover's Wife:, I completely agree. I was concerned too because I can't find any media articles suggesting that either the Liu or Wing cases have finished, which means we need to be extremely cautious in how these things are maintained in McKenzie's article. Bookscale (talk) 00:13, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

FYI, the Chau Chak Wing case is still going after being delayed because an issue in the ongoing case got appealed to the High Court, while apparently the Liu case settled. The Drover's Wife (talk) 00:24, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks- that's really helpful. Bookscale (talk) 02:05, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Fires, redux

I think it's gotten to the point where we really need to organise what we're going to do about this season's fire articles. The East Gippsland fires have hit the point where they'd be notable for their own article in any sense (now being clearly worse than anything since Black Saturday), and the NSW fires would have long ago (the RFS commissioner has just come out and said that it's the worst NSW fire season in recorded history) if it were possible to categorise them beyond the fire season itself unless we went down to articles for each individual complex (e.g. having an article for the massive Currowan fire that's been burning for weeks). The Adelaide Hills fire is also at least borderline notable in its own right considering the extent of the damage there.

We seemed to have some support, if not unanimous, last time for breaking down 2019–20 Australian bushfire season by state where warranted. We're at the stage where, if we did this, we'd have enough material to roll out at least three state articles immediately. The main counter-argument last time appeared to be that fires don't follow state boundaries, which is true - basically the entire coast from Lakes Entrance in Vic through to Batemans Bay in NSW is currently on fire or under extreme threat between different complexes of fires - but the entire bushfire response is on a state-by-state basis and so all the bushfire coverage largely follows state lines. It's easy enough to mention a border-crossing fire in two state articles where relevant. There is way, way too much material to be trying to cram all this into months-long article - can we get some agreement on how to do this so we can get it done? The Drover's Wife (talk) 02:01, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I am not too fussed either way. Yes they will eventually need rationalising, so if someone can start now okay by me. I just do not want to see big arguments over it. I need to say I will not have time to help now. (We are packed ready to evacuate ourselves. We have had charred leaves and ash falling on us for two days.) Re "state" split - a fire complex has crossed over from VIC to NSW today - but yes I would expect references are going to be mostly "state" aligned. Some fires will justify their own main article. Where fires have merged and then burnt as one for a lot longer, one article might be better. There are also some huge fires which have split and then taken two different directions, and have generated their own separate updates and news, etc. (It has just started to rain as I type this. Hopefully we will get more than only a few mm! But there is lightning too, which can start more fires.) Aoziwe (talk) 07:21, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

This is precisely why some of us were learning towards "2019–20 Australian bushfire season in [state]" articles so you're not trying to work out (esp in NSW) which fire complexes to have articles and how to delineate them. It's just that there's not much point tossing in a bunch of work if people can't agree how to go about it in the first place. The Drover's Wife (talk) 10:26, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps something like - feel free to chop it up:

First version of article structure

2019–20 Australian bushfire season

Lead

S overview

S drought lead up (brief, with main article being Drought in Australia#2017– current drought) (This might also need two or three sentences?)

S summary of QLD

S summary of NSW

S summary of ACT

S summary of VIC

S summary of TAS

S summary of NT

S summary of SA

S summary of WA

S federal government logistical and resources response

S compensation for volunteers

S RFS/CFS personnel lives lost

S international assistance

S public opinion response

- public re climate change

- public re PM holiday

- media and commentator and analyst language and phrasing has now moved (to my ear at least) to be almost entirely presumptive of climate change

S political response

- coalition

- labour

- greens

S international political and opinion reponse

S environmental impact / extinction escalation / very very old growth ecologies

S statistics collation

2019–20 Australian bushfire season - state (for each state and territory)

Lead

S overview

S fire (for each named fire) (which can also track if they merged or split)

- fire ground (ignition and evolution and logistical response)

- environmental impact, including extinction escalation / very very old growth ecologies burnt for the first time in centuries or even longer

- people and property impact

S state government logistical and resources response

S statistics collation

with a fresh sense of NOTNEWS - there are aspects of above - great in time, after it is all over, but for the moment we are still in the thick of it (there could be months more of this) - I would strongly suggest that we hold off... some aspects might not actually have adequate reliable source coverage for maybe 6 months or more, prospects of some form of inquiry at federal or state level - a year or more. I would suggest restraint, however appealing it might be. JarrahTree 12:30, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I think that's a great structure, but just like with any major disaster: the interest to write a detailed article of what happened is there now. If you hold off for the sake of holding off, we'll get an unarguably notable stub that'll probably stay that way: you can have an article that looks like you've described or you can start it in six months, you can't have both. The Drover's Wife (talk) 12:47, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

More material will become available later and can be added then, but if the basics don't exist there's nothing to add it to. Virtually always happens with the "wait six months" approach to event articles: there will still be an article but it will suck. The Drover's Wife (talk) 20:38, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I strongly disagree - I fail to see how overview material will be available during the event that will constitute an adequate appraisal of the multiple factors for most of the sections in what is indeed a good structure. To take current news items and appraisals as sufficient and adequate, that will in time require updating or even removing, will be the problem for the article if it is started too fully now. JarrahTree 12:55, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Further to the WA discussion, if you have the time and inclination be BOLD and just do it. I am not going to object. (We are evacuating in about 8 hours time, hopefully for no more than 36 hours, but you never know!) Aoziwe (talk) 13:18, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm a big believer in not initiating big projects if a couple of people have been whingeing and no one much else has any opinions: there's too high a prospect of it turning out to be a waste of time. The Drover's Wife (talk) 23:44, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

As per earlier, I was in favour of content now and structure later, and yes I believe there is a lot more to come yet. But I am not going to get into a debate about such. My only further suggestion would be if content now could at least be developed with the eventual structure, eg how points are made and distinguished, if they will eventually be in different sections as per above for example, kept in mind it will presumably help to sort it out later. Aoziwe (talk) 14:04, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps a formal project?

As per The Drover's Wife, this will be a relatively big project. Perhaps then we "formally" declare it a project? While editors can obviously work wherever they wish, if we can agree on a structure, editors could "register" as focussing on particular aspects/parts to reduce editors bumping into each other. Declaring it a project and providing some form of consensual coordination might also encourage more editors to contribute. (We have returned to our rural property for the time being. It is almost "night time" here at the moment. The air is thick with smoke. Surrounded by fires within 50km. No immediate threat at the moment. Some rain is forecast but that will be black rain, potentially polluting water supplies and tank water.) Aoziwe (talk) 01:46, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

(It is now absolutely black here, no sun, no moon, no stars, no street lights (anyway), no light pollution over the horizon, nothing at all.) Aoziwe (talk) 02:48, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. The Drover's Wife (talk) 02:16, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I might start getting ready to set it up. Aoziwe (talk) 02:48, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

The Drover's Wife, and others. Appreciate your comments on User:Aoziwe/sandbox/bf2019, and-or feel free to edit it too. Aoziwe (talk) 05:09, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Revised / updated structure

Second version of proposed structure and tweaks

2019–20 Australian bushfire season

Lead

S overview

S drought lead up (brief, with main article being Drought in Australia#2017– current drought) (This might also need two or three sentences?)

S summary of QLD

S summary of NSW

S summary of ACT

S summary of VIC

S summary of TAS

S summary of NT

S summary of SA

S summary of WA

S federal government logistical and resources response

Ss overview and timeline

Ss general funding supplementation / aircraft leasing, etc.

Ss ADF assets - response and support

Ss army

Ss navy - maritime evacuation

Ss ADF reserve call up

S compensation for volunteers

S Recovery

S RFS/CFS personnel lives lost

S international assistance

S public opinion response

Ss public re climate change

Ss public re PM holiday

Ss media / editorial and commentator and analyst response - language and phrasing has now moved (to my ear at least) to be almost entirely presumptive of climate change, but definitely not entirely

Ss public reaction to politicians / visits

S political response

Ss coalition

Ss labour

Ss greens

S international political and opinion reponse

Ss political

Ss personality

Ss editorial

Ss institutional / organisational

S causes

S environmental impact / extinction escalation / very very old growth ecologies

Ss australian overview

Ss international

Ss global impact

S Fund raising

Ss for each major appeal / initiative

Ss general aggregation for all the others

S For the good

Ss Donations of food, clothing, equipment, furniture, accomodation, etc.

Ss Commercial support, eg, some businesses discounting face masks (some gouged too apparently)

S Criminal activity (sadly)

Ss Looting eg Batlow area - the alleged culprit is in police custody

Ss Theft eg of fire fighting equipment in Towamba - fire hoses from public building removed

Ss Frauds eg the fraudulent go fund me for people killed in Cobargo

S Public panic

Ss eg people in suburban areas watering down their gardens and lawns with no imminent fire threat emptying resevoirs despite requests by authorities to explicitly not do this

S statistics collation

2019–20 Australian bushfire season - state (for each state and territory)

Lead

S overview

S fire (for each named fire) (which can also track if they merged or split)

Ss fire ground (ignition and evolution and logistical response)

Ss environmental impact, including extinction escalation / very very old growth ecologies burnt for the first time in centuries or even longer

Ss people and property impact

S state government logistical and resources response

S statistics collation

Any comment anyone? Aoziwe (talk) 03:48, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. The Drover's Wife (talk) 03:53, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

We don't need a dedicated section for every state and territory - this is not the Senate. In WA/Tas/NT/ACT where basically bugger all happened, have a generic heading "Other states and territories". The focus should be on loss of life and property, not equity. WWGB (talk) 04:21, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

You might want to pay more attention to the news: the road over the Nullabor is cut due to bushfires in WA causing major problems/evacuations/trapped people, Tasmania's also had running bushfires with loss of property just about every week, and ACT had the worst air pollution in the world for several days as a result of the fires with unprecedented resulting shutdowns (including the postal service!) exceeding even the problems Sydney had. Part of the need to clearly break this out geographically is that stuff that would be significant any other year is getting dwarfed by the colossal chaos in east Vic and NSW. The Drover's Wife (talk) 04:55, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

bugger all indeed - try saying that to truckies and people stuck on the nullarbor... - the disruption to western australia might be dismissed as an equity issue,[13] however the size of the area affected and the dislocation is of a different manner to the eastern seaboard disaster.

the summary does raise the question against an established process at the wikiproject wildfire - which has been tagged for most of the australian fire season articles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wildfire - specifically

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wildfire#WP:WILDFIRE-GUIDE

I personally would be more inclined to follow an established guideline (which in turn might well agree with the gist of what wwgb has stated in a more formalised manner) - even better could be an Australian guideline for fires that follows something similar to the wildfire poroject outline, and have it as an acceptable base - too many Australian topics have ad hoc decisions that are never followed through the full range of articles for consistency. JarrahTree 04:54, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I think that's fairly irrelevant to the way we do things in Australia because having the fire season articles prevents a lot of arguments around the notability of borderline fires considering how commonplace they are here: if we had an article for every fire that burned more than 1,000 acres (4.0 km2), which is one of their notability criteria, we'd be here all year. So, for something like the Adelaide Hills fires, we can mention it in an appropriate amount of detail without necessarily needing to break it out into its own individual article (which is what the Americans would do with that WikiProject - see the specific list in 2014 California wildfires, which functionally amounts to an article for every individual fire in a situation like NSW this year). The Drover's Wife (talk) 05:03, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I did not want this to take issue with the american notions - just an example of what we can possibly do - otherwise we end up having arguments and conversations for ever - just a guideline to consider, just an idea - if you read the guideline is that it very specifically tries to get away from your problem - it makes criterion to keep the small components out. JarrahTree 05:11, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I was quoting the actual criteria they used and linked to them being applied in practice on the example they used on their WikiProject page. If we did that, we'd have a minimum of three separate articles for specific fires in places where WWGB thought "bugger all happened", and upwards of 30+ separate articles nationally, given that they would break down NSW into each individual separate fire complex. The Drover's Wife (talk) 05:16, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

If we are going to try to get a coordinated approach to the 2019-20 season I would like to have a pigeon hole for all issues and related material. We can always reduce and rationalise material later, eg, if individual states get more than due weight now, this can be fixed later. Aoziwe (talk) 05:20, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

overreach, we really dont how or where this will end, there nothing in the list for lost species, both flora and fauna yet smaller fires(as if theres any such thing now) could actually have a great impact by being the cause of species extinctions. Let people write about any everything they can, we can consolidate the information in 6 months using hindesight of what mattered. When details of the causes, convictions rather than just charges occur. There will be royal commissions, judicial reviews federally and for each state, guarantee a lot blame shifting will be orchestrated for political gain, and law changes. The one thing we do know is it going to be harder to recover and recognise what sources are talking about if we dont get them in the right areas while the dynamics of each hour changes. I have already started approaching people to get photos released, but really need WMAU to lead this in a big way. The best we can do now is make sure everything is caught in category tree. Gnan garra 10:06, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I am not sure if you are agreeing in part or disagreeing completely? there [is] nothing in the list for lost species - there is a spot for this in the header article, and for each fire, so I think we are in agreement? one thing we do know is it going to be harder to recover and recognise what sources are talking about ... - this is in part what some broader structure is trying to achieve, ie, so that we can see what relates to what and its scope? make sure everything is caught in category tree - note sure what you mean here, currently there is no category tree, just one big blob of an article? The suggested structure IS NOT to stop anyone writing what they want, or to stop editors adding new issues and contexts to the structure, it is to encourage editors to put it into a framework to make it easier to manage, that which I think we all agree has a long way to go yet, and the current article I suggest if not split up will become unwieldy in the not too distant future. Aoziwe (talk) 12:20, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Disagreeing in whole to this format, let hindsight be the guide, create as many articles as we can, only point of agreement is it cant be all in one and no season should be. Gnan garra 03:01, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@Gnangarra: - it's not suggesting having it all in one but breaking it out into state articles. Would you rather have articles for every specific fire? If so, what would you do about the NSW/Vic fires? The Drover's Wife (talk) 03:34, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

capture the individual and as much as we are able to now GN. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gnan garra from an insecure location Gnan garra 12:24, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

To clarify I suggest writing about each fire, when it joins another write about that on that combined fires name, if it separates or is psarked as new fire then start new article about that one. There is too much happening, and much more going to happen to be writing about the big picture in a serious and appropriate way. Nows the time to focus on detail that is coming in, we can consolidate into big picture articles when the fires are out, the enquiries are taking plce, the convictions have happened, and politics is played out Gnan garra 12:24, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

A couple of weeks have now passed since the last comment and we now have more time to look back and see a possible way forward. Writing about each fire is completely impractical. For example, in NSW alone, there were over 100 fires (I've never seen a formal count and it may only come out if a royal commission is held). So that would mean over 100 articles. The scale of the season (and that in itself is a loose term) is the reach across varying states and territories along a common timeframe. However, I believe we're trying to jam WP:NOTNEWS content into an article (the season) that has a much broader focus. In my view the article needs to cover the entire season, whatever that period is as defined in the lead (with the note now providing a better definition), in an abridged format to the existing article. And then we create a seperate article that covers 2019-2020 Australian southern bushfires (or replace southern with an appropriate term). This latter article would be something like the 2013 New South Wales bushfires, Black Saturday bushfires, etc. I mean, are the fires in Western Australia linked to those in NSW/Victoria? Are those in Queensland linked to those in Tasmania? And are those in South Australia linked to those in the Northern Territory? If they are, we need evidence to say so. Rangasyd (talk) 10:59, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

A step back - to get a wider view

Firstly, as pointed out by some, a taskforce will probably be a better way to go than a sub/project. So I will explore this a bit further.

In the mean time I would like to suggest that the taskforce look at not just the 2019-20 season but at a standard framework for all Australian bushfire articles.

The recent activity has higlighted a number of broader issues, for example:

all significant previous seasons are not well covered;
what is the definition of a bushfire season:
- it is not the same for tropical Australia as it is for southern and eastern Australia.
- why is "fire danger period" only mentioned twice (in all of en.wikipedia). The term is defined in legislation (at least in NSW), and is a key part of fire management in Australia, so should be described/mentioned in every(most) article, certainly every season article. It also gets changed for LGAs depending on local conditions. The fire danger period essentially "officially" defines the "season".
List of Australian bushfire seasons needs work
Bushfires in Australia needs a lot of work, eg:
- split into lists and a cover
- separate the list of individual fires from the list of seasons
need to review individual fire articles

The above might sound more like a project than a taskforce, but once done, adding to an agreed framework each year will/should be "relatively" straightforward, and the taskforce would no longer be needed.

While the above work could obviously be done as per the usual, I think at least a single place for editors to discuss issues and advise what they are working on would stop us bumping into each other and reduce non-concensus matters arising.

Comment? Aoziwe (talk) 11:24, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

AM radio in Western Australia - lead section

Editors are invited to comment at Talk:AM radio in Western Australia#Lead section on the relative merits of two versions [14][15] of the lead section. Mitch Ames (talk) 14:13, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Wyndham Vale - Proposed move

It has been proposed that Wyndham Vale be moved. The discussion is at Talk:Wyndham Vale#Requested move 25 January 2020. --AussieLegend (✉) 06:38, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

New article on Indigenous politics

I'm still ploughing my way through Indigenous Australians (which all started with an innocent question)... Long story short, would interested editors please comment on the talk page here re the creation of a new article on the topic of politics? I thought there must be one, to hold all of the various bits scattered throughout wp, but couldn't find any such thing. Any and all comments welcome. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 07:10, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Still open for more comments on this one on the talk page, please! Laterthanyouthink (talk) 08:08, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Name of Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit article

Hello all, I've started a discussion at Talk:Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit regarding moving the article to either Albert Park Circuit or Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit and invite interested editors to participate there. Thanks. A7V2 (talk) 00:23, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Europeans or British or English

Gnangarra mentions that the Aboriginal people are 300+ different nations and we ought not lump them all in together as a single group. Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia/Conventions/Indigenous draft and Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia/Draft style guide1 agree that we should use more specific terms (e.g. Noongar or even Whadjuk) where appropriate. While we're fixing up the articles accordingly - and/or while we're writing some style guidelines on the subject - we should consider not referring to "European" colonisation etc. Europe comprises "about fifty sovereign states" - and depending on your definition of "Europe", before 1788 may not have included Britain - so we really ought not lump them all in together. In reality Australia was generally colonised by the British, or possibly the English (my geopolitical knowledge is not that good), so we probably should be more specific in references to all of the people involved. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:08, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Yep. This occured to me too. But where does one start? I too think European is quite incorrect. A lot of convicts were not Engish but Irish, and convicts were given (terra nullus!) land fairly quickly. And then came thousands of Chinese with the gold rushes. So perhaps the colinisation needs to be "demographied" as British, Britian being the "Governing" entity, or was it actually the "United Kingdom". I just do not know enough detailed geopolitics from 200+ years ago but someone might. Aoziwe (talk) 13:27, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

A few complications there, but basically, officially Great Britain (Kingdom of Great Britain) until 1801, United Kingdom after that (of Great Britain and Ireland until 1921, then Great Britain and Northern Ireland after that). Had some discussions re the renaming of British colonisation of South Australia recently... All depends on context and what is being referred to, I think. Britain/UK was the colonising country or government, but loosely speaking I suppose that the early settlers of all nationalities were colonisers of the land and Indigenous people in some respect. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 13:44, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Very good point Mitch, Government each state was established as a British colony, before gaining self rule, they then federated in 1901. After that it was Australian Government. Colonialists were mostly from Western Europe and subject to British law, Chinese, Afghans, Japanese, and Malay workers were from colonies but didnt have equal rights to "Europeans". Gold rushes and whaling brought many from North America but again they all came to live under GB laws.

Government actions = British/Great Britain pre 1901 with Colonial Governments, Australian/Commonwealth post with States
Colonialists = primary GB, also France, Germany, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Greek, US, could "explore, discover, and claim land"
migrant workers = Chinese, Afghans, Japanese, Malay - limited rights,
Indigenous = preferred terminology is Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders - National level
Aboriginal = exclude Torres Strait Islanders.

not definitive or perfect by any means, migrant workers generally had free movement, limited rights, could buy land only from existing land holders. Hope this helps a bit more. Gnan garra 14:59, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

In South Australia, the "Germans" (who might have been German, but also could have been Prussian, Silesian, Wendish etc), had to be naturalised (as British Subjects) before they could own land. I think this was done by the colonial government, and only applied within its borders. I have no idea about any citizens of the Kingdom of Hanover, especially if any migrated before King William IV died in 1837. So those colonists might not have been British, until they wanted to own land (and might still not have spoken much English in country areas). They were "Germans" as that was their common language. --Scott Davis ^Talk 09:41, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

There were multiple nations/races/religions on board the First Fleet and in all subsequent immigration. But what is true is that they all come to a British colony, where as people have already indicated, there were a range of rights probably varying from colony to colony. So I think when we want to talk about the colonisation, settlement, etc of Australia by people who were not Indigenous, I think using "British" is the best term to use en masse. As in "The traditional people of the Brisbane area were the Jaggera and Turball people. British settlement in Brisbane began in 1824 with the establishment of a penal colony". Etc. So if the first settler in Nowheresville was actually a Prussian called Johann Schmidt, it is still ok (I think) to say "British settlement of Nowheresville commenced in 1850 when Johann Schmidt (from Prussia) arrived with 50 sheep and established a pastoral property on the banks of the Noflowmuch River." No matter what the nationality etc of the individuals were, their activities occurred within the framework of British colonisation and I think can "en masse" be referred to as such. As for Aboriginal vs Indigenous, I think that if you are discussing the history of any state except Queensland or Australian as a whole, then Aboriginal is ok. AFAIK, the Torres Strait Islanders are not traditionally found anywhere except the northern tip of Queensland (which includes the Torres Strait Islands). Even within most specific locations in Queensland (say Longreach), the traditional people were Aboriginal not TSIs. When you write about present day Queensland or parts thereof, then Indigenous is probably safer than Aboriginal as the TSIs have spread over time but mostly along the coast as they are a sea-going people (a lot of TIs now live in Cairns for example). And of course there are people who are part-Aboriginal and part-TI. While "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander" is more precise than "Indigenous", it can be a linguistically challenging for the reader. It sort-of works as a noun (as in "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are 3% of the population of Sydney") but it makes an awkward adjective (e.g. " .... on traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lands") and this is when I would be inclined to say " ... on traditional Indigenous lands". I note that if you feel the reader may not know who "Indigenous" refers to, then we have the article Indigenous Australians which can be linked to. Most of our overseas readers will presume Indigenous = Aboriginal (because TSIs are not well-known outside Australia), but I don't think that's too problematic as in most of Australia Indigenous people are Aboriginal and not TSI. More care is needed when writing about Queensland though. Unhelpfully the 2016 ABS census "quick stats" *reports* the percentage of the population who are "Aboriginal and TSIs" but not as separate groups, yet the census question allows people to answer Aboriginal, TSI, or both. However, this ABS publication gives us an "estimated" breakdown for the states. From this table we learn that there are about 70,000 people nationwide who identify as either TSI or A & TSI, and 2/3rds of them are living in Queensland, with NSW the state next most likely to have TSIs, then VIC and so on (strong Eastern states focus). They make up 0.3% of the Australian population, about 1/10th of the Indigenous population of Australia. They make up 0.9% of the Queensland population, and 20% of Queensland's Indigenous people. They make up 0.14% of the NSW population, and 4% of the NSW Indigenous population. Given those numbers, I think it's not unreasonable to use Aboriginal as an alternative to Indigenous in states other than Queensland. Historically the TSIs aren't there, and even though they do live throughout Australia now, they do so in very low numbers and would still regard their cultural links and traditional lands as being in Queensland. Kerry (talk) 23:42, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Agree that it was British (government) colonisation; terminology re colonialists, settlers, migrant workers, etc. may depend on context. Kerry, I am hoping to create a new and separate discussion about the Aboriginal/Indigenous discussion once I have worked my way to the end of the Aboriginal Australians article. The Indigenous Australians one raised some further questions, and all of your (and others') input here is useful but I'd like to keep it visible and not buried in other topics. I don't know if you saw the earlier (now archived) discussion about my proposed style guide (see talk page and attempt at first draft, currently in hiatus as I work through the issues in the two aforementioned articles)? Not now 100% sure if the MOS will be necessary; it depends how much can be contained in the articles. But it would be nice to have a consensus on which terms to use where, which can be used as guidance for newbies and general copyediting. (Some issues relate to census, government policies and various other issues which relate to both groups.) Anyway I'll write up a list of my questions and learnings from my readings at some point in the not-too-distant. And maybe copy and paste some of the above comments by others on the topic in the new discussion. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 01:50, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Nick McKenzie & Ben Roberts-Smith (again!)

Looks like the disruptive SPA User:PNGChimbu is back editing Nick McKenzie and Ben Roberts-Smith to add unsourced contentious facts and paint both of them in a significantly negative light, and in the case of the first article, has brought along a sockpuppet to edit as well. I've made a request for semi-protection to stop further sockpuppets, but not sure if that will be effective or not. One to to keep an eye on. Bookscale (talk) 11:00, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Drag racing

Australian National Drag Racing Association seems to have a slow edit war between IP editors with conflicting views of the subject organisation (top-level or second-tier etc). I have no idea which (if either) is correct, but the reference list is long and mostly sourced from ANDRA's own website and Facebook. Does anyone else have enough time, interest and background knowledge to help find an NPOV version? I have not looked at whether the conflict spills over to other pages. Thanks. --Scott Davis ^Talk 13:53, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Aboriginal Australian or Australian Aboriginal?

We have the Aboriginal Australians article, but a hotchpotch of articles variously beginning "Aboriginal Australian" and "Australian Aboriginal", some with redirects from the reverse wording but some without. Similarly Indigenous Australians/Australian Indigenous (although fewer here). And then those such as Indigenous health in Australia, Indigenous treaties in Australia, etc. (which are possibly too hard to word differently). Has there ever been a discussion about this, and/or would anyone like to voice an opinion on the pros and cons of either? It would be good to get a dominant or standard pattern of article naming where possible, I think. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 08:08, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

@Gnangarra: ? The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:37, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

style guides are absolutely useless in this case, there is no singular right way. To me Aboriginal Australian is probably the best option when referring to individuals, though as always more specific country like Koori, or Nyungar is ideal in every case. Australian Aboriginal has more possessive feeling when used context the less definitive like Australian Aboriginal people have connections to the land...... These are more an opinion than something I could/would point a stick. There is an interesting aside to all of this, the term Australian was applied Aboriginal people and later has come to mean anyone from the colonies and through to now as being from Australia. The use of Aboriginal was a colonial government term used to deny the existence of unique territories, land use, kinship, cultures, and languages. The issue is we deny the existence of unique independent cultures by being generic, therefore to remain neutral our aim should be to avoid such generic usages. It all comes back to the shifting dynamics of current political environment where individually and collectively people are trying to find their way within a construct not of their choosing, those changes are still shifting sands. Rather than a prescriptive approach we have to be more flexible following current sources(last couple of years) where there isnt something to draw from chose that which is neutral. Sorry I cant be clear but I dont have an answer that can be used to speak for people from over 300 cultures, I honestly dont think Wikipedia should try. Gnan garra 09:44, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
I would have thought "Aboriginal Australian" would be the usual term when referring to people, or specifics within the context of an Australian article. "Australian Aboriginal" when there is some intent to compare or counterpoint to "aboriginals" of places other than "Australia". But perhaps we can start take a more enlightend view. When I was at primary school, what we were told and taught about "Aboriginals" is in my view today absolutely scandalous, embarassing, and shameful. Perhaps, unless referring directly to a quote in a source, we use the generic term "indigenous" when referring to first nations people generically, and where ever possible we refer to the specific "nation / group / clan" when we are getting down to content that can be properly associated accordingly. Aoziwe (talk) 10:03, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Unfortunately Indigenous Australian has already specifically identified as being an issue the preferred term Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders, so it would be well out of place in article that refers to people not from the Torres Strait. Traditional Owners(TO's) might work a little better though it does have its own unique issues. Its hard to make one size fit all 300 plus cultures Gnan garra 11:00, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

It is a tangled web we weave for ourselves. I would have said I was a "native", but not "indigenous", Australian ... Aoziwe (talk) 12:57, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

we are trying to rationalise the continued use of a term intended to deny the existence of unique identities, to create a generic identity. Gnan garra 11:06, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

I must say that I am not. What I would like is a succinct way to refer to people who were here (in the vernacular if I may, a bloody long time) before 1788, and those whose Australian heritage only started on or after 1788. Rightly of wrongly, that point in time is a watershed for events on this continent. Aoziwe (talk) 12:57, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

maybe European has an interesting approach we could use. Gnan garra 11:09, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

For whatever prognostications are made here, a more tempered and wider coverage of terminology that we use (and do not use) - could be clarified at Aboriginal_Australians#Terminology a more pactical location for well sourced material than this noticeboard. JarrahTree 11:19, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I've just got back to this, and realise that my original question was not clearly framed. I didn't mean about the style guide (and I still mean to spend some time and get consensus on that terminology section that Jarrah Tree mentioned) - my question here was supposed to be specifically about the names of articles at this point, which lack consistency in the order of the words Aboriginal Australian vs Australian Aboriginal (considering the Aboriginal articles separately from the Indigenous ones, and not comparing those two terms at the moment). I can't really see a reason for favouring one over the other, except that "Aboriginal Australians" is probably better than "Australian Aboriginal peoples", so maybe keep all of the article names as "Australian Aboriginal [whatever]" rather than "Aboriginal Australian [whatever]"? Does this make my intended question any clearer? This only struck me today. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 12:13, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

I would go with "Australian Aboriginal [whatever]" for article titles. But, will this correcctly include TIs, or if not, is that deliberate and correct? Aoziwe (talk) 12:57, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

It might help to actually see what's being discussed:

- Evad37 [talk] 12:43, 29 January 2020 (UTC) updated 13:10, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Evad Good. However, it is much better I think if you turn off redirects, ie, the specifically currently non preferred terms being pointed to preferred articles. Aoziwe (talk) 12:59, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, that's why I provided links for "articles only" as well. Anyway, I switched the order around now. - Evad37 [talk] 13:10, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Ah, thank you, Evad37. I didn't know how to produce such a list. Are there any "Australian Indigenous"? It probably makes sense to go with the majority and change the others, I think, but I'll have another look tomorrow. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 13:17, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

@Laterthanyouthink: There are a few, they appear to be proper nouns: articles only / with redirects - Evad37 [talk] 14:46, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

thanks Evad, looking at articles only it keeps coming back to one thing, too many article are trying to make one size fit all 300 plus cultures, most those article should just be deleted or divided into the specific countries/cultures if they dont already exists.
Indigenous Australian art - is fine
Indigenous Australian food groups - doesnt work at this scale
Indigenous Australian literature - is fine
Indigenous Australian seasons - doesnt work at this scale
Indigenous Australian sport - burn with vengeance then start again
Indigenous Australians and crime - is fine

and obviously Indigenous Australians some can work and the difference are there, care needs to be in scale where generic is unable to accurately reflect where the differences are significant. Gnan garra 13:19, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

stongly disagree that any 'one' editor has the capacity to either understand the full ramifications of all the issues that arise from the ways that wikipedia might approach and understand the larger picture. I would consider the 'usual suspects' here on this noticeboard might feel that one editor has the answer, I would strongly suggest that for the project to sustain a healthy skeptical approach, and that a productive discussion ensue, rather than the claims from any one editor being considered the 'final answer' on the issues. JarrahTree 13:32, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

thats why the question was brought here, instead of attacking any one editor perhaps provide some insights into the question being asked that others can work with. I lay no claim to being the ultimate knowledge holder for what the answers are. All I can draw on is my own research and experience in dealing with matters related to the subject in question. I have noted where I'm expressing an opinion, where I'm drawing on experience, or have solid reasons backed up by reliable sources. In this case those available to me are each inconsistent to each other and therefore utter useless as a guide. It's equally ridiculous to assume we can make generic one size fit all for every topic across 300 plus unique cultures, languages, lands, and peoples. In the list on Indigenous titled pages I have shown above the differences in the articles where what they are trying to do is ridiculously demonstrations of that. Where I have and can present knowledge that some term or form has a chilling effect on collaboration or is out right considered offensive I will continue to raise it. The Wikipedia subject area related Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders is a mess, inconsistent, and riddle with racial under currents of a non historically valid perspective that needs to be addressed. I also know I have strong position about that which is why I choose to limit my editing of these generic pages but I'll continue answer questions when asked or join discussion as everyone is equally able to do. Consensus is something that the community decides, not me, not you, this is a subject area which is moving ahead at a very fast rate rendering a lot of sources obsolete even many those only published 5 years ago. Gnan garra 15:29, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

that was a quite unnecessary over-reaction, and a pity. The very gist of what I was saying was we need more discussion, and most of what you have written here has nothing to do with what I was implying. If you have an agenda for the Indigneous content - great! you have shared it, but really, the more the merrier, we have a reduced field of editors, lets hope who are around can join in and help JarrahTree 15:43, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

... a lot of sources obsolete even many those only published 5 years ago — This makes editing problematic because the sources are all we are allowed to use. If you can provide more current sources where required that would be useful. Even a reliable source that states that a specific older source is obsolete would be useful. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:40, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

would place that more in the advice/guidance area, newer sources are advancing knowledge on many fronts, including in whats acceptable terminology. Gnan garra 15:09, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for that, Evad37, and also to everyone else for their contributions. Yes, we will definitely have to have further discussions about the Indigenous vs Aboriginal nomenclature and divisions of articles at some point (which I was going to raise after finishing other issues on the Indigenous Australians and Aboriginal Australians articles and their talk pages), but for the moment just sticking to the point in hand about the order of words, can I have some comment on these observations and suggestions, please?

"Australian Aboriginal" as adjectival phrase definitely outnumbers "Aboriginal Australian", so is everyone happy if I rename (move) the following articles accordingly: Aboriginal Australian customary law, Aboriginal Australian elder and Aboriginal Australian identity? That would just leave Aboriginal Australians in that group, but that one seems the best alternative in that case.
- Later comment - update - for better or for worse, I have now changed these three to accord with all of the others, viz. "Australian Aboriginal" [whatever]. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 02:42, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
Indigenous Australian [whatever] might raise other issues, but for now I am leaving the names as is.
Others I found relating to Indigenous Australians are: Indigenous health in Australia, Indigenous music of Australia and Indigenous treaties in Australia - leave as is, or change to Indigenous Australian(s?) health, Indigenous Australian music, Indigenous Australian treaties? (The music one seems to work better than the others.) There is also History of Indigenous Australians.
These relating to Aboriginal Australians: Aboriginal deaths in custody, Aboriginal Tasmanians, Aboriginal Victorians, Aboriginal communities in Western Australia, Aboriginal dugout canoes (also, as an aside, Scarred trees), Aboriginal groupings of Western Australia, Aboriginal history of Western Australia (and a related Timeline article), Aboriginal land rights legislation in Australia, Aboriginal land rights in Australia (which overlaps with Native title in Australia), Aboriginal land councils in the Northern Territory, Aboriginal sites of Victoria, Aboriginal sites of New South Wales, Aboriginal tracker. A few of these could probably take the "Australian" prefix in the title, e.g. Australian Aboriginal deaths in custody...? - pros: consistency; cons: longer titles Laterthanyouthink (talk) 02:33, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

If Australia or a state or territory is already in the title, adding "Australian" at the start seems quite redundant. Consistency is only one factor in deciding article titles. - Evad37 [talk] 04:29, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Agreed - I only included those for completeness. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 08:51, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

HCA case

On the topic of Aboriginal Australians, I've started an article on today's High Court case if anyone is interested in expanding it. Bookscale (talk) 12:01, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Ryde, Sydney, Australia

I'm incredibly dismayed by the lack of attribution immigrant families, especially from Italy and Greece, are given as primary industry establishment and exemplary cultural contributors to the Ryde district. This page: Ryde, Sydney, Australia - is simply a white-washed version of how the place came to be and grew. There are NO MENTIONS of the orchards or farming land harvested by immigrant families who had to take a lot of racism on the chin in the name of making their way in the new world. It's not a big thing. But it does show how implicitly racist Australia can be.

Is there something we can do here?

Is there something we can add to balance the scales of actual endeavour?

The unbiased, whiteness of it is an afront to me and I grew up and went to school there.

Hello? Anyone out there? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tim.k.diamond (talk • contribs) 10:35, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Do you know of any books or newspapers that talk about these orchard(ist)s? Is racism a unique aspect of Ryde, or something that happened everywhere? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:51, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Tim - you should add material about this cited to reliable sources. Many local articles lack information on important pieces of their history because no one who knows that aspect of the subject well enough has edited the article. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:57, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Tim.k.diamond. Anyone can edit and add content to Wikipedia. So please feel free to do so yourself. We are all volunteers here, editing in our spare time, and articles only develop when someone takes an interest in the subject matter, like you have here in regard to Ryde, New South Wales. When you edit please remember to reference your content from independent reliable sources. Regards. Aoziwe (talk) 12:02, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Comment - @Tim.k.diamond: - also don't forget that the Ryde page is about the actual suburb, not the district. A lot of the orchards and farms were in what is now North Ryde, Macquarie Park or Marsfield, and many of them pre-dated post-WW2 European immigration. Bookscale (talk) 23:30, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

'2020 Mangalore mid-air collision'

FYI: If anyone's interested in starting an article:
Basic sources for 4-5 hour old (≈11:20 AM?) mid-air collision, 4 deaths, in Victoria Australia

Four dead after Mangalore plane crash

Devastating': Four dead after two planes crash in mid-air over central Victoria

Also posted @ Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation/Aviation accident task force#2020 Mangalore mid-air collision Regards, 220 of ^Borg 05:11, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

State of national emergency re bushfires?

Currently Climate change in Australia says:

"At the end of December 2019, a state of national emergency was declared due to fires."

which I don't think is true. The reference at Ecowatch.com seems to be 'bloggy'. Comments? 220 of ^Borg 01:12, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Not true. There have been state-level states of emergency declared in NSW and the ACT and a 'state of disaster' for eastern Victoria, but nothing nationally. As the states and territories have the lead on disaster management, I doubt there even is such a thing as a national-level state of emergency. The of "Relief and recovery—policy and legislative arrangements" section of this Parliamentary Library paper seems to confirm this. This news story says that the PM wants to gain the power to declare national level states of emergency. Nick-D (talk) 01:51, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Nick-D, that is exactly what I thought (it was incorrect) and I have removed it. 😊
Perhaps אלכסנדר סעודה (talk · contribs) who added it here would like to comment? --220 of ^Borg 04:09, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

There is no power for the Federal Government to "declare a state of national emergency" or similar, which enables any special powers. But, see for example "this legal opinion" Aoziwe (talk) 11:08, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

You are right. I checked and seems that the site from where I take it was wrong. I will try to be more exact next time.

--Alexander Sauda/אלכסנדר סעודה (talk) 08:58, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Greyhound Australia

Can we have some more eyes on Greyhound Australia? User:Bidgee is going berserk about what seems to be an issue with one sentence that no one is disagreeing with him about and repeatedly adding rewrite, undue weight, neutrality and encyclopedic tone tags to the article because of it.

He's refused any request to further explain himself and reverted my message on his talk page to this effect without explanation, and I've hit 3RR trying to get either the tags removed or an explanation. Can someone just remove the sentence he's upset about and the tags? If you're reverted, then maybe we might get some explanation for whatever is going on here. The Drover's Wife (talk) 13:39, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Wow now you make a personal attack. Isn't that nice, if you bothered to read the talk page you would see why I added them! Bidgee (talk) 13:48, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

The talk page refers to one sentence, hence my request for someone to remove the sentence and the tags. If you've got any other issues, it would be very helpful if you could explain them so that they could be addressed. Or you could leave people none the wiser and insistently revert the tags back in without explanation. The Drover's Wife (talk) 13:55, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Certainly the disputed sentence shouldn't be in the lead (and I have deleted it again). The bit on the dispute in the history section is probably reasonable in its current form. No doubt this will die down sooner or later.Grahame (talk) 02:13, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Talk:Hamish MacDonald

Would appreciate some extra opinions on this. LibStar (talk) 05:41, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Discussion, anyone?

It looks as if the talk page at History of Australia (1788–1850) could do with a few more opinions, after an editor removed some content. It's re "invasion" and "sovereignty". (I might get back to this tomorrow but heading out now.) Laterthanyouthink (talk) 02:16, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

ADB category

Hey all, I was thinking of actually using the category category:Australian Dictionary of Biography to tag people in the ADB. Currently it is redirected to a todo list. Would anyone object? - Chris.sherlock (talk) 14:06, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

It doesn't really meet the categorisation standards per WP:NOTDEFINING. The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:02, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Edit conflict, but I was just saying the same thing. Frickeg (talk) 22:08, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

That makes sense, I wasn’t aware of the policy. Thanks! - Chris.sherlock (talk) 03:11, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

there is Template:Cite Australian Dictionary of Biography, and the WikiData item Q672680 so I would assume that everyone in ADB has a wikidata item already from which a list could be made. Gnan garra 03:43, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

TP - 2020 panic

Give how much coverage the media has given to the subject of the 2020 Australian toilet paper panic should we consider writing an article about it? Gnan garra 12:16, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

I suggest not yet, ie, WP:NOTNEWS. If it becomes sustained, then yes ... Seems to me to deserve no more than another sentence or two in 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak#Socio-economic impact (some one was tasered!). Aoziwe (talk) 12:37, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

It's actually a world-wide issue apparently. There are various mentions of it, often with the tag #moronavirus or something similar, on the interwebs. Rice is also an issue. Woolies has put a two-bag limits on both toilet paper and rice. --AussieLegend (✉) 12:42, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

maybe a section on panic buying in 2020 coronavirus outbreak in Australia, noting that its making all news outlets and that it has involve bottled water, dry pasta, flour, rice, and hand cleaners. Gnangarra 12:46, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
- Gnangarra has the right idea. (Also including "Australia" in the countries with panic buying sentence in the section Aoziwe raised). The Drover's Wife (talk) 12:48, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

History of the City of Burnside FAR

I have nominated History of the City of Burnside for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:41, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Article in need of help

Hey Wikipedians. I'm working on the article 2009 flu pandemic in Australia as a project for my undergrad Technical and Professional Editing course. Because 1) I'm not an Australian native and 2) this article is just a mess, it's proving pretty challenging. I'd appreciate some help from experienced wiki editors about where I can find some good sources with the latest information and where to even begin with this mess. Thanks! Astrokassie (talk) 19:16, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

@Astrokassie: for Australian articles we suggest people look to Trove which is an aggregater service run by the National Library of Austrlia. I've done an initial search of Trove for you, https://trove.nla.gov.au/result?q=Flu&l-decade=200&l-year=2009 it contain links to some news sources, as well as government agencies state and federal, and other sources. Its limitation is that some major news sources dont provide links and other have gone behind paywalls limiting the amount of information that is available. Gnan garra 04:05, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you! I'll take a good look at Trove. Astrokassie (talk) 16:26, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Data query question

I've been working for a long time on fleshing out a bunch our articles on historical federal MPs which were created as very short, one-paragraph stubs sourced only to Psephos in about 2006, and've sat there for the better part of 15 years largely unchanged because they were hard to expand without a complete rewrite.

I've now been at it long enough that the ones that still need work are getting a little bit harder to find. Is it possible for someone who's good with these things to run some sort of query that could tell me which historical members of the House of Representatives still have articles of the size of say, Cornelius Ahern or George Gibbons? This would be a huge help for giving me a list of the ones I still need to target without having to browse through a bunch of work I've already done to find them. The Drover's Wife (talk) 04:16, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

I have already done exactly such a query with pretty much the same project in mind! I am interstate today but when I get back to my computer on Sunday night I’ll post a list and ping you. —Canley (talk) 04:22, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

You are an absolute legend - thank you! How old is it? I've done a fair bit of work over the last few months so it might need redoing if it's old. The Drover's Wife (talk) 04:25, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

This search using petscan is close - parameters are Category:Members of the Australian House of Representatives, depth=4, size is less than 3,000 bytes. Picks up George Gibbons, but not for Corneliius Ahern for some reason, despite him meeting the criteria — Preceding unsigned comment added by Find bruce (talk • contribs)

@The Drover's Wife: I found the list, looks like I did use Petscan to generate it, so you can use the link above by Find bruce to run it at any time. I re-ran it and saved the output at User:Canley/Aus MPs by article size anyway. --Canley (talk) 06:03, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

You're both brilliant! Thank you. Now to get to work. The more recent ones that are still alive are probably going to be a right pain for sources though given the absence of a current biographical dictionary. The Drover's Wife (talk) 07:16, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Always happy to help, especially seeing as you are the one doing the real work. The biography dictionary of members of the house has always been an embarassment, epecially when compared to the senators, such that they have hidden it away, although you can still find it with a search like this. I'm sure you already know its not going to help with people like Ahern & Gibbons - less info than the current stubs. --Find bruce (talk) 08:34, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

The early ones are easy because of Trove's depth of coverage, it's the later ones that get tricky. Peter Dodd lost his seat in 1996 and I'm damned if I can find anything about what he's done for the past 25 years, and the only reason I could get a reasonable explanation of what he did before is because Trove digitised the local newspaper up in the Torres Strait through his time in parliament. The Drover's Wife (talk) 09:25, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

I thought you said it would be difficult - I can't tell you everything he has done over the 25 years, but he was a solicitor at PIAC (Public Interest Advocacy Centre) in Sydney till 30 June 2013 [16] [17] His linked-in profile stops at PIAC [18] & he doesn't have a current practising certificate in NSW. --Find bruce (talk) 10:16, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

@Find bruce: - I saw that and assumed that it was likely him given his background and degrees, but the thing is that I can't for the life of me find anything confirming that it's the same dude. If it is, in all his work in relation to PIAC it seems (at least as far as I can find) he's never once referenced that he's an ex-parliamentarian. Neither of those sources make the connection either. (With less common names it can sometimes be basically assumed, but there are a bunch of notable Peter Dodds in Australia that are not this Peter Dodd.) The Drover's Wife (talk) 10:42, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

There is this which states that the PD at PIAC is a PGD, so the odds must be smaller if they are two people, but yes, I too cannot find anything that explicitly links the MP to PIAC. Aoziwe (talk) 13:16, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Being cautious with BLPs is a good position to take. To me the combination of the photo on his parliamentary biography, matching the photo on the piac website and his full name Peter George Dodd being used in the transcript Aoziwe linked to is sufficient - while there are other notable Peter Dodd's, none of them appear to be Peter George Dodd. If I have time next week I may be able to provide further confirmation via the details of lawyers with a practising certificate in NSW for 2013. Like I said caution is appropriate for a BLP & I'm ok if others take a different view. --Find bruce (talk) 00:05, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

New article

If anyone would like to give me feedback on Sylvia Rose Ashby, it would be appreciated! - Chris.sherlock (talk) 02:42, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Review of one of my images

Hey all, I put up an image here of Sylvia Rose Ashby highlighting her concept of "Mrs. Right and Mrs. Wrong", which was actually quite hard to describe in text and needed an image. I was quite surprised when it was tagged as "the file does not significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would not be detrimental to that understanding". The image is File:Mrs Right and Mrs Wrong - Sylvia Ashby.png, I used fair use very sparingly and carefully chose this as illustrating a key idea of Ashby's. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 05:21, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

US spelling - Law enforcement in Australia

There have been a variety of editors trying to change Law enforcement in Australia to US spelling - defense, offense, authorized seem to be the main targets. Appreciate some other eyes on the article. --Find bruce (talk) 02:24, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Bizarre, and actually piping organisation names like [[Australian Defence Force|Australian Defense Force]] to "correct" the spelling! --Canley (talk) 02:33, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

@Find bruce: Unfortunately the copyedit tag can be a magnet for poor edits by well-intentioned editors who use Wikipedia:Community portal. That portal is linked from the sidebar and main page and elsewhere. In this case, Law enforcement in Australia is currently at the head of the list for fixes to spelling and grammar. Now the tag has been cleared it should leave the list sometime (I tried to purge but that didn't fix it). ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 02:57, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

@Hydronium Hydroxide: thanks for the explanation - I was at a loss why the article had a sudden rush of interest from editors who did not appear connected.--Find bruce (talk) 04:14, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Holden Commodore (VE) FAR

I have nominated Holden Commodore (VE) for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. b uidhe 00:59, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Australian or British ?

James Park Woods

Nomination of Portal:Victoria for deletion

Lawrence power station

Peanut Allergy Staple Products page. Where to begin? Advice to start up?

Portal:Australia

Irvin Rockman RfC

Thinking of joining but...

University course creating articles on female Australian artists today

Mingoola

Useful source material website - https://www.academia.edu/

Admin to protect Joh Bjelke-Petersen

Portal

*crickets chirp*

Requested move

Bulk adding of 'heritage listing' texts

POV-pushing

proposed and cancelled wind and solar farms

Locations in Victoria

Comments please

Bishops

RfC?

Requested move

Referring to Aboriginal/Indigenous people

Progress update/discussion on style guide

Another spelling evangalist

Warrowen massacre review request

AfD?

2019 NSW Fires

Extinction events

Lachlan Macquarie

Crown Street Women's Hospital

reference required ?

NSW and Victoria just jumped 1.8m north

Governor-General of Australia needs help - broken timeline

An article (H. W. F. Kayser) I cleaned up that still needs fixing

Edit:

External links

Ethnic enclaves in Australia

CFD 'test case'

Discussion on photomontage for Sydney

Big push to reach 6 million articles by Wikipedia's birthday 15 January! Create those stubs!

Lead in bushfire season articles

Nick McKenzie

Fires, redux

Perhaps a formal project?

Revised / updated structure

A step back - to get a wider view

AM radio in Western Australia - lead section

Wyndham Vale - Proposed move

New article on Indigenous politics

Name of Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit article

Europeans or British or English

Nick McKenzie & Ben Roberts-Smith (again!)

Drag racing

Aboriginal Australian or Australian Aboriginal?

HCA case

Ryde, Sydney, Australia

'2020 Mangalore mid-air collision'

State of national emergency re bushfires?

Categories

Greyhound Australia

Talk:Hamish MacDonald

Discussion, anyone?

ADB category

TP - 2020 panic

History of the City of Burnside FAR

Article in need of help

Data query question

New article

Review of one of my images

US spelling - Law enforcement in Australia

Holden Commodore (VE) FAR

crickets chirp