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History of the Australian Capital Territory

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A workup project from WikiProject:Canberra, it provides a comprehensive summary of the history of Australias smallest territory.--nixie 07:29, 3 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Conditional support Object COMMENT ON CHANGE OF VOTE: in this case, my objections as detailed were the entirety of my complaint (well, they weren't "examples only"), and those have been satisfied. MUCH revision and addition has taken place; while LONGER, the article creates a more complete picture of the people and activities and overall timeline involved. To be blunt, a major point of my original objection had to do with my perception that the "aborigines" were simply being written off ("21,000 years and some moths", as it were), and the method of appropriation of their land simply not mentioned; "racist" is such a strong word, (N)POV is Wikipedia's framing; "centric" seems to be a euphemism that can do the job amongst...reasonable people. Whatever, I no longer find that POV to be clearly or actionably present (others may disagree ;). Conditional support only refers to readability—the writing still seems clear to me, but I can't honestly reset and give the new version a readthrough in the next day or two with all of these thoughts and details floating around. So, if there are other objections to the general writing style, based on new length or other post-FAC revision details, I would tend to support them. Of course, one FAC can't go on forever, and I think I've vigorously supported my initial vote to a useful conclusion. Hopefully you get what I mean... :) Thanks! --Tsavage 19:52, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Original objection: The article reads quite smoothly, and the information is presented for the most part clearly. My objection has to do with comprehensiveness and NPOV. For one, I'm not clear on the scope of the article. The existence of the Australian Capital Territory was new to me: the introduction did not fully answer the question, "what's ACT?", and did not clearly convey what exactly the article was intending to cover. Also, I found the coverage of the aboriginal "indigenous people" and the "Europeans" puzzling, and seemingly somewhat skewed to a POV I couldn't quite pin down ("white"? European? Australian?).
    • The intro does not provide a succinct and complete explanation of what ACT is - Where exactly is it located in Australia? How big is it? What's the population? Is there anything special about the geography, the climate? As the "capital territory", does it have any special standing as a region in Australia? I realize this is a HISTORY, but in setting up such a specifically focussed article, I'd like to know what I'm reading about right off the top.
    • The intro is confusing: this is a history of what exactly? - Part of this is due to how it is written, but mainly, the summary, "prehistory" and pre-Federation sections don't hang together. I gather that ACT is a "political entity" that was created in 1938, with a (political) history beginning in 1901. However, as (presumably) an unnamed piece of land, ACT has an additional history (and prehistory) of human settlement going back in all 21,000 years. ACT is less than 70 years old; why am I being presented with "moth-eating aboriginals"?
    • The role of the aboriginal population is not adequately explained - 21,000 years of settlement is summarized in a few sentences. There is no satisfactory description of the tribal situation at the time of settlement: How big was the tribal population, where were they located, what were they doing? Were there treaties made to gain control of the ACT territory, or was it simply claimed because no-one was there to argue otherwise? In the article, single paragraph (somewhat dismissively) suggests that an insiginificant number of non-hostile aborigines were hanging about, occasionally contacting the "Europeans" for work or handouts, and that they eventually simply faded away. A reference to "reserves" is not explained. The citation is to a seminar?
    • The choice of the term "Europeans" to describe the settlers is not explained - I believe only one mention of the "British" was made, otherwise, the term "Europeans" is used throughout to describe the settlers. Were there other settlers than the British? I can understand using "Europeans" in some cases for a discussion of, say, the Americas, where the British, French, Portugese and other Europeans all had their go. Is it the same situation here? If not, Europeans seems overly broad and vague. Is this a British colonization, or a European invasion? I'm not clear.

Overall, the article does not make its meaning plain. It does not clearly state what it is about, and then sets up a historical framework, beginning 21,000 years ago, that it fails to fully fill in. It also suggests a POV that is not "neutral", but favors the activities of "European settlers" over anyone else around. --Tsavage 18:43, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think the lead section does a good job of summarising the article. I have just looked through a selection of already featured "History of X" articles and none of them go into detail of describing the place like you have suggested it should. This is should be covered by the Australian Capital Territory article. You seem to be giving two different arguments here. First you seem to be arguing that the history of the ACT should start fromt eh creation of the ACT then you complain that the article is European heavy. The aboriginals left very little record of their presence, I am not sure how you expect their section to be expanded to match the later sections in length. The aboriginal reference is obviously a book. Are you suggesting scientific conference procedings are not "Authoritave" becaus ethey are from a seminar? --Martyman-(talk) 22:08, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Reply: Re two different arguments, I'm not suggesting the article should do anything, I'm evaluating an FAC submission, as presented. The article introduces (in fact, explicitly frames itself with) aboriginals, 21,000 years of habitation and European settlement. I'm simply taking it from there... --Tsavage 02:01, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Also, are you suggesting that we should be carefully explaining the nationality of every person mentioned. The european history of the are begins almost 40 years after the "british" settlement of Australia. By this time many people would have volantarily migrated to Australia, and it would be very wrong to assume all of the settlers where British. Is the word european no longer acceptable? --Martyman-(talk) 22:13, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Reply: "European" is way too vague. If ACT requires a detailed history, its own article, then I'd expect a little more about the people who "founded" it than something as nonspecific as "European". Is that a group by enthnicity? Language? Religion? Political philosophy? Are the British and French equivalent for colonization purposes? You don't even seem that clear on who the Europeans were: many people would have voluntarily migrated. They would have? Well, did they? If so, who? Dutch merchants? Portugese convicts? WHO are these "European" people of ACT? --Tsavage 00:30, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Reply to Tsavage: European, is being used as a catchall because the area was not settled by a specific group of people. It was settled by various people moving in and taking up land grants over a period of time. They can not all be defined as "English Convicts", "Irish Imigrants" etc, because each person has a different background. European is as about as specific as you can be without accidently ommiting people. Specifically there are definately English, Scottish, Irish, Second Generation European-Australians and almost certainly many others. --Martyman-(talk) 06:08, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps the first 'Australian Capital Territory' in the article should be a wikilink? That would immediately guide the reader to further information if they were unfamiliar with the topic. Natgoo 22:37, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It's already linked in the text, although another link wouldn't hurt. I don't think we should be expected to add a whole bunch of general ACT information into a history article because someone is too lazy to click a link. As to the remainder of Tsavage's objections, they're conflicting, unnecessary, and, without screwing up the article, unactionable. Ambi 00:58, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Reply: You're rather rude and dismissive (as well as wrong). This is a FAC review process, remember? I understand what the article is trying to do, and no doubt most of the raw material is there. Unfortunately, it is poorly structured and presents a non-neutral POV—it's OK, but certainly not superior. Subarticle or not, it still has to be reasonably self-contained. The problem is that the "Australian Capital Territory" is simply not widely known, at least, outside of Australia, so the "History of" must explain what it is in some detail (the rewrites to the lead improve on the original situation, but I'd still like to know more). Readers shouldn't have to preread other articles to make sense of this one. Geographic details are given in the body of the text, yet the lead, even in revised form, only provides a vague description of what ACT is. This is an example of the poor structuring. Next, if the article chooses to put itself on a 21,000 year timeline, it must follow through with the details. Basic unanswered question: how did the British take over the territory from the aborigines? That seems kind of fundamental to a detailed history subarticle. And there is indeed a -centricness (Euro? white?). Case in point: The Ngunnawal people and other linguistic groups are known to have inhabited the region for at least 21,000 years before the present. The 19th century was a time of exploration and settlement in the region. So, the only people capable of "exploration" and "settlement" are...Europeans? In 21,000 years, no-one else "explored" or "settled"? This is obviously a POV framing of the account. In the same way, not covering how the territory was acquired, but going into relatively minute detail about the activities of the Europeans, demonstrates this POV. The article could limit itself to the "political entity" that is ACT, and provide a historical account of the legislative process and subsequent actual development, but it tries to be much more ambitious than that and fails quite miserably. Moth-eating aboriginals, huh? These are simple, basic, obvious problems. If fixing them "screws up the article", then don't bother. As is, however, it is not FA quality. --Tsavage 23:42, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
You over-estimate out ability to write an unwritten hisotry. The Australian Aborigines did not have a written history, so other than listing all the locations and approximate dates of artefacts, there is little we can actually do to fill in 21,000 years of history prior to settlement. Following settlement, where in this area there were few reported conflicts, it was actually widely held that the Ngunnawal were extinct - like the Tasmanian Aborigines. While it is probably not the case, there are very few resoruces that go beyond cataloguing archeological evidence.--nixie 00:49, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Respectfully, I think you miss a major portion of my point. I don't necessarily think History of ACT should go back 21,000 years. However, that's what it does, and then, not so well. I'm evaluating what's there. Writing quality and comprehensiveness are more than simply well-constructed sentences and adequate citations. There has to be a narrative with a logical flow. This isn't point form notes, it's an article, that should present a cohesive (and hopefully accurate) story. If we're going back into aboriginals and Europeans, then, get ALL of the basic facts straight, OR, explicitly account for why there are gaping holes in the account. I shouldn't have to read the History of Australia in order to understand History of ACT. I shouldn't be informed about aboriginals on the land for 2.1K years(!!!), and then not be at all clear on how the aboriginal->European transition occurred. What kind of comprehensive history is that? --Tsavage 01:42, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Your suggestion of contracting the article to a polictal history of the territory is pointless. This article was specifically written to cover the area outside of History of Canberra which starts from 1911. I fail to see how ignoring the existence of the original inhabitants all together would improve the article. The major problem with your other suggestions is that there is no history for the aboriginal presence before european settlement, and the history we have of the aboriginals since european settlement is patchy at best. For example, many historys claim the Ngunnawal people died out around 1900, while we still have people claiming to be of Ngunnawal descent alive today. What you are requesting we attempt to do would have to violate No original research. I have a couple more anecdotes of european/aboriginal interactions I could add but I doubt these are going to satisfy you. --Martyman-(talk) 02:17, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
reply: Martyman Fair enough, maybe this is just a communication thing. As a non-Aussie, I really have (had) no clue as to what ACT is, or as to its very existence, and, after reading the article, I wound up with slightly MORE questions than I'd started with: so...what is ACT? That's my bottom line problem: article does not make itself clear. I'm assumeing you are quite familiar with many things Australian, like ACT. I'm not. Many readers are not. I may not be representative of "many readers", but in any case I know about kangaroos, Canberra, Sydney and its opera house, big gobs of desert, Kylie Minogue, right-wing Howard, aboriginal tribes, reefs, British convict colonization, recent major droughts, a few other things LIKE THAT. (Oh yeah, Dietrich vs the Queen). Whatever. Point is, ACT is WAY not among them. Nor is Australian history. So, when I come to an article, any article, I want to be able to read it and go, not read it and read half a dozen other articles. And in the case of ACT, I'm not into the fine points of unrecorded aboriginal history, it's just that, if you say who got it from who (as the article does), make that story clear! I don't come equipped with conventions about how Australian history is covered... --Tsavage 02:41, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Several editors have made efforts to clarify detail in line with Tsavage objections, however without signifcant restructuring from a chronological account of history or removal of information, which I think the editors involved in the article would not support, there is little more that can be done to improve comprehensivness of the early part of the article when the data does not exist.--nixie 23:51, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reply: I am really quite impressed that my humble and solo objections have been so vigorously and well acted upon! I will reread the article and restate my position ASAP, in the next day or so... Thanks! --Tsavage 00:18, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • On your point about appropriation, the British claimed Australia as terra nullius, therefore they didn't have to do anything to take land from the Aborigines, there are some instances of the British making deals with the Aborigines for their land like Batman's Treaty but none were made in the ACT area. There were no settlements for them to take since, in the large part, the Aborigines were nomadic and had no permanent man-made settlements. There also wasn't a mass influx of Europeans to the region so the two groups could coexist without much interaction for some time. Since noone has written an account of what happened exactly (at least that I have been able to find) it would be pointless to speculate in the article.--nixie 23:42, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, with the disclosure that I have done some minor tweaking to the article. Kudos to nixie, Martyman et al for an attentive and substantial piece of research, the article is at the very least easily comparable to other FAs of its type- well done!--cjllw | TALK 08:21, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
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