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List of Australian Leaders of the Opposition

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page. No further edits should be made to this page. The closing editor's comments were: 18 days, 5 support, 1 oppose. The one oppose given is technically invalid for this nomination, and consensus shows the invalidity of the opposition. The user who opposed refused to comment further, thus the decision was to Promote. Juhachi 22:57, 16 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I found this list about a month ago in relatively good condition. I have added references, expanded the lead and done a little bit of formatting. Now I wish to see how it measures up! Todd661 09:30, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Should "Leaders" be small-case. NO it should be a BIG CASE. "l" in the title? Daniel Bryant 02:32, 29 April 2007 (UTC) PAGE MOVED Todd661 06:41, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The men for which there is no image is a slight eyesore. Looks like the Joseph Cook image is public domain, I'm sure that can go in. --Phoenix (talk) 17:44, 29 April 2007 (UTC) Response The reason there are boxes without a photo in them is either because they were Opposition Leader more than once - in Joseph Cooks situation, 3 times - and so I have only put their photo in their first term. Or if there is no image for that particular person on Wikipedia - in Gough Whitlam's and Simon Crean's situation. Todd661 22:06, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fixes needed:
    • Lead is inadequate. As someone who is unfamiliar with the intricacies of Australia's brand of parliamentary rule, the lead is confusing and needs some expansion. How is the Opposition leader chosen? Is it always the 2nd place party? It would appear that Australia is not de-facto 2-party system like the U.S. or U.K., as the current P.M. serves at the head of a coalition and not a single party. Would it be possible for an Opposition leader to be chosen by coalition; say theoretically if the 3rd and 4th place parties could outnumber the 2nd place, or is it always the 2nd place party? Plus, it needs some copyediting in places. The last sentance is particularly clunky, in need of some commas or a rewrite or something. Fixed...

**The a, b, and c notes are hard to follow. I would like to see them all in the same place, so one could track, say, ALL of the Opp. Leaders who were previously or would later be PM. As it stands now, I understand what you are trying to do, but it is hard to parse the information out as it is. Maybe placing all notes on the name???objection removed on this issue

Response I have attempted to write a bit about the role of opposition in Australian Parliament, tell me what you think, however I am no good at spelling grammer and would appreciate it if someone could give it a readover. In response to your comments about the notes, I had it the way you suggested earlier (see here but I feel that it is in a more appropriate place now. I hope you will not oppose the article being featured for this reason alone. Todd661 08:59, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The notes issue was a small one. If consensus of other editors had earlier placed them where they are now, I will not oppose promotion on that issue. WRT the lead, it is MUCH improved, and I appreciate the additions; it is now much clearer what an Opposition is vis-a-vis the Westminster system. Two small things:

::::*In the first paragraph of the lead, the word "minority" is used, but this is ambiguous without context. Is Australia a de-facto two-party system, as in the U.S. and U.K., or are there multiple minority parties, any one of whom could produce the Opposition Leader? Please clarify that if you could.fixed ::::*In the second paragraph (the new addition) the capitalization is inconsistent. In the American English, the word "government" is never capitalized; I know that in Commonwealth English, it is capitalized if it is used to refer to the ruling party in Parliament and not capitalized if used in a generic sense. It appears that the word is being used in this paragraph to refer to the majority parliamentary party, and so therefore should probably be capitalized consistently, as is Opposition. It should probably either be Government/Opposition or government/opposition. The way it is done now, it looks inconsistent.fixed --Jayron32|talk|contribs 17:03, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This list is MUCH improving... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 17:03, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
DONE Todd661 08:00, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Response I have removed the images that were used inappropriately. I agree that it isn't necessary for the article to have images at all, however I think that if they can be used, it is worthwhile to put them in. Todd661 08:59, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think the inconsistent approach leaves the table looking ugly and peculiar. If you can't use all images, don't use any.--cj | talk 13:31, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
For the men for which there is no photograph, how do you feel about colspanning the name across the photograph column. I had suggested it earlier. --Phoenix (talk) 20:17, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it leave the table ugly and perculiar at all. But if you think it does, delete them. Todd661 08:03, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I really think that eventually we will have free images that we will be able to use for all the pollies where there photo is unavailable. I think this is the best page to organise that information. My personal opinion is that we leave the space there so that it is easy to upload a new picture. Todd661 11:11, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Surely there is a photo of Bob Menzies that is out of copyright? Anything taken before 1965 is Public Domain in Australia. JRG 02:43, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There is not on Wikipedia, and I am hopeless at the whole copyright thing so I'll leave that to someone else. Todd661 08:03, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Probably a typo on JRG's part, but it ought to be clarified that only photographs taken before 1955 are in the public domain. See copyright expiration in Australia. As for pictures of Ming, the NLA has done a wonderful job digitising their collections, and has a wealth of images of him.--cj | talk 15:21, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak oppose - the lead is much better than it was a couple of days ago, but I still think it could be better and lengthened a bit. Could we add the time when the opposition Leader's chair was once taken by an independent, after the Whitlam dismissal, when the Labor Party refused to turn up for the opening of Parliament, and Senator Brian Harradine sat in the opposition leader's chair instead (I remember reading that at an exhibition at Old Parliament House). This sort of information would be useful if it could be found... JRG 02:43, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think this is the right place for this sort of information. The article is a list of Opposition leaders and Brian Harradine was never opposition leader. I disagree also that the lead needs to be expanded further. It gives an overview of (A) what the list is about, (B) the role of opposition, and its leader, in Aussie politics & (C) a short summary of the current opposition party/leader. Todd661 08:00, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Todd here. As a list, the introduction is probably too general/long as it is. Perhaps a section in Opposition (Australia)] (or even a Leader of the Opposition (Australia) article) could be created for more in-depth coverage.--cj | talk 15:21, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ok - it's much improved since I made that comment. Although the lead could be a little better, it's better than a lot of other Featured Lists on Wikipedia and deserves promotion, and I don't know what I would include in the lead to improve it. Support. JRG 03:48, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support All of the fixes I thought were needed have been done. I made a small gramaritical change myself to the lead, I hope you don't mind. I second the above sentiment by Todd661 and feel that the lead is now adequate. To expand on what he said, the lead is supposed to summarize the article, not bring up every trivial issue dealing with the historical peculiarities of the Opposition in the history of Australia. The particular event described by JRG certainly belongs in a wikipedia article somewhere, but this one ain't it. As a list of people, the lead now summarizes it perfectly. Full support. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 18:03, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Appears thorough, factually accurate, well written. I don't like that not every member has a photo. One suggestion I can offer is to remove all of the images from the chart itself, and post selected photos of the first, current and famous former leaders along the right side of the article. Resolute 00:26, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    This is what I meant to say above. Certainly, the article should have images, and they can be displayed as Resolute has suggested. But it looks poorly to set a standard of having an image for each leader when such a standard cannot be met.--cj | talk 15:21, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, we are setting a standard that we cannot meet at this point in time. However, eventually, I have no doubt that Wikipedia will be able to secure a free image and I see no problem in advertising the fact that we need more images for this article. Todd661 08:41, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
But you're submitting it to this process as a polished, or stable, work. I don't think it you can have it both ways.--cj | talk 12:02, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The list is polished, and 3 people above you agree with me. On your assertion that by adding pictures after is is featured, it would become unstable - I disagree. Criteria 1e in WP:WIAFL says that improvements do not apply. Todd661 21:45, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think cj has a point, but I don't think it matters either way - I'm happy with or without pictures, like Daniel below. JRG 13:04, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I really do not know how to answer this question. However I can say that the majority of Australian media use a capital L. In addition the Featured Canadian version of this page uses a capital L. Todd661 09:14, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The position "Leader of the Opposition" is official and is thus capitalised; whether the capitalisation is applied to the pluralised form is a matter of personal preference. In regards to the concern about nouns, I somewhat agree, but would suggest that the only other appropriate title would be List of Leaders of the Opposition (Australia), as anything else would be inaccurate.--cj | talk 09:21, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In Australia, the Opposition is not referred to as the Australian Opposition it is more often referred to as the Opposition. This article is about the leader of this party, and therefore becomes the Leader of the Opposition. This article is about the Australian Leaders of the Opposition - hence the current title. Todd661 09:42, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This looks like a Commonwealth English vs. American English issue, and the usage appears consistant with local usage. Thus, this objection isn't really actionable. There is nothing here to fix that would necessitate an objection. Plus, this issue has been hammered out above. See the initial comments to this thread. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 17:00, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The thing is that I didn't see "Leader of the Opposition" as a job title. I saw "Opposition" as a political side and thought it needed modifying to be more specific about which country this Opposition was in (as most countries have an Opposition), hence my naming suggestions. I'm still not supporting though, as I believe a list of politicians should contain their birth and death dates and be sortable. - Mgm|(talk) 10:11, 11 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Being sortable is not a requirement of a Featured List (see here; and the death and birth dates are all covered in the article. It's not necessary to list them in the article as it's not directly relevant to their occupation. This list meets the Featured List Criteria and personal feelings should have nothing to do with it, unless they go towards declining for a reason to do with the article's status according to the criteria. JRG 13:55, 11 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • It may have nothing to do with their occupation but it's basic biographical information and thus important. Including it makes it possible to sort people by age and longevity without exhaustive searches through all the articles or using a separate list. - Mgm|(talk) 10:01, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
MacGyverMagic has ignored requests for further review of these comments. Consensus is that the birth and death dates are not necessary for this article. The reason that I have not made the list sortable, is because of problems with the dates. Todd661 07:45, 14 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Currently fails criterian 3: none of the images (save for the one in the lead) have "alt" text included. I'm not asking for thumbnails; just add it in so it appears as: [[Image:Person.jpg|100px|insert alt text here]]. This can simply be the name of the person in the photo.--十八 09:14, 16 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Response Alternative text added. Todd661 11:47, 16 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I too agree that the birth and death dates are unnecessary and are technically out of the scope of the article. I would say that birth/death dates would be considered additional information that does not necessarily have to be there, thus I do beleive that MGM's oppose is invalid. I'll give this list my support.--十八 22:52, 16 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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