Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australia

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Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia is part of WikiProject Australia, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Australia and Australia-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page.
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WikiProject Australia To-do:

Contents

[edit] Smaller WikiProjects overlap

This WikiProject provides some overlap with the smaller established projects. I'm starting this discussion to best determine how to have all Australian WikiProjects exist in harmony. Kirill Lokshin suggests on my talk page the military history model was the merging of smaller projects into task forces dedicated to core topics. I'm not strongly in favour of any major changes like this before seeing what others think. Firstly I see us needing core topics to begin with. Work began on this at the AWNB last week. As for the rest of the content here, feel free to edit and correct whatever you deem necessary to bring the system home. -- Longhair 03:56, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

For articles which don't relate to any Australian WikiProjects, I've added the orphan=yes parameter to {{WP Australia}}. See Talk:Advance Australia Fair for an example. Its use is optional. -- Longhair 01:27, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] SJ Fletcher

If this article is part of your project I suggest that this article is one too! Just a heads up! :) Trampikey (talk to me)(contribs) 14:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

My mistake. I've removed the notice. -- Longhair 01:28, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Userbox

This user is a member of WikiProject Australia

- I've made a Userbox for those Userbox people, if you want to use it it's User WPAustralia --bdude Talk 06:29, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I've made a slight edit to it so it makes more sense. Froggydarb 07:17, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Good work. Perhaps somebody can give the {{WPAustralia Navigation}} template an overhaul to use some Aussie colouring? It's on my todo list but it's priority is slipping fast :( Any takers? -- Longhair 07:21, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Will do tonight. --darkliight[πalk] 07:24, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Done. I've removed the alternating colours, because alternating green and gold sent my dog blind and he can't even see colour! Also, I used a slightly lighter green than the one used in the userbox so you could see the writing a bit better. Let me know if you think anything needs changing, or just go ahead and change it (or revert if it's that bad). Cheers --darkliight[πalk] 13:51, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
It looks great. I tried the green and gold combination myself and agree it's difficult to find a good match which doesn't test the eyes. You've done well. -- Longhair 23:25, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Importance and quality ratings

How are these actually supposed to improve content, wouldn't these acutally be more useful in the project space rather than in the talk space?--Peta 06:42, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Advance Australia Fair

Ok, not sure where to stick this, but can we use stuff from here to help out in the above article? I am hoping to make this article good, but I need some help. Thanks. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 08:49, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] One banner to rule them all?

Should the project banner replace all the subsidiary WikiProject notices (ie, {{WPANotice}}, {{WPAL}} etc)? Also, surely there isn't any point in having separate assessments for subsidiary WikiProjects, as is happening with {{WP Geelong notice}} and {{WP Adelaide notice}}?--cj | talk 07:49, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I thought about this happening, but my focus for now has been getting the project and template working towards everyone's satisfaction. Assessments has raised some discussion. The template parameter already allows for sorting articles by project and also provides for each WikiProject to select an appropriate image to represent and link to themselves. One drawback to having this banner replace the others is the smaller projects lose control over their own to-do lists, though with changes to the template code there may be a way to enable a custom lists based on the project selected at the time. -- Longhair 01:16, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
After reading this again, I admit I used the Geelong WikiProject as a test case for these assessments. I'm happy to bring the projects I manage under the same banner. It makes good sense to contribute to the one overall statistical count. -- Longhair 05:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
I dont see a problem with two banners, this one and a more focused group banner, if there were more, then only the 2 highest importance rated ones. That importance scales for this compared to the focus group will be different. The only real concern is that both assessments on the quality scale are the same. Gnangarra 06:12, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Platypus

Dear members

An article with your banner on it, Platypus, is about to go down the gurgler in the FAR/C room. Anyone care to contribute to fixing up the article? Tony 11:48, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hi all

Frustrated with the lack of decent information about daytrips/weekends away and travel in my region, i decided to start a [on south east queensland]. If anyone is willing to help me fill out this shell, go for it... and i also just found out this porject existed, so i might put my two cents in.... cheers, Ryan

[edit] Azrael,

Hi Recently, Azrael was created because it was # 2 on the "Wanted articles" page.

Every page that linked to that article was a talk page with the WikiProject Australia template 'WP Australia on it.

Is that the real intent on the "create" section of the to-do list? --Garrie 02:00, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Further to my previous post - 1948 Queensland Railway Strike has overtaken it with 4406 links.
On talk:Azrael (Band), the conversation is:
I created this article because it was #2 on Special:Wantedpages. If it isn't notable, it shouldn't be anywhere near the top 100 on that list. Youth in Asia 14:50, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, you're right. My bad entirely - I thought that the band seemed nn because of a lack of releases. I'll take off the notice. Sorry! Ruaraidh-dobson 14:57, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
I filled bug #6896 about this issue. Comte0 23:46, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Churches/Places of Religious Worship in Australia

After the recent deletion of what I and some others considered to be a well-known church in Sydney, I think it's time that we came to a consensus on what constitutes notability for a church in Australia - I use "church" coming from a Christian background, but presumably notable synagogues, mosques, etc should also probably be included in this. While notability for churches as a whole might be a good idea, I'm mindful that Australian white settlement, being only 200 odd years old, doesn't lend itself to the kind of historical value that church articles in England or the US might have compared to here. I think there should be some guidelines on what constitutes a notable church or place of religious worship in Australia. I think there should be more to it than a church simply having an historical value. The church, after all, is the people, not the building, so I think large churches in terms of congregational size, and not necessarily church building size, should be a factor for inclusion in this. I'm still trying to think of some categories for notability - obviously we don't want church articles reading like advertisements, as there should be encyclopaedic value to the articles; yet at the same time I don't think the view that some WP articles are taking, that any church article where the building is not historic is spam and should be deleted, is right either. I'm grateful to anyone for some views on this. (JROBBO 03:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC))

Ultimately the primary way to prove notability (even though it's not a guideline) should be with multiple reliable references. If those exist, then the subject is by (my) definition notable. I'd suggest that the main guideline should be to not create stub or "directory" style articles about churches, as these will end up in AFD. So my suggestion of a "criteria" is that there should be sufficient reliable references to support an article of at least 4 or 5 paragraphs (ie too long to include within a suburb article). For older churchs the easiest references to find would be in local history books, for newer churches (if they're truly notable) it shouldn't be too hard to find references in newspapers and the like. If no one can find reliable references then I think it would be fair to dispute that the church warrants its own article. -- Mako 05:06, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
If someone, or a group of people are able to produce a quality article about a place of worship, then let it stand. When wikipedia can cover some very esoteric subjects without the bat of an eyelid, I think a community gathering place like a church can have it's own article deservedly. SauliH 02:43, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Steve Irwin

Due to current media attention I expedited a review for this article. I've awarded this good article status and consider it close to FA quality. It's still listed as a b-class article in your project. Please reevaluate. Durova 17:23, 5 September 2006 (UTC)


I would be very grateful if some Australian English native speakers will help in reaching a consensus on the Steve Irwin talk page regarding the usage of while and whilst. thank you.Kamikaze 10:55, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

  • Several Australian editors have written there and our views have been all but ignored. Either word is OK; "whilst" is probably not archaic in Australia but doesn't read well with snorkelling and doesn't read well with the majority of readers (Americans), so why persist with it? An assertion of sovereignty over the article on this matter does not seem necessary.--Golden Wattle talk 20:09, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

well, maybe I just came to the wrong place here.Kamikaze 20:38, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't "read well with snorkelling" ... Golden Wattle, you've lost me there. Why should it read worse with snorkelling than with anything else? As for while vs. whilst, I've written about all I have to say on that on the Aussie English Talk Page. Jimp 02:49, 6 November 2006 (UTC) ... P.S. Okay I went to the Steve Irwin Talk Page. It seems that the argument is that it's harder to pronounce: /lsn/ vs. /lstsn/. Yeah, only in careful speech, though; in ordinary casual speech you'd normally drop the /t/ anyway. Jimp 03:19, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Thus isn't the point that in Australia we would say "while snorkelling"? This was in the context of Steve Irwin not reading while snorkelling :-) --Golden Wattle talk 09:00, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stubby coolers and Australiana

I have created two articles which may be of interest to this group, Australiana and Stubby cooler. Feel free to edit them mercilessly. Regards Parasite 07:59, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The list of comanies now associated with Australiana (eg Arnotts, Mortein, XXXX, Akubra) are all owned by forien corps. In fact, that's were I got the list from. Please feel free to add some well known Australian companies to this list that are still Australian owned. Oh, and a picture of australian art would be nice too. Thanks Parasite 08:55, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bill O'Reilly

Discussion is ongoing at Talk:Bill O'Reilly as to whether the Bill O'Reilly page should redirect to the commentator, the cricketer, or neither. Your input would be appreciated. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 04:09, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Change of Southern Gold Coast Articals

I think it might be a good idea to merge the Southern Gold Coast articals into 1. {I mean Tweed Heads to Broadbeach} We might turn 10 stubs into 1 FA. Nathannoblet 08:28, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Why? I don't see any point in merging every article on every suburb or town on the Gold Coast just to make one super-article. Every unique subject is deserving of it's own article in an encylopedia, and towns are unique. Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian places might be interested in your proposal, but I don't think it'll happen. -- Longhair\talk 09:56, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Australian Literature

Article in the Australian

Is the state of Australian literature on Wikipedia as bad as this article makes out? --Martyman-(talk) 08:50, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes - the conversation is at Wikipedia:Australian_Wikipedians_notice_board 19 Australia Literature content on Wikipedia lambasted in the Australian SatuSuro 10:30, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

These are all the Western Australian literary types I could think of off the top of my head, by alphabetical order:
Mary Anne Barker, Paul Buddee, Gavin Casey, Peter Cowan, Jack Davis, Henrietta Drake-Brockman, Mary Durack, Robert Drewe, John Ewers, Nicholas Hasluck, Paul Hasluck, Dorothy Hewett, T. A. G. Hungerford, Elizabeth Jolley, Seaforth MacKenzie, George Fletcher Moore, Dryblower Murphy, John Boyle O'Reilly, Katherine Susannah Prichard, Jack Sorensen, Randolph Stow, Ric Throssell, Arthur Upfield, Tim Winton.
More than half are blue links, and most of the articles aren't too bad. Granted some of them, e.g. Hasluck, focus on achievements other than literary. But I don't think literature is lagging all that much behind other Australian content. Let's not panic, folks. Hesperian 11:29, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Its not so much panic - it needs some consistent work to clear the red links. The good thing about some that you quote above - they have ADB entries - or relatively easy online material available about them SatuSuro 11:50, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Uluru and Kata Tjuta

There has been a minor revert war on Northern Territory about the naming of these places between myself and an anon editor, who has now given reasons for his/her changes. I have called for a debate on Talk:Northern Territory and hope we can reach consensus. --Bduke 22:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Local Government Area inconsistencies

Is any project overseeing the development of the LGA articles? My question arises form inconsistencies with the way Queensland articles have been arranged in contrast to other states?

Look at Mount Isa, Queensland. In South Australia, and NSW a seperate article would exist for City of Mt Isa. A review of Category:Local Government Areas of Queensland shows how many LGA links direct to town/city pages. Contrast this with Category:Local Government Areas of South Australia, and you get the picture of how different things are.

hence the question about a project overseeing LGA's SauliH 03:10, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I was just thinking the same thing. I have today moved a couple of LGA articles to their gazetted titles. e.g. Augusta-Margaret River, Western Australia -> Shire of Augusta-Margaret River, based on the fact that the gazetted name is the latter. We should be:
  1. entitling LGA articles according to their actual gazetted names, which are invariably of the form "[Shire|Town|City] of Whatever".
  2. taking care to distinguish between links to an LGA and links to a town/suburb of the same name.
  3. removing articles about towns or suburbs from the LGA categories (except for articles that purport to cover the LGA too, in which case a split would be warranted in future)
Hesperian 03:30, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I just noticed that there is a naming convention at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places)#Australia. Is this enough of a 'go ahead' to start changing these articles?SauliH 04:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
More than enough. Hesperian 05:09, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

This would be within the ambit of Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian places.--cj | talk 08:41, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Yep, agree with CJ -- the whole purpose of enlarging this project to be "Australian places" was to cover standardisation of governance divisions and geographic features as well as towns, suburbs and cities.
As for the South Aussie LGAs I put a fair bit of effort into making the {{LGASA}} template correct, complete and up to date so it's very clear what the article names are or should be. I imagine the same approach could be taken for the LGAs in other states. — Donama 11:31, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I'd Love To Join

I'm Australian born and raised and have always lived in Australia for every second of my life, I have visited every capital city of Australia and many country towns. I believe that Wikipedia doesn't have enough information on Australia and since I found out about this project I've been very interested. I am no admin or anything special like that, and I haven't been a wikipedian for that long but I really would love to join. If you wish to find out more about me visit my user page on User: John Harrison Highns.

Kind Regards John Harrison Highns 01:51, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Resource - Foundation Documents

This site was mentioned on 6PR in Perth tonight it has copies of original documentation for the foundation of Australia including Cook originals orders http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/default.asp. should be useful information there for a number articles. Gnangarra 11:59, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requesting help on Cave Clan

Hello Australians!

I've been doing quite a bit of work on the Cave Clan article, mostly with the controversy surrounding the group and the resulting lack of neutrality. Before the NPOV and clean-up tags come down, it would be great if a few other Wikipedians could take a look. Thanks! -- hibou 18:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Libraries Australia

Greetings colleagues, I work at the National Library and had a look at our entry - it's a bit sparse and uninformative, especially concerning the largest library network in the world (Libraries Australia) which has 40 million holdings, and over a thousand contributing libraries. I'm posting this as a heads-up. I work for Libraries Australia and will be drafting an entry for us. I haven't contributed to Wikipedia before, so will be looking up the procedures for that as well. On the plus side, it's nice to see PictureAustralia has some mention :) --Curufea 05:53, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 16:19, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright question

Hello! Can anyone enlighten me regarding the general copyright situation regarding text and images from the State Library of Victoria? Thanks. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:19, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

this should cover the question about images http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing#Australia on Commons, all govt works before 1956 are pd, for non government works it best to read the various topics including external links to relevant legislation. Gnangarra 13:24, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Interesting. Easy enough, thank you! --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:44, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Until Australian copyright law was revised under the US-Australia free trade agreement legislation at the end of 2004, the limits were 50 years for images and life+50 for text. The new legislation wasn't retroactive, so material in the public domain by the end of 2004 remained so. Therefore All Australian images published before the end of 1954 are in the public domain and All Australian text by an author who died before the end of 1954 is in the public domain. Hesperian 03:09, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bodyline

Bodyline is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy (Talk) 01:29, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Australian literature articles

From the Wikipedia Signpost: An article by Jenny Sinclair (who has edited as User:Jenny Sinclair) in The Australian uses the lack of articles on notable Australian writers to explain how Wikipedia works, the nature of Wikipedia's "patchy, arbitrary" coverage, and the impact Wikipedia is having on the internet generation. After discussing the reasons Wikipedia has become a must use resource, Sinclair urges Australians to improve the Wikipedia articles on literature and signs off the article intending to "create that listing for Jessica Anderson."

I'm an American, and I'd really rather not let this thing be dominated by us and the English. I'd really like to read more about Australia, and I applaud this WikiProject's efforts to better represent the nation. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 15:24, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

Please see Talk:Australian Aboriginal mythology#Requested move if you would like to contribute to a proposed move request. —Mets501 (talk) 01:19, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Separate pages for colonies?

Hi all. I've been pretty busy over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Former countries and I would be interested in the development of separate pages of the colonies of Australia prior to Federation. For example, the page for New South Wales is suitable only for the modern state, not for colony that preceded it. Sure, there is a History of New South Wales page, but a separate page for the colony would give the necessary room to describe the colony in more detail. If anyone is interested in creating such a page, I have prepared an infobox here, in keeping with the format that is used at WPFC. - 52 Pickup 15:14, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Are you proposing that the colonies were of equal status to a country? I am not sure that is accurate. You would need to be cautious on your wording if you undertake this. A history of the formation etc would most certainly be welcome however.SauliH 15:50, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
No, I'm not proposing that at all. The project covers not only countries, but also colonies (eg. Malayan Union), puppet states (Confederation of the Rhine), protectorates (British Mandate of Palestine), etc. See Template:Infobox Former Country/Categories for a list of the categories that we are currently working through. Via the date-navigation section at the top of the infobox that we have designed, it is possible to jump to previous or successive entities. Basically, the project covers any entity that no longer exists. The colony of New South Wales ceased to exist with Federation, therefore a separate entry describing it can't hurt. - 52 Pickup 16:08, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Some work has been started on the South Australian colony see History of Adelaide, History of South Australia, and European settlement of South Australia, also see the history pages History of Australia, which links to the history of each capital. I am not sure how a new infobox will fly on these articles, as they have their own already. The NSW colony would be written up in History of Sydney?SauliH 16:36, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I wasn't sure how such a page would fit within the framework of what has already been done - this is why I thought I'd ask here before creating a new page. No worries. The infobox that I made will stay here should anybody find a use for it later on.
By the way, I just had a look at History of Sydney. Something appears to have gone very wrong over there. - 52 Pickup 16:50, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I believe we need to start a child Wikiproject: Australian History to get on top of the various history gaps. What do you all think?SauliH 16:54, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I would be interested in and happy to support such a project.--Golden Wattle talk 20:10, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree. History needs plenty of work, and it would be very useful to be able to organise and prioritise what needs to be done. The title would be Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian history by the way. --bainer (talk) 00:55, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Ok I need help. I started the Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian history page today, and attempted to add the WP to Template:WP Australia. I am not sure whether I did it correctly, can someone please check. Also, how does automatic add to a history of australia category work. Can anyone get it up and going? I thought I would put down a foundation, and if people feel that we need to discuss something first then that is fine. I stole text from Wikipedia:WikiProject History of Greece , as it seemed the wording was ok. Feel free to edit the WP page as much as you like ie treat it like a stub.SauliH 23:50, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
I fixed your change to {{WP Australia}}. It will add articles (well, their talk pages) to Category:WikiProject Australian history articles for project reference.--cj | talk 05:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:FA suggestion

Would any participants here like to help me make Holden Commodore or Ford Falcon into featured articles?? I think at least one should be a featured article; any advice on making the articles into one would be good. --SunStar Net 00:45, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

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