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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Sid Barnes

Hi. The FAC of Sid Barnes, a real Aussie character, is somewhat stalled. I'd appreciate feedback whether you know lots about cricket or nothing at all; in fact, if you know little or nothing that's actually preferable. Please do contribute. The FAC is at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sid Barnes Many thanks --Dweller (talk) 11:12, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Dweller. It's amazing the places we meet! Most of the discussion for this project takes place on the noticeboard where you will get a better response. Note that the FAC is listed on Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/Announcements so keen watchers will have noticed it but a direct request from a "visitor" to WP:AUS might get a favourable response. Cheers, Mattinbgn\talk 11:36, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Australia newsletter

WikiProject Australia publishes a newsletter informing Australian Wikipedians of ongoing events and happenings within the community and the project. This month's newsletter has been published. If you wish to unsubscribe from these messages, or prefer to have the newsletter delivered in full to your talk page, see our subscription page. This notice delivered by BrownBot (talk), at 22:40, 3 January 2008 (UTC).

Confusing use of Australian Dictionary of Biography template

See Template talk:Australian Dictionary of Biography, Template talk:ADB, Wikipedia:Bot requests. -- Matthead  DisOuß   08:11, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

This place is barely watched - you might wanna leave a note at WP:AWNB. — Dihydrogen Monoxide 21:53, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Rod Quantock

Hi, I was wondering if anyone would be interested in helping out with the article Rod Quantock. Thanks, 124.180.230.123 (talk) 01:24, 8 January 2008 (UTC).


Category Name Change

I refer to the category Aboriginal gods. The Australian Aboriginals do not have the concept of gods. They did not /do not worship deities. The Dreaming tradition treats of spirits. I suggest changing to category to Australian Aboriginal Dreaming Spirits. I tried starting a discussion on the category page. No-one seemed interested so I am bringing the discussion here.--Gazzster (talk) 03:01, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

People need to have the category page bookmarked in order to know there is a discussion. I'd suggest raising it at WP:AWNB where most of the Australian correspondents read. Orderinchaos 03:09, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

See CfD discussion started only today at: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 January 8#Category:Aboriginal goddesses. It includes Category:Aboriginal gods also. Your point is very relevant. I have suggested an up-merge to the parent category Category:Australian Aboriginal mythology, getting rid of three in the process. The nominator however is set on having Aboriginal categories fit in with others, which of course they really do not. --Bduke (talk) 03:46, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Wiki data dumps

Latest Wikipedia:Database download database dump, Wikipedia EN Database Dump 2008-01-03 Pages-Articles, has been copied over to BigPond Files. File link.

If you're a BigPond Broadband customer, consider downloading this 3.4 gig file from BP Files as it is an Unmetered download off their servers. --Breno talk 05:14, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Shopping Centres

Hi, I would like to manage all of Australias shopping centres in a Wikiproject but not sure how to do it, could anyone help out? I know a lot about shopping centres in all states and love fixing up the articles on then but I want to set up some rules for other that edit them too, like what classifies as a major store and what doesn't. Help would be GREATLY appreciated, Thanks Dyllip. I hope Im allowed to post here ;o.

Of course you're allowed to post here :) There is a few editors on here who deal with the shopping centre articles - we hadn't seen the need to organise per se as we're all involved in other projects. Biggest problem for shopping centres is generally referencing - the ones that are well-referenced right now are generally the ones we've managed to rescue at AfD for one reason or another in the past. Also cruft, which you've kind of identified above. I believe User:Thewinchester was working on some standards a few months ago, and looking at your edits it looks like we generally share ideas regarding what is a major store. Some of the ones we rescued included Stockland Rockhampton, Greensborough Plaza, Karrinyup Shopping Centre, Brand Junction and Westfield Warrawong, although that's not a complete list - Karrinyup is easily the best of those as Thewinchester was able to research it in our state library. Orderinchaos 15:57, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

The Ghan

I've just completed a significant re-write of The Ghan after working on the Indian Pacific earlier this week and realizing that The Ghan article needed some work. I've raised some of mu remaining questions on Talk:The_Ghan and would appreciate any input, suggestions, etc. Travellingcari (talk) 21:46, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Radio station article naming

I noticed that New World Man (talk · contribs) had gone through and moved basically every Australian radio station article to the (completely unknown to the public) call sign of the station, away from its (popularly-known) on-air name. This violates the Naming Convention on broadcasting, which states the following:

"In places with a mix of call signs and station names, such as most of Central or South America, the station name should normally be used, except when the call sign is well-known."

Most of the call signs for FM stations are extremely obscure, as are some of the AM call signs. As a result, I feel I am justified in moving the majority of these articles back to their station names, away from their call signs. - Mark 13:28, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that's a reasonable decision. I was looking for the Groove FM article the other day and couldn't even find it - turned out it's at like 6YMS or something. Orderinchaos 16:39, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
All the call signs and variation on names should be turned into redirects so that it can be found - eg 6YMS 6yms 6 YMS 6 yms Groove FM Groove fm and Groove (disambiguation) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Graeme Bartlett (talk • contribs) 05:46, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Redirects for existing radio station articles should now already be in place (considering I just moved all those articles back from their call signs). - Mark 05:54, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Should be, but some of those variation examples are showing up red! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:57, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Heh, good point. Some stage in the next week or so I'll reinstall AWB and make a large batch at once. - Mark 07:23, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Test of automated article selection for WP:1.0

Hi, we at WP:1.0 have been testing a bot to select articles for offline release based on quality and importance assessments. We want an offline release of around 20,000-30,000 articles from all subject areas, and we want these to be picked based on a combination of importance and quality. Importance is considered more important than quality (we don't just want a collection including lots of FAs and GAs on trivia then find we failed to include Battle of Stalingrad, Spain or (heaven forbid!) Queensland. However, an FA like Eric Bana would probably be included, because although it's not a really important topic, it is clearly non-trivial, and a very nice article.

We have a tentative selection of WP:Australia articles. A couple of comments: First, the hitranking is very rough, but should get much better. Second, there will be some articles that aren't on the list (like Don Bradman - but he's already on the DVD).

The articles are ranked in order of Score3; the three score options are based on a balanced combination of quality and importance. I'd really like to know if people think this would be an appropriate ordering of the articles, and if it would be a reasonable selection if we picked (say) all articles with Score3 >900 (or >800?). If the ordering is wrong, how have we got it wrong? Kylie ranks slightly higher than Melbourne, but that's because Kylie is an FA that gets a huge no. of page hits; if Melbourne became FA it would be ranked higher. We want to get these selections right, so please comment here, thanks! Walkerma (talk) 06:51, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Woah, why is AC/DC getting so many hits? That's bizarre. - Mark 07:32, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I suppose they're pretty popular. Some of the hit scores are a bit off, but I think this one may be right, see this result which gives a steady 6000/day during last month, which means we'd be stupid not to include it in our selection. Walkerma (talk) 07:49, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I guess the general population has a worse taste in music than I thought. :) - Mark 08:15, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Agreed - they're getting a million more hits than Powderfinger! (roughly) dihydrogen monoxide (H20) 08:59, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Unassessed Categories

Im just curious as to why Template talk:Infobox Aust school seems to be in Category:Unassessed Education in Australia articles when its got the parameter "class=template" in the {{WP Australia}} template. Appreciate some help here, thanks. Twenty Years 03:49, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Fixed now in the article. The issue was the "class=template" which is not referenced in the correct place in the WP Australia template - hence defaulting to the cat "Unassessed Education in Australia articles". I've changed it to "class=NA" - Peripitus (Talk) 10:25, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
But shouldnt it be class=cat to be in line with the rest of australia project ?SatuSuro 10:27, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
The question was about the infobox. Orderinchaos 14:01, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
It would have helped if i had read the question again :( SatuSuro 14:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
(reduce indent) Many thanks, ill apply this to the Infobox Aust school private. Cheers. Twenty Years 16:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Content from Melpedia

I run an unofficial wiki for the city of Melbourne which has quite a bit of images and media on it. It's available at http://www.melpedia.net so feel free to use any content on this project. KiwiTallGuy (talk) 02:36, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks mate :) Appreciated. Orderinchaos 12:14, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Geoffrey Edelsten

An apparent single-purpose account humbly calling itself Wikifactsright (talk · contribs) has appeared at the biography Geoffrey Edelsten (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), and shows every sign of attempting a whitewash. Those editors who know something about the subject ought to keep an eye on things. --Calton | Talk 10:22, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Watchlisted, and raised at AWNB too. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 10:28, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Hello,

there are currently about 170 articles in the scope of this project which are tagged with notability concerns. Based on a database snapshot of March 12, I have listed them here.

Often, the "locals" can easier decide on the notability of these articles. I would encourage members of this project to have a look at these articles, and see whether independent sources can be added, whether the articles can be merged into an article of larger scope, or possibly be deleted. Any help in cleaning up this backlog is appreciated. For further information, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Notability.

If you have further questions, please leave a message on the Notability project page or on my personal talk page. (I'm not watching this page however.) Thanks! --B. Wolterding (talk) 12:28, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Crikey - Jana Wendt not notable!?! Thanks for passing that this way, B. Wolterding; good idea. Hesperian 12:41, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
What a weird and wonderful bunch - some of the articles have been deleted already anyway SatuSuro 12:45, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Signpost interview

You'll be featuring in next week's signpost wikiproject report. I'll get the questions up soon, if not please badger me for them. :) Rudget. 14:33, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Probably best if you also post at WP:AWNB. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 23:26, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
 Done Rudget. 15:44, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-03-31/WikiProject report. Rudget. 15:44, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposed rock music project

There is now a proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Australian rock music for a project to deal with that subject that has gotten 6 members. Would the members of this project be interested in adjusting the project banner to accomodate this new group? John Carter (talk) 18:00, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

It's quite an old proposal. WP:AUSMUSIC seems to cover the topic well already (although Aus Music theoretically has a much wider scope, its coverage at present is dominantly Australian rock.) Orderinchaos 23:11, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Agreed, it's taken several months to get five members. I'm not necessarily saying it should be made a project. But, if you want to go ahead with it, let me know and I'll try to adjust the banner to include it. John Carter (talk) 00:32, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I have posted an oppose at that proposal - It does not have 6 members - one line has comments that are not signed - and another has not signed correctly - so in effect there are 4 or 5 so far - I really think that the current music project is sufficient - if it gets too big then maybe - but to start another project separate from the music project seems unnecessarily duplicating the efforts of the existing project. SatuSuro 10:30, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Given the proposal has seemingly stagnated and most of the people are now active at AUSMUSIC it's probably not likely to be a problem anyway. Orderinchaos 10:33, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

A bot tagged many of song-related articles as part of WP:AUS. For example "Irreplaceable", is it part of the project? --Efe (talk) 06:46, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, we know the bot's been getting a bit carried away (it's new and still having teething problems). If it's clearly not in Australia's scope, either let us know at WP:AWNB or just revert it yourself. Thanks for letting us know. Orderinchaos 10:22, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Welcome. I may revert those articles I have watch listed. --Efe (talk) 10:26, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Home and Away character articles

(copy of post I put at Talk:Home and Away)

I have gone through all of the articles in Category:Home and Away characters, and found that none of them feature significant referencing. As a result, they are now all tagged with reference-needed templates. Some of them have remained so tagged for several months, with no references added to support the real-world notability of the subjects. If reliable, verifiable references are not provided for these articles in the near future, it is my intention to list these articles for deletion, following the examples set in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brad Armstrong (Home and Away), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Matilda Hunter (2nd nomination) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ric Dalby (second nomination). - Mark 10:43, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Television network issues

Two things to report. Firstly, I have made a village pump post raising the issue of TV schedule sections being included in network articles, such as Network Ten. It is quite plain to me that they fail WP:NOT an electronic program guide, and should be removed. In various places (i.e. here, here and here) I have seen more support (and more persuasive arguments) for their removal, so if I don't get anyone expressing a dissenting opinion on that policy page, I'll go ahead and remove them from all Australian TV network articles (I have already removed it from Seven Network).

The second thing to report is that I have created a large list of fair use images used in Australian television articles, but which do not have fair use rationales for those uses: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian television#Fair use images in Australian television articles. I've listed them there as a courtesy, rather than giving the no-rationale notice. - Mark 02:39, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

That seems a fair response. Less-watched sections tend to attract a lot of cruft unfortunately. Orderinchaos 06:47, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Converting captain to a dab page?

I've opened a discussion on the Captain article's talk page about converting that article to a dab page. Since the it's tagged as a WikiProject Australia page, I thought I'd mention it here. Cheers. HausTalk 17:06, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Please look this over...

The Lists of basic topics is one of the tables of contents systems of Wikipedia. I've added List of basic Australia topics to it. Please take a look and see if you can improve it. Thank you. The Transhumanist 22:18, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Concern over Aussie newspaper articles

Now, I don't know exactly where to go with this, and i don't know if it has been raised before, so smack me and point me in the right direction if necessary, but I've noticed what I think is a problem with several Australian newspaper articles.

Of the nine state- or national-level daily newspapers that have the newspaper's front page as the primary image for the article (i.e. in the infobox), three of them have front pages related to the Cronulla riots: The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, and The Courier Mail. Of these, I know that the Telegraph layout varies significantly from the standard front page layout... I don't read the others, so I don't know if they are standard layout or not. All of these pages, as well as the pages on most of the other newspaper articles, are from the 11 December 2005 edition, the day after the riots.

Would it not be more appropriate to replace these images with images of the front page showing the standard layout used by the newspaper? -- saberwyn 07:06, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Thanks for pointing this out. I'd support replacement with more random (perhaps current?) banners. Orderinchaos 09:02, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
I've advised Australian Wikipedians' noticeboard of this discussion. Orderinchaos 09:02, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Good idea. A quick look at some foreign examples (New York Times, Bild) shows that using a standard layout (not drawing attention to any particular event) is the norm. 52 Pickup (deal) 09:21, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Agree with a suggestion. Jyllands-Posten is in an even more dire predicament, with the image section saying "image = ≤!-- Insert image of front page here (no, not the page with the Muhammad drawings) --≥" Andjam (talk) 14:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
While agree the idea in having a quieter front page, I also think that a single event is useful to show different layouts compared to each other as they have the same owner in invariably run the same major story across all three papers.Though the Daily Telegraph front page looks like it may not be the standard layout anyway, the other two are using the papers standard/normal format. Gnangarra 02:08, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

WA Parks and Gorges

Listing this here for comment rather than the same discussion on three talk pages. At the moment we have:

I'm responsible for some of the duplication with Geikie Gorge because the search wasn't working properly yesterday but I wondered if there was any precedent and/or consensus as to whether the creeks/gorges should be merged into their respective national parks or whether they should stay separate. Thoughts? TRAVELLINGCARIMy storyTell me yours 13:40, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

We also have a WA project - I would suggest preference would be to incoporate into national park arts - and have redirects from the other arts - however most eds with interest on this might not be back for about 12 hours or so i suspect - most asleep i think :) SatuSuro 13:44, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah that's what I was thinking as well since in most cases the reason for visiting the national park is the tunnel/creek, etc. I've got Jandamarra on my list to fix next -- on a Kimberley kick and missing it. See what the others have to say, how dare they sleep on my awake and Wiki hours ;) Come to think of it, why are you awake? TRAVELLINGCARIMy storyTell me yours 14:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/The Trumpet Calls

Hi, seeking input to help answer a question about this featured picture nomination. I've restored this World War I Australian recruitment poster and a respondant wants to know whether it's iconic. As a Yank I have no idea whether it is or not; frankly I restored the image because there's a shortage of featured pictures for Austalian history and the fellow with the bugle looks like a hottie (grin). Plus it's in public domain. Would some editors from this project please help with background questions? DurovaCharge! 01:03, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it uniquely iconic. Australians don't associate themselves as machine gunners or bugle boys. As far as it promoting Australian manliness through becoming soldiers, many countries play the same cultural game. Kransky (talk) 12:16, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Ancestry data

I am using ancestry and country of birth data for several ethnic groups, using the 2006 Census results. However one editor has taken grave exception to this practice for Chilean Australian. While I have added caveats for the ABS statistics, my opponent insists on using a student's essay, with rather dodgy figures, instead. Please view the debate and provide your opinions on Talk:Chilean Australian Kransky (talk) 12:28, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Resolved
 – Matilda talk 23:20, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Criminals & Sex Offenders

On the Patrick Power (Australian) article, I removed the category [[Category:Australian rapists]], because as far as I know he was never convicted of that offence. However, should he be in the other category - [[Category:Australian convicted child sex offenders]] ? The guy was convicted for possessing child porn, so maybe that comes under the second category.

Also, what's happening with the Template:Australian_criminals? I notice it has been removed from a number of crime articles recently, such as Glenn Wheatley, Rodney Adler and Alan Bond (businessman). Is there any policy about who does or doesn't get the infobox? Shouldn't the policy be that if the person is convicted of the crime, they get the infobox? Lester 22:56, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Any ideas on Patrick Power's category? Lester 00:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
He is currently classed as an Australian Criminal. If you really want a sub cat instead why not Category:Australian sex offenders? --Matilda talk 00:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Matilda. I missed that category, and will add it to the article. However, the Australian Crime template only lists rapists, and not the other offenders. Lester 09:37, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
A rapist is a sex offender. Perhaps the category hierarchy needs tweaking if that particular template is to stay. -- Longhair\talk 11:26, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
I've replaced rapist with sex offender within the template. The template lists only top level criminal classifications, therefore you can access the rapist category by following the trail from the sex offender category onwards. -- Longhair\talk 11:30, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Brand new Wikipedia:WikiProject Demographics of Australia - need some hlp in the set up

Hi Further to the discussion at WP:AWNB I have started Wikipedia:WikiProject Demographics of Australia. I need some help with some of the set up to make it a sub-project of this one and to introduce article talk page tags so we can then track quality and importance ... Thanks --Matilda talk 01:29, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I've been at it and created what I think you're after. Should the Indigenous WikiProject become a sub-project of the new Demographics project? -- Longhair\talk 11:42, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
There is overlap, the Indigenous WP relates but is broader covering culture (music, language ...), history, archaeology .... IMO no. Paul foord (talk) 02:00, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Satyr

Have you replaced User:SatyrTN's User:SatyrBot? We at WP:CHICAGO are looking for a replacement since he is no longer active. Please respond at my talk page.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 18:47, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Student Life articles

I have merged Student Life New Zealand into Student Life (university ministry), and plan to do the same with Student Life Australia. The article they are being merged into seems to lack notability too, as I have indicated with the template, and might itself be merged into the apparently notable Campus Crusade for Christ. Nobody seems to be watching them, and they were all created by one-edit wonders, so I need some more feedback. Maybe I should take them to AFD (even though the content is technically being merged) to get some? Richard001 (talk) 03:50, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Appropriate categorisation - should there be 'Category:Schools in city'

moved to Wikipedia:Australian_Wikipedians'_notice_board#Appropriate_categorisation_-_should_there_be_.27Category:Schools_in_city.27

Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security

The National Archives of Australia has released the records of the Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security under the 30 year rule.[1] There is more than enough material to spin this off from Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and Australian Secret Intelligence Service into a new article. 59.167.57.197 (talk) 08:44, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Rename proposal for the lists of basic topics

This project's subject has a page in the set of Lists of basic topics.

See the proposal at the Village pump to change the names of all those pages.

The Transhumanist 09:54, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Hunter Region

A while back during an SfD, Hunter Valley got moved to Hunter Region, as the article was actually describing the region. Now someone has created Hunter Valley wine country - I know nothing about NSW so I have no idea if it's necessary, just thought maybe someone'd want to look into it. JohnnyMrNinja 22:09, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

  • The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
  • The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
  • A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 22:19, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

FAR - Shrine of Remembrance

Shrine of Remembrance has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.--Avala (talk) 22:00, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Iconic bird at FAC

OpenAustralia.org spam?

Could someone else take a look at these contributions? They look a lot like spam to me, but I'd like a second opinion before I give the user a warning and revert the lot. -- Mark Chovain 01:11, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

The site doesn't appear to be offering anything for sale, so this is not a case of your usual drive-by spammer at work. It's actually quite an informative portal on Australian politics run by a group of volunteers. I've managed to locate two news items relating to this website, from both CNET [2] and Crikey [3]. I don't think it's spam. -- Longhair\talk 01:28, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I have left a welcome with the friendly template with links to the spam and external links page - and as two admins in sep places have indicated usefulness of the links - I say we leave it at that for the mo SatuSuro 01:32, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

  • I think it is a useful portal even if the adding of links is spam-like - I would leave them. if I were a reader and clicked on I wouldn't be disappointed based on the brief look I had of a politicians page.--Matilda talk 01:48, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree. A free and searchable Hansard database seems like a great tool. They espouse themselves as being non-partisan and seem to be ad-free. They also link back to Wikipeia. I see no harm. Moondyne 01:53, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

We're all in agreement then. Would it perhaps be better to add it to a template, then? It seems these links could be a valuable resource for *all* Australian politicians. -- Mark Chovain 01:59, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

A template would be good - maybe a bot could help to convert all those already in place --Matilda talk 02:04, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
No need for a bot. The external links have been converted, and the original contributor appears to be adding the link via the new {{OpenAustralia}} template as well. -- Longhair\talk 04:29, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, you can use {{OpenAustralia}}. see [4]. Assumes that the article names on WP and OA match, which they do seem to be from my scanning. Moondyne 02:31, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I think they are spam links. Users on that site are allowed to leave comments on parliamentary speeches and it is therefore a political website. Non-partisan =/= non-political. Hansard is the true primary source. We shouldn't be receiving it editorialised as happens on that site. --Surturz (talk) 02:46, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
The thing is, this puts things in a form that is good for external linking from individual politician's articles. We can't do that with Hansard (without a huge maintenance overhead). Commentary does not exclude it as an EL candidate: I can comment on BBC articles!
It presents information that augments the articles, but in detail that is inappropriate for incorporation into the article. -- Mark Chovain 03:44, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
That's a fair point, most news sites do allow the posting of comments. The site does seem quite useful and so far non-partisan. --Surturz (talk) 03:55, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I've changed the template to allow an optional parameter if we need it. -- Mark Chovain 04:01, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm probably gonna sound like a total killjoy, but it doesn't matter if it's non-profit or non-partisan. Promoting themselves on Wikipedia is still a violation of WP:COI, and hence spam. Plus putting an OpenAustralia.org link in the external links of every Australian politician gives the impression of Wikipedia endorsing them. Peter Ballard (talk) 09:37, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I see your point, and it's a good one. However, following that line of argument, we should begin removing the abundance of links to the Internet Movie Database and Rotten Tomatoes from film-related articles. I still think the OpenAustralia external links add value to articles as do the two film related websites I refer to. -- Longhair\talk 10:06, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
We don't automatically classify violations of COI as spam: we base such classification on the merits of the link in question. Plenty of editors see the value of the links (including me, the creator of this thread). It does a great job of augmenting our articles. -- Mark Chovain 10:36, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I see your (Longhair's) point too, but IMDB (not sure about Rotten Tomatoes) is THE de facto internet movie resource, already widely used, saying almost everything imaginable about the film. It doesn't need its own people using Wikipedia to publicise it. Does OpenAustralia really bear comparison? Perhaps, if it's included, we should modify the template to make it more descriptive - an index of all the politician's Hansard speeches (at least in the 2007- parliament). (All external links are meant to have a description explaining them - see WP:EL). Peter Ballard (talk) 10:49, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Rotten Tomatoes is a site that collects reviews, and as such is an overview of "critical response", which I think, is how it is always used on WP. Duggy 1138 (talk) 11:03, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree with User:Peter Ballard that User:Mlandauer is shamelessly promoting the site on Wikipedia, which is usually unacceptable behaviour. However, the site is useful enough that we are letting him/her get away with it. I think that summarises the situation. There is no point following the rules if doing so would diminish the quality of WP. That said, I am ready and waiting to remove all links to the site the moment it turns out to be pushing a POV. --Surturz (talk) 01:56, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
That's a fair summary of the situation. Would this be a problem if the user adding the links wasn't directly related to the site in question. If one of us regulars stumbled upon the site and began adding external links, I think it'd hardly raise the eyebrows it has thus far. -- Longhair\talk 02:00, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I'd agree. In this situation the site seems relatively harmless - Commonwealth Hansard is notoriously difficult to search or to link to. Orderinchaos 02:35, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I added a short descriptor to the template, which helps explain its presence. Peter Ballard (talk) 02:48, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
  • I've only added the OpenAustralia links for current members of the House of Representatives. I understand and respect everyone's desire to only add the External links when they provide something in addition to the other content. With former members of the House of Representatives they're likely not to have their speeches on OpenAustralia at the moment as it currently only goes back to the beginning of 2006. When we start filling in the Hansard data going further back in time (potentially back to 1981, I think) how would people feel about putting OpenAustralia links on former members? Mlandauer (talk) 01:32, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
    • I would support the links on any MPs site whether current or former - the distinction is not relevant to wikipedia and the site has useful information which the reader is likely to be interested in if clicking through.--Matilda talk 01:42, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. Orderinchaos 02:06, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
  • opposed to blanket spamming by the site and its representatives. IMDB links are done by editors not associated with the site. Secondly the site does not have clear copyright information something WP:V and WP:EL require, as there is no copyright or source information available on the images of the politicians nor is there information on the bios, the only copy right notice is in relation to actual hansard. Gnangarra 13:20, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
    • I still support the links being added. The copyright issues Gnangarra raises are an issue if we used original information from the site as a reference and that sort of issue applies also with IMDB where I suspect some of their info is also perhaps questionable in a copyright sense. As a reader I would be pleased to click through and get those links.
      Having decided that we are prepared to have those links on politicians' wikipedia entries does it matter who adds them? Why would it be OK for me to add them and not user:Mlandauer? (Or would it not be OK for me to add them?) --Matilda talk 21:31, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
    • I also support, as I think that the focus of the site is closer to our own mission (open information) - it's not a blog, it doesn't have ads, it doesn't promote. Also, we are not citing them as a source either for images or text. I don't think we can be the world police and tell people what to do with their websites, and plenty of sites already linked by Wikipedia have copyright issues as copyright is very poorly understood generally on the Internet (hell, I didn't understand it after about a year on here, and I've been doing web design since the mid 1990s.) I think EL was designed to combat *blatant* copyright infringement, such as copies of videos or books or the like which are wantonly depriving their authors of an income. Orderinchaos 23:26, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
and a still photographer does desevre the same consideration! Gnangarra 01:13, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
I left a note on Gn's talk page as I'd like to hear his rationale explained a bit more before we go off reverting him. Moondyne 00:24, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't really care about the website itself but I'm not overly comfortable with us turning a blind eye to the owner of a site systematically inserting his own website that he has a COI regarding into page after page. I would like to recommend that he consider following the guidelines at COI and EL and suggest his links on the talk pages instead. I have no strong opinion about his site and don't really care either way if it's in or out, I just don't like the spamming nature of these contributions and even if this is resolved amongst ourselves, it's going to continue being an issue as people on RC will start noticing him going from page to page with links and inevitably start reverting him. Also, outbound ELs on Wikipdia are extremely valuable and multiply that by the hundreds of links he's inserting...I think allowing this to continue in this way would be a really bad precedent. Sarah 01:04, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
  • After trying to get information from the editor who is by the way the sites operator(WP:COI) my issue was that the site is using copyrighted images that arent theres without attribution. The images are the ones on every Bio. WP:EL#Restrictions_on_linking says Linking to websites that display copyrighted works is acceptable as long as the website has licensed the work. Knowingly directing others to material that violates copyright may be considered contributory infringement.
    Looking at the editors contributions the account is just a WP:SPA with a WP:COI spamming, WP:SPAM#How not to be a spammer says Contribute cited text, not bare links. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a link farm. If you have a source to contribute, first contribute some facts that you learned from that source, then cite the source. Don't simply direct readers to another site for the useful facts; add useful facts to the article, then cite the site where you found them. You're here to improve Wikipedia—not just to funnel readers off Wikipedia and onto some other site, right?. The 100 odd edits all of which where just adding a link to OpenAustralia.org were/are classic spamming. Gnangarra 01:11, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
    • Who cares if it was spam if it improves Wikipedia? To quote WP:IAR, "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.". A number of people have looked at it and decided that the links add extra background detail (searchable Hansard!) and so perfectly fit the definition of useful Wikipedia:External links. I'm quite a crusader against garbage or unannotated external links, but these ones are actually pretty good. Answering Sarah's concern about the number of external links: many pollie pages have no external links at all. A link to what they're up to in parliament is I think a useful addition. I wouldn't worry about the precedent - most external links inserted by spammers aren't 1/100th as useful as these. This is a special case, WP:IAR applies. Peter Ballard (talk) 02:34, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
How does Spamming by a representative of OpenAustralia.org with links to OpenAustralia.org that contribute nothing to article content are improving Wikipedia in such a way that would warrant WP:IAR? Gnangarra 04:24, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
By providing links to all the pollie's recorded speeches in Hansard. It's accurate and neutral extra information in too much detail for the WP article - a perfect fit as defined in WP:EL. Peter Ballard (talk) 04:41, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
Follow the link still in the John Howard article you get a page with an image(copyright violation) of John Howard. I dont see all the of his speeches. Now have a look at the house Rules of the site We don't allow the submission of the same or very similar contributions many times. Please don't re-submit your comment to more than one discussion. wow they dont approve of spamming on their site but find it acceptable to do it here. Gnangarra 05:15, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
and while your there No advertising At all. Ever. Even subtle stuff. or No unlawful or objectionable content Gnangarra 05:17, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
You don't see all of John Howard's speeches? How hard did you look? It links to 1799 of them.[5] Peter Ballard (talk) 05:22, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
That link has 3 links not 1799, Gnangarra 05:43, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
Either you are being needlessly pedantic, or you don't know how to click links. Peter Ballard (talk) 05:48, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, there's 1799 hits if you follow the link but you have to follow through from the main Howard article and they aren't just speeches but seem to be general searches for his name, including individual question-answers. Sarah 11:30, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
    • That leaves the issue of copyrighted images. You say there's no clear copyright information, which is apparently true, but they're simply publicity photos so I think it's reasonable to assume that they're acceptable under fair use provisions. Peter Ballard (talk) 02:34, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
Simple publicity shots are not so simple, the photographer still retains copyright OpenAustralia is clearly violating that copyright our policy is clear we dont link to sites that promote copyright infringements because such promotion may be considered contributory infringement Gnangarra 04:24, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
How are those possible copyright violations "clear?". I would argue that the use of those publicity images are fair dealing under s42 of the Copyright Act. They could probably further reinforce affair dealing position by better compliance with the provisions under s44 and s41. OpenAustralia's use of publicity images probably also falls under division 5 (ss48-53). As an aside, there is no evidence one way or the other whether the photographer still owns copyright in those images. Australia doesn't have work-for-hire provisions, but standard practice is for photographers to assign all rights to the commissioner of such works. In the case of publicity images, I would say its a fair assumption that the photographer has assigned away their rights -- so they can be used freely for publicity.(stuartw)
In addition to the above it seems that the images are from Auspic - the agency that manages the Australian Government's copyrights. Whether they are used under license or under fair dealing is another matter. (stuartw) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.83.193.114 (talk) 03:29, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
This was the first point a legally qualified mate of mine made when he viewed the site, that it probably qualifies under Australian copyright law and therefore is not in "copyright violation". Whether it would meet Wikipedia's much tighter standards, or US law, I am not sure - but we are not hosting their images, they are. Orderinchaos 09:56, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
I think using fair use images on another website is fine and most websites wouldn't have any images if it wasn't for fair use. We've just become really anal about fair use because of our own policies here and I think it's important to remember that our policies are actually stricter than the law and other sites are under no obligation to follow our internal policies just to be used as a source. As I said before, I don't care if this site is used or not, but I'm still not comfortable with the spamming nature of the account adding these links. I think it would be better to leave it to the editors editing these pages to add the links when making edits if they think the site is useful. And IAR isn't a magic word that makes other people's concerns disappear. There are plenty of ways to resolve this just by following policy that don't include invoking IAR so please let's not go down that path. Sarah 11:23, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
This seems a sensible approach. I'd favour individual editors with an editing history adding them to individual articles they're working on, rather than mass adding, as a compromise. I think extreme measures tend to provoke extreme responses and there's no rule ever that says if one article does one thing all articles of the same class should automatically do so. Orderinchaos 11:30, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:OpenAustralia

Template:OpenAustralia has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Gnangarra 05:29, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject notification bot

There is currently a proposal for a bot that would notify WikiProjects when their articles have entered certain workflows, e.g. when they are nominated for deletion or for Good article reassessment.

The question is whether a relevant number of wikiprojects would be interested in using such a bot. You can find details of the functionality, and leave your comments, at the bot request page.

I am posting this message to the 20 largest WikiProjects (by number of articles), since they would be the most likely users. Thanks, --B. Wolterding (talk) 12:05, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

As long as it's to a subpage (which we can watchlist or manually check) and not to the main talk page, I think that would be a good thing - obviously with a large project our talk page could end up plastered in notifications pretty quickly. Orderinchaos 23:29, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Waverley Cemetery

Can someone who has knowledge of image copyright check out Waverley Cemetery. As it's a 'High Importance' article it's a shame the image taken by User talk:Wyp can't be used. If you look at edit May 22, 2007 you will see he added a excellent photo taken by himself, which was then removed a short time later. To me it seems that someone who maybe the Cemetery Caretaker is responsible for this removal going by the discussion on Wyp's talk page under the 'Copyright' topic. I wonder if this is correct that no one is allowed to use a photo unless they get approval first from the cemetery. Whoever this person User talk:203.108.239.12 is he seems to be deciding what is and what isn't allowed on the article, as i have noted him making edits often removing what he doesn't approve and rewording the article to suit his own views. For a Cemetery with such historical importance to early settlers of Australia, this article needs attention and watching by someone who has more experience with this sort of problem. Boylo (talk) 07:49, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Hey Boylo, I was quite prepared to restore that image as I find it outrageous that the cemetery thinks they can impose their own internal rules on Wikipedia. However, I noticed the image Image:WaverleyCemetery.jpg has a copyright notice on it and so I'm not going to restore it at this point and I think the copyright status needs to be resolved or it will have to be deleted. Thanks for bringing this to our attention, though. Cheers, Sarah 08:28, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
The license on the image is ok as it was uploaded by Winston under a free license, I'll leave a message on Winstons talk page asking if he's can reupload without the copyright notice. Gnangarra 08:41, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
If he's concerned about attribution he could always use a CC licence instead of GFDL. Orderinchaos 08:57, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I prefer the CC licence myself. Wyp's going to have to upload a non-watermarked image anyway. We could do it for him but I think it's better if he does it, otherwise, with the contradictory license information, there could be doubt whether there was "a meeting of the minds" and an understanding of the GFDL. I started hacking at the Waverley Cemetery article, but there was so much original research and promotional material that I couldn't see a way through the scrub, and then my hero, Gnangarra, came to the rescue with his famous wiki-chainsaw and pruning scissors and he's done a fantastic job. Such a great improvement, Gnang! :) Gnang has also left Wyp a message and once the image issues are resolved it can go back into the article (regardless of the grounds keeper's attempts at bluffing our photographers). Sarah 10:58, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
Incidentally, I think that article is quite bad. It seems the cemetery staff have been injecting promotional-type material into the text. Sarah 08:31, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
The article is looking much better now thanks to all those who helped. I had been trying to work out how to improve and fix that article for over a year and gave up in the end as wasn't sure how to go about it, so am glad i posted here. Sarah, your right, it always seemed to be Cemetery staff trying to make the article into how they wish it to be to promote the Cemetery and then impose their own rules on what can be posted. Thanks all for the response and for the great editing work done by Gnangarra. Boylo (talk) 11:36, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
Hi, I've uploaded a non-tagged version of the photograph under a CC attributions licence. As far as I'm concerned, as I took the photograph from public land (i.e. outside the cemetery), it's perfectly fine. I made this argument when User talk:203.108.239.12 took it down but he didn't respond and I didn't want to start an edit war. Wyp (talk) 12:03, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
I would agree. The only problem was the watermark, but if that's gone now, there's no problem. We occasionally hear arguments like this - back last year the train authorities in my state tried to stop Wikipedians taking photos of the new train stations, but it wasn't against any law and the people involved knew their stuff legally. We have those pictures on Wikipedia today. Would be different if you had pictures of weeping people at funerals or something, but just a scenery shot is perfectly OK. Orderinchaos 14:56, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Flag colours

I noticed the colours on the NSW flag are very different than the ones on the Aussie flag, is this in accordance with the legal definitions of the respective flags or just personal colour preferences differing in the two files? +Hexagon1 (t) 10:29, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to remove date-autoformatting

Dear fellow contributors

MOSNUM no longer encourages date-autoformatting, having evolved over the past year or so from the mandatory to the optional, after much discussion there and elsewhere of the disadvantages of the system. MOSLINK and CONTEXT are consistent with this.

There are at least six disadvantages of using date-autoformatting, which I've capped here:

Disadvantages of date-autoformatting


  • (1) In-house only
  • (a) It works only for the WP "elite".
  • (b) To our readers out there, it displays all-too-common inconsistencies in raw formatting in bright-blue underlined text, yet conceals them from WPians who are logged in and have chosen preferences.
  • (c) It causes visitors to query why dates are bright-blue and underlined.
  • (2) Avoids what are merely trivial differences
  • (a) It is trivial whether the order is day–month or month–day. It is more trivial than color/colour and realise/realize, yet our consistency-within-article policy on spelling (WP:ENGVAR) has worked very well. English-speakers readily recognise both date formats; all dates after our signatures are international, and no one objects.
  • (3) Colour-clutter: the bright-blue underlining of all dates
  • (a) It dilutes the impact of high-value links.
  • (b) It makes the text slightly harder to read.
  • (c) It doesn't improve the appearance of the page.
  • (4) Typos and misunderstood coding
  • (a) There's a disappointing error-rate in keying in the auto-function; not bracketing the year, and enclosing the whole date in one set of brackets, are examples.
  • (b) Once autoformatting is removed, mixtures of US and international formats are revealed in display mode, where they are much easier for WPians to pick up than in edit mode; so is the use of the wrong format in country-related articles.
  • (c) Many WPians don't understand date-autoformatting—in particular, how if differs from ordinary linking; often it's applied simply because it's part of the furniture.
  • (5) Edit-mode clutter
  • (a) It's more work to enter an autoformatted date, and it doesn't make the edit-mode text any easier to read for subsequent editors.
  • (6) Limited application
  • (a) It's incompatible with date ranges ("January 3–9, 1998", or "3–9 January 1998", and "February–April 2006") and slashed dates ("the night of May 21/22", or "... 21/22 May").
  • (b) By policy, we avoid date autoformatting in such places as quotations; the removal of autoformatting avoids this inconsistency.

Removal has generally been met with positive responses by editors, and the consensus for change is overwhelming. I seek in-principle consensus here for the removal of date autoformatting from the main text of articles related to this WikiProject, using a script; such a move would also be sensitive to local objections on any article talk page. The original input formatting would be seen by all WPians, not just the huge number of visitors; it would be plain, unobtrusive text, which would give greater prominence to the high-value links.

You may wish to peruse the following capped text to compare two examples, with and without date autoformatting. The DA is set at international style—the one pertaining in this particular article—to show all WPians how the blue dates are displayed to visitors. MOSNUM prescribes rules for the raw formatting, irrespective of whether or not dates are autoformatted, analogous to our highly successful guidelines for the use of varieties of English. The choice of style is audited during the running of the script to ensure that it is appropriate to the article (i.e., consistent, and country-related where appropriate).

Two examples for comparison


EXAMPLE 1 Original

Marshal Suchet had received orders from Napoleon to commence operations on 14 June; and by rapid marches to secure the mountain passes in the Valais and in Savoy (then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia), and close them against the Austrians. On 15 June, his troops advanced at all points for the purpose of gaining the frontier from Montmeilian, as far as Geneva; which he invested. Thence he purposed to obtain possession of the important passes of Meillerie and St. Maurice; and in this way to check the advance of the Austrian columns from the Valais. At Meillerie the French were met and driven back by the advanced guard of the Austrian right column, on 21 June. By means of forced marches the whole of this column, which Baron Frimont himself accompanied, reached the Arve on 27 June.[1] The left column, under Count Bubna, crossed Mount Cenis on 24 June and 25 June. On 28 June, the column was sharply opposed by the French at Conflans; of which place, however, the Austrians succeeded in gaining possession.[2]
To secure the passage of the river Arve the advanced guard of the right column detached, on 27 June, to Bonneville, on its left; but the French, who had already fortified this place, maintained a stout resistance. In the mean time, however, the Austrians gained possession of the passage at Carrouge; by which means the French were placed under the necessity of evacuating Bonneville, and abandoning the valley of the Arve. The Austrian column now passed Geneva, and drove the French from the heights of Grand Saconex and from St. Genix. On 29 June, this part of the Austrian army moved towards the Jura; and, on 21 July, it ...

DA-free

Marshal Suchet had received orders from Napoleon to commence operations on 14 June; and by rapid marches to secure the mountain passes in the Valais and in Savoy (then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia), and close them against the Austrians. On 15 June, his troops advanced at all points for the purpose of gaining the frontier from Montmeilian, as far as Geneva; which he invested. Thence he purposed to obtain possession of the important passes of Meillerie and St. Maurice; and in this way to check the advance of the Austrian columns from the Valais. At Meillerie the French were met and driven back by the advanced guard of the Austrian right column, on 21 June. By means of forced marches the whole of this column, which Baron Frimont himself accompanied, reached the Arve on 27 June.[1] The left column, under Count Bubna, crossed Mount Cenis on 24 and 25 June. On 28 June, the column was sharply opposed by the French at Conflans; of which place, however, the Austrians succeeded in gaining possession.[2]
To secure the passage of the river Arve the advanced guard of the right column detached, on 27 June, to Bonneville, on its left; but the French, who had already fortified this place, maintained a stout resistance. In the mean time, however, the Austrians gained possession of the passage at Carrouge; by which means the French were placed under the necessity of evacuating Bonneville, and abandoning the valley of the Arve. The Austrian column now passed Geneva, and drove the French from the heights of Grand Saconex and from St. Genix. On 29 June, this part of the Austrian army moved towards the Jura; and, on 21 July, it ...

EXAMPLE 2 Original

On 5 July the main body of the Bavarian Army reached Chalons; in the vicinity of which it remained during 6 June. On this day, its advanced posts communicated, by Epernay, with the Prussian Army. On 7 July Prince Wrede received intelligence of the Convention of Paris, and at the same time, directions to move towards the Loire. On 8 July Lieutenant General Czernitscheff fell in with the French between St. Prix and Montmirail; and drove him across the Morin, towards the Seine. Previously to the arrival of the IV (Bavarian) Corps at Château-Thierry; the French garrison had abandoned the place, leaving behind it several pieces of cannon, with ammunition. On 10 July, the Bavarian Army took up a position between the Seine and the Marne; and Prince Wrede's Headquarters were at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre.

DA-free

On 5 July the main body of the Bavarian Army reached Chalons; in the vicinity of which it remained during 6 June. On this day, its advanced posts communicated, by Epernay, with the Prussian Army. On 7 July Prince Wrede received intelligence of the Convention of Paris, and at the same time, directions to move towards the Loire. On 8 July Lieutenant General Czernitscheff fell in with the French between St. Prix and Montmirail; and drove him across the Morin, towards the Seine. Previously to the arrival of the IV (Bavarian) Corps at Château-Thierry; the French garrison had abandoned the place, leaving behind it several pieces of cannon, with ammunition. On 10 July, the Bavarian Army took up a position between the Seine and the Marne; and Prince Wrede's Headquarters were at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony1 (talk • contribs)

  • and the advantages are left to someone else to explain, sorry but this isnt a neutral posting as such I wouldnt consider appropriate to make any judgments based on this. Gnangarra 09:57, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
      • Agreed with both of the above. The person who posted this here is the change's principal proponent, someone who is largely responsible for the change in MOSNUM, and it should be considered in that vein. Personally speaking I think removing is acceptable on an individual, checkable basis. Certainly in my own work I've been steering away from using it, especially as there's talk of some bot coming through and doing them en masse in a somewhat less careful way in the near future. The main issue is having a consistent date format - some people use the American date format while most use the Australian date format (i.e. 16 August 2008, not August 16, 2008). The only reasons really advanced for it are that date linking looks, in a purely subjective sense of course, ugly (the "blue sea" effect); that only registered users with preferences set see them in their preferred format meaning the bulk of users see them as keyed; and that the links take users to articles which are neither useful nor related to the content. In my own view this is something MediaWiki developers should have developed a better system for a long time ago, before the problem became so massive that we now don't have a clear solution for it. People on the MOS talk pages are getting emotional, offensive and even quitting the project over this stuff. As long as consistency prevails, though, I don't see a problem. Orderinchaos 13:26, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
Peter, it's not really the place of a guideline to refer to "consensus" explicitly; that belongs on talk pages and in posts such as the one here, in which I seek to persuade people towards one option. Yes, there are moves afoot at MOSNUM—not initiated by me, although I support them—to actively deprecate date-autoformatting.
Gnangarra, the whole issue has blown up because the advantages are pretty threadbare. It was always a solution chasing a non-problem, in the view of most people who've thought about it. While there are a few vocal antagonists (not in this neck of the woods, though), they have thus far steered away from articulating their reasons beyond statements such as "it enables us to display our preference". This is how WP was sold a pup in ?2003, when some developer came up with such a brain-dead idea and we were relatively naive about weighing the disadvantages and advantages in a wiki. So I'm sorry if the posting was largely negative. But at its heart, the move aims to strengthen wikilinking by removing unnecessary clutter and dilution of high-value links—in that respect, I believe it's very positive. Tony (talk) 13:46, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Australia

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:55, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I had a look through the list for articles I've written, and was surprised to see Banksia brownii included. This is way too obscure a plant to merit inclusion here; probably it was included because someone rated it "mid" importance to Australia, which it most certainly isn't. I have demoted it, and will recommend its removal. Hesperian 00:49, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't think the logic is based on obscurity. It is a featured article. has a number of links and is even hit a number of times. I think it has just as much merit as some band or politician. ... As a reader of encyclopaedias one gets as much pleasure from obscure topics as those of some importance - one learns something from both. Featured articles are our best and I think it good to include them even if on obscure plants --Matilda talk 00:56, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
I make no comment except that the Version 1.0 inclusion criteria states "Minimum standards of importance will apply - the article should be typically at the "Key Article" level or higher, meaning it would at least be expected to fall within the most important 1-2% of articles on Wikipedia." Moondyne 07:34, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
That's for 0.5 For 0.7 there are some different criteria. Giggy (talk) 07:35, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, my bad. It goes on to point to Wikipedia:Release_Version/Scope#Version_0.7 for proposed article numbers by grouping. Biology, excluding medicine: 2200. Moondyne 07:55, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Also, if anyone wants to copy paste the diffs from User:SelectionBot/0.7/A-6#Australian music to the main Australia section (linked above), please go ahead. Giggy (talk) 07:52, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Banksioa brownii is a lot better than some "important" articles, which are written like a muddled year 7 society and environment; eg Vietnam War. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 08:02, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah must say I wonder how Newcastle, New South Wales could be considered high importance be start class and on the list. B.brownii is obscure but the article is the most comprehensive resource on the plant publically available. Gnangarra 08:32, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Not to mention tagged all over. Orderinchaos 08:40, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
FAs are automatically included, so no need to get stressed about whether they are important or not. But it may be a motivation to improve the articles like Newcastle, New South Wales. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:56, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
That's not my reading of the criteria. As far as cricketers go, some more improtant ones have been excluded because nobody reads or links to them. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 01:59, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Surely we can't have Underbelly (TV series) without having Melbourne Gangland Wars for background. The list is very recentist, probably because articles on current events are widely linked - this can be clearly seen when sorting the articles by title. I'll nominate some more important Australian articles. Graham87 11:11, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

That's recentism at its finest. I'd drop Underbelly (TV series) altogether and include the Melbourne gangland killings article. -- Longhair\talk 11:36, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
I adjusted the importance on the talk pages of those two. Are we allowed to add them to the list or is there some other special procedure? Giggy (talk) 11:43, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Post new nominations at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations. To remove them, I haven't read that far yet sorry :) -- Longhair\talk 11:50, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
The whole bot-generated list is patchy. A suprising number of low quality articles on relatively unimportant topics have been picked up, and it needs to be reviewed by human editors. Nick Dowling (talk) 11:39, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Have you got a few examples for comparison so that we may track down where the problem lies? It's possibly a case of over-stating the importance of articles via the WP Australia template. I note Underbelly was tagged as being of Top-Importance to the Melbourne project. Somehow, I don't think many will agree with that assessment. It's only a fictional television show after all. Computers (and bots) only perform what us humans ask them to do. I'd be looking at the human tagging component of the problem first. -- Longhair\talk 11:48, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Eastern Suburbs & Illawarra railway line, Sydney is an FA, but nowhere near as important as Transport in Sydney or indeed Transport in Australia. On Sydney, Granville rail disaster is probably important enough, but needs some work. Ditto for Port Arthur Massacre, Australia, but it's in better shape. Same thing at 1989 Newcastle earthquake. I'd include important Prime Ministers like Robert Menzies or Bob Hawke as well, as well as athletes like Cathy Freeman and Dawn Fraser. Graham87 12:26, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Although the ESIR railway line article is an obscure topic and I wrote most of it, I'm actually pleased to see articles like it in there because we need to have some obscure articles in there. Otherwise the list becomes something tokenistic with just the typical articles that everyone would expect; and from a cursory glance at it I think it is very tokenistic. To some extent that's important, but we need to remember that this is not an overseas tourist guide, it's a selection of Wikipedia articles from Australia and deserves to have some randomness in it so readers around the world who get the selection of articles can see some unusual aspects and topics on Australia rather than what you'd normally expect. Get rid of the ESIR article if you want (I'm not trying to advocate a WP:OWN argument on it), but we really do need to put some articles in there that are well-written and reflect more obscure things in Australia. There are plenty of FA and GA articles that reflect this that could be included. Why don't we come up with some suggestions? JRG (talk) 13:44, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Why is Ostrich in WP Australia? Paul foord (talk) 14:00, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

A bot added the template to the talk page, likely because the article is located within the Birds of Australia category. -- Longhair\talk 14:20, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
I've removed the category and the project template from Ostrich, Greek language also used to have the template and as a result is hot on the heels of Koala and The Don in the rankings. Melburnian (talk) 14:29, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Project ratings

Two of your subprojects (Sports and Queensland) have "claimed" Bill Brown, both allocating it a "high" importance, yet the WikiProject rating as a whole is lower than that. Is that an anomaly - it does look a little curious. --Dweller (talk) 10:11, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

That'd be right the narrower the focus of the project the higher the level a subject may have. Gnangarra 11:17, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
OK, fair enough. --Dweller (talk) 11:26, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, something could be of high importance to Australian sports and the same to Queensland but of less importance to Australia as a whole. Orderinchaos 11:43, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
You mean there's something of greater importance to Australia as a whole than sports? This Pom's illusions have just been shattered! --Dweller (talk) 11:53, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Australian meat pie, Beer and Holden Ute sport is just the excuse for the misses ;) Gnangarra 12:33, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Image needs replacement

Hello all...

An image used in the Citizens Electoral Council article, specifically Image:AlymCadre1.jpg, has a little bit of a licensing issue. The image was uploaded back when the rules around image uploading were less restrictive. It is presumed that the uploader was willing to license the picture under the GFDL license but was not clear in that regard. As such, the image, while not at risk of deletion, is likely not clearly licensed to allow for free use in any future use of this article. If anyone has an image that can replace this, or can go take one and upload it, it would be best.

You have your mission, take your camera and start clicking.--Jordan 1972 (talk) 21:50, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Mind you, how one would get into one of their meetings without having a very close association with the CEC is a good question. For those not in the know, it's the Australian movement connected to Lyndon LaRouche. Orderinchaos 22:18, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
For the record, nothing on the straight forward Flickr search. Typing anything else into the form linked to will only give images free for our use (CC-BY or CC-BY-SA), so go ahead if there are any other possible search terms. Giggy (talk) 23:40, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Dates

I've done a considerable amount of date auditing, and I find that many Australia-related articles use the wrong format, i.e., the US rather than the international format mandated at WP:MOSNUM for such articles.

Please list here any articles or groups of articles that are in need of semi-automatic delinking of dates and date fragments, and/or format change from US to international. Tony (talk) 15:29, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Waterfall Gully, South Australia FAR

Waterfall Gully, South Australia has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:30, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Images from NSW State Library

The NSW state library is in the process of releasing images to Flickr. The images are all in the public domain, suited for upload to the wiki commons. If it hasn't been done already, someone might want to secure these images for the commons. I don't currently have the time to do it myself. John Dalton (talk) 03:49, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Most if not all were already available through the library's website and Picture Australia and have been used on an as-needs basis --Matilda talk 18:33, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Hannah Lambourne

Another editor tagged Hannah Lambourne for speedy deletion. In my view, the references in the article establish notability, so I removed the tag. If you can improve the article, I would be grateful. -- Eastmain (talk) 23:18, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

appears to be copied in part from Fiona Wood, including ELs masquerading as refs. DOn't know which is legit. TravellingCari 00:27, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
It is a cut and paste of the Fiona Wood article. Wood is the legit plastic surgery specialist as far as I can determine from online searches. I'll delete the Lambourne article as I can't seem to find anything to back the content up. -- Longhair\talk 00:33, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
I checked NewsBank, and there was nothing on her. The refs were about Fiona Wood. A clear hoax, in the end, and an excellent call. - Bilby (talk) 00:40, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Thanks both, I didn't have time to look into it. I just googled a phrase at random to see if it was a copyvio (the numbers were the giveaway) and then found the other article in the results. TravellingCari 00:52, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
My thanks to everyone. I didn't realize it was a hoax. -- Eastmain (talk) 03:49, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

GA Sweeps Review of Mount Osmond, South Australia

Just a note to let the project know that Mount Osmond, South Australia has been placed on hold following its GA Sweeps Review, which can be found here. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 11:55, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Capital City Population Density

Carrying on from a discussion from Talk:Perth, Western Australia#Density. The question is if the infoboxes for Australian Capital Cities should carry the higher population density the Australian Bureau of Statistics publishes in their Census Social Atlas series [6], or the lower population density calculated by dividing the population over the area for the statistical division.

The reason the two figures are different is given by the ABS: [7]

Deliberate Nil Collection Districts
Deliberate Nil CDs are land based CDs that have been purposely designed to contain no dwellings or population. This could occur for example in industrial areas and national parks. The inclusion of these unpopulated areas into an adjoining urban area would distort the calculated population density. These CDs are still allocated to collectors who confirm their Nil CD status. The census form for any person enumerated in a Nil CD is transferred to the nominated alternative CD at the time that the census forms are processed. Deliberate Nil CDs can be identified by their CD Type.

Currently all Australian Capital Cities, except Perth, use the cited ABS Social Atlas figure. A recent edit to Sydney's page, changing it to the calculated figure, was reverted [8] as Original Research. Personally, I prefer the higher figure. It is more meaningful because it is not distorted by areas with zero density.

So the question is, should we continue the use of the ABS Social Atlas population density figures, which are considerably higher than simply population over area? --AtD (talk) 03:35, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't actually say anywhere that NCDs are the reason why the social atlas figure varies from the density (pop over area) figure. I'd say the higher figure is OR because we do not have access to the means by which it was obtained and hence cannot determine if there were errors, and additionally it is only updated every 5 years; whereas the population and area can be easily determined (one from the SD excel file, the other from whatever current ABS publication provides the SD's population. The editor who reverted the correctly calculated figure as OR was incorrect - see Wikipedia:NOTOR#Obvious_deductions. The other final point to make is that using the Social Atlas figures skews the comparisons as cities such as Newcastle, Wollongong, Launceston, Townsville etc which also have significant "empty areas" have to use the calculated pop/area figure as it's the only one available. Orderinchaos 03:51, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I thought the reason the population densities are so high is that they are calculated for the URBAN CENTRE, not the STATISTICAL DIVISION. The trouble is that the population and area figures are given for the Statistical Division. Calculating a density that includes vast swathes of national park in Sydney's case obviously makes no sense. It would be better to give the population and area(and hence pop density) for the Sydney Urban Centre, which only includes the actual urbanised regions. The only problem I can see with that is that the population is much lower than the normally quoted figure in the media (~3.4 mil to ~4 mil), and there'll be a neverending stream of people trying to "fix" it. - Aucitypops (talk) 07:05, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that the cited densities are not for the urban centre (UCL) - calculating those gets a different figure again - nor is the urban centre's population updated more than once every five years. Perth's "urban centre/locality" leaves out nearly 1/6 of the actual suburbs of Perth, to quote just one example. Orderinchaos 07:26, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

City vs. Town

What exactly is the difference between a “city” and a “town” – is it an official designation or an internal, Wiki one? Cheers, Roo72 (talk) 00:29, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

  • Have a look at the article on town - there is a section on Australia and that might help - see the ABS reference for the statistical difference (ie state legislation relation to local government areas) --Matilda talk 01:43, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Based on a search of Wikipedia's articles related to Australia, I've found some articles that I believe are about places in Australia, and could usefully have geographical coordinates added.

The articles in question are listed in Category:Australia articles missing geocoordinate data. At the time of writing, some examples included:

  1. Blundell's Cottage
  2. Chermside, Queensland
  3. Fairy Bower, New South Wales
  4. Geoffrey Bay, Queensland
  5. Karrabin railway station, Queensland
  6. National Alpine Museum
  7. Phosphate Hill Power Station, Queensland

...and there are many more, as well. At the time of posting this notice, there were 1875 articles in this category needing geographical coordinates.

Why add coordinates?

By adding coordinates, a Wikipedia reader can easily view the location on a street map, nautical chart, topographic map, by satellite photo, realtime weather map, and in many other ways. Coordinate data makes an article eventually appear in various services such as Google Maps' Wikipedia overlay, Google Earth, and Wikipedia's own internal map service. Coordinate data also helps readers looking for geographically-based data, such as locations near a reference point, or related information.

How can I do it?

The articles are all marked with {{coord missing}} tags, which need to be replaced with {{coord}} tags that contain the location's latitude/longitude coordinates; or you might be able to add coordinates to an existing infobox. You can find out how to do this at the Wikipedia:Geocoding how-to for WikiProject members. Please let me know if this is useful, or if you have any questions! -- The Anome (talk) 09:32, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

More eyes needed

Please help to improve the article. Uncle G (talk) 22:05, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Peter Hollingworth

I'm really surprised at you antipodeans. This article on your ex-governor general generated a personal complaint from the subject to Jimmy Wales, broadcast on the radio. Months later, the article had to be gutted as it was still a BLP disaster with masses of unreferenced claims. Since then, it has lain idle. Does no-one care about this former deputy head-of-state? It would be great if some of you could write a properly referenced, BLP compliant, neutral article. Message over. God save the Queen.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 11:03, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

This is one of these difficult ones where censorship and BLP clash. This guy was full-on in the public glare for two years over the sexual abuse allegations and his handling of them both before and after becoming Governor-General, including his own statements on national television, and it's, sadly, probably the main feature of his notability. For many Australians, that's in fact all they know about him. There was protests in the streets demanding him to go and he wasn't able to perform many of the functions of the office of Governor-General - which again speaks to encyclopaedic coverage. We can't simply censor an article because someone doesn't like what we write, but we have an obligation to be fair with it at the same time and be neither salacious nor sensationalist in our coverage. Orderinchaos 11:09, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. it wasn't censored. It was gutted because it was negative AND unsourced. There shouldbe good sources to write a good article here.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 11:13, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
I didn't at all suggest it had been censored - I was putting a model to move forward and was urging caution on over-application of BLP at the expense of encyclopaedicity, which sometimes can happen. The original version of the article was very negative, and the current version contained a lot of irrelevant stuff while not at all indicating why he was controversial. I've made some changes and added refs along the way. Orderinchaos 12:03, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Waverley Cemetery

A previous discussion was held on the removing of images from this article at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australia/Archive3#Waverley Cemetery by 203.108.239.12 and warnings were placed on his talk page by admin Sarah. Yet he still continues to remove the images and reword the article to make it like a promotional page, which he has been doing for the last 3 years. Now that Sarah is away i am wondering if this person can be blocked or at least the article page locked, as i have placed the picture at Wikipedia:Picture peer review and would hate to see him delete the image again from the article. I know that Winston who took the photo is getting annoyed also as he mentions it on his user page. Boylo (talk) 13:05, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I've blocked the IP, left them a message that when they are ready to comply with community policy they can request to be unblocked. Gnangarra 17:04, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
Thanks Gnangarra, that should hopefully make him realize he cant continue to do that anymore. Boylo (talk) 23:30, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
Thanks from me as well - maybe blocking will help them understand the policies. - Bilby (talk) 23:33, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
Didnt take him long to come back. I see he is now deleting the image but using a different ISP address 124.19.68.138 since the other one is blocked. With him doing all these changes continuously for the last 3 years, he is determined to run the article the way he chooses, so dont know how you will ever be able to stop him. Boylo (talk) 09:26, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
I just noticed on Talk:Waverley Cemetery that User:Sardaka is wondering who keeps deleting the images also. He suggests adding South Head Cemetery to the article with a picture, but shows he dont realize the difficult problem we are having with this article, so will direct him here. Boylo (talk) 09:38, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Notice that he returned, the IP has been blocked and the page is now semi protected for an undefined period. Gnangarra 09:39, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Thanks again. Hope that stops him !! Boylo (talk) 09:48, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Nice to see that some order is being established. Was someone suggesting that we need permission to use shots of the cemetery? That's crap, of course. Does anyone have any thoughts on including South Head Cem, since it's also run by Wav. council? I already have a potted entry, but it's not important or anything like that.

Sardaka (talk) 11:52, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

It was more than just suggestions there was even legal threats at one stage, hence why I have no hesitation in blocking the character whenever they turn up. The problem lies in that the a person with a COI believes that they own this article and can control what is written and what images are used no matter how good. Its a shame they dont realise how negatively that such action can reflect on the place. South Head as with most cemeteries are generally considered notable providing theres the sources but as its managed & operated as an extension to Waverley it should have some coverage in the article. Gnangarra 07:48, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Have started the section on South Head. Will expand on it tomorrow, with refs.

Sardaka (talk) 09:56, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

C-class articles opinion needed

Hi! We at WP:INDIA are debating the introduction of C-class articles for our assessment. Since WP:AUS has been using the C-class ratings for quite a while now, could someone from this project please weigh in on Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics#C class articles? We need to know:

  1. If the implementation of C-class has been effective for this project?
  2. Does C-class articles involve more red tape?
  3. Are the lines of distinction between Start and C, and Start and B classes blurred?
  4. Does C-class complicate the assessment process?

Eagerly awaiting feedback. Thanks, =Nichalp «Talk»= 09:08, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Just a personal observation, but from my own rating point of view it filled a gap that was sorely noticed and meant we didn't have to artificially stretch our "B"s and "Start"s any more into contortions. I personally see a "C" as "definitely not extensive enough for B but definitely more than a Start" and use few other formal criteria. Others will undoubtedly hold different opinions. Orderinchaos 09:21, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
I see it as a waste of time/resources either its in a position to be made into a GA(hence B) or just its starting out missing basic structure, citations, infoboxes etc. I just dont see a benefit or encouragement to get an article from start to C or C to B its just reflection of the state of the article. What I do see is cynical process to give people more reason to run meaningless bots. Gnangarra 12:17, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Historical Imagery

Hi folks - I'm pretty excited to be involved in uploading quite a lot of historical imagery which I hope may find a home in many and various articles - I have many ideas, and look forward to working on this over the next little while, but for now, here's the link, and do feel free to incorporate these pictures where you feel they fit! There are currently two sets online - one being 'Sydney City' (self explanatory really), the other being 'Rural Life' which features shots from all over NSW :-) cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 07:02, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Please use the template PD-Australia in preference to PD-old which is tied to the date the author died for the images. I dropped a link on your Commons user talk page to the templates for more information. Gnangarra 09:52, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Commonwealth reserves on Commons

Hello, I am considering adding a new template on pictures taken in Commonwealth reserves, in order to warn people about the restrictions on photographs in these areas. If you have time, please read the proposal and comment at : commons:CT:L#Category:Kakadu_National_Park_and_other_Australian_commonwealth_reserves I also need help to make a list of the concerned areas. Teofilo talk 00:23, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

HMAS Sydney (1934)

The National Archives of Australia has (in the last few days) declassified and released a large number of documents relating to the sinking of the Sydney (see the talk page). Although the article is already rated GA, this new information should be thoroughly digested and included. We should work towards making this the FA for 22 November 2009, the 75th anniversary of her launch. 203.7.140.3 (talk) 04:58, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

news.com.au references

News.com.au hosts many articles, not all of which appear in one of their printed newspapers. I am pretty sure those that are printed have a header with "Article from: " like in this article. Unprinted articles look like this - no header. The former are probably more reliable than the latter --Surturz (talk) 15:01, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Easier way is just get someone with student or other access to Factiva to check, and you'll usually even have a page number then. One problem I've encountered before is that the online publication date is sometimes not when it appeared in the paper. Orderinchaos 15:33, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Philip Dorling

I'd appreciate any input at Talk:Philip_Dorling#Notability --Surturz (talk) 05:40, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

WP:AUS GA drive - 200 GAs

There is an ongoing GA drive to get 200 WP:AUS GAs by the end of the year, or at the latest by Australia Day. If you are interested in helping out, please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia/Good articles (shortcut: WP:AUS/GA), and list the article you are working on with ~~~~ under Articles being worked on. Thank you, Cirt (talk) 06:41, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Help out as a GA reviewer

Note: You can also help out by pitching in to clear the ever-present backlog at WP:GAN, specifically by reviewing articles above those GA candidates in the queue of the subsection where WP:AUS-related GACs are waiting. This will help to speed up the process, while helping other uninvolved editors get their articles reviewed too, and also hopefully it will be fun for you to learn about the Good article criteria and review process.

Additional note: Please pick GACs to review of articles you have not been involved in as a significant contributor, articles unrelated to WP:AUS, and also of users you don't generally encounter. In this regard you will be an impartial GA reviewer, and learn more about a wider range of topics as well.

Cirt (talk) 03:37, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Australia newsletter,December 2008

The December 2008 issue of the WikiProject Australia newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. This message was delivered by TinucherianBot (talk) 06:38, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

2008 Sydney snowfall

This article has been sent to WP:PROD for deletion. 76.66.195.159 (talk) 06:01, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Prendergast's

Could someone comment on this issue. User:Klaysmum was involved with creating a nonsense page called Jack Prendergast which was speedy deleted three times in 2006 and 2007. Two articles created by this user, Ghost Drops and Melbourne Bitter, have links to this article. The former also links to a company with "Prendergast" in the name and the later links to Jack's son, Thomas Prendergast, although that is clearly about somebody completely different. I can find no sources for any of these mentions. The user seems to have a fixation on Prendergast's. Does anyone know more than I about the history of Australian beer and confectionary? It all seems a bit suss to me. --Bduke (Discussion) 06:28, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Theme parks in Australia

Template:Australian Theme Parks (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Template is unuseful and as an Amusement parks in Australia category and Water parks in Australia category exists, this template does is not needed. Additionally, both amusement parks and water parks are listed here (and at one stage open air museums were, too) and these do not fall under the umbrella of "theme park". If generic themed amusement parks and water parks were disincluded from the template, it would be far too small and not meet the notability guidelines. As such, this should be deleted. VG Editor (talk) 06:31, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Spirit of Mystery

The Spirit of Mystery has departed Cape Town bound for Australia. Arrival scheduled for 1st week in March. Are there any Australian Wikipedians who are available to get some photos of her arrival and upload them to Commons for use on Wikipedia? Mjroots (talk) 19:14, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Palace Hotel, Perth GA Review: on hold

I have reviewed the GAN of Palace Hotel, Perth, and have placed the article on hold. I did the review prior to seeing that the nominating editor had retired, and I figured I'd leave a message here in case editors wanted to assist in fixing the minor issues to help the article reach GA. I will also leave a message on another related WikiProject talk page to get more editors to possibly assist in the workload. The majority of the changes should be easy to fix and shouldn't take too long. If you have any questions let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 02:00, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Ah, it wasn't a dramatic retirement, so I'll contact the guy involved (I know him offline). Orderinchaos 02:08, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

2007 hitman case

The title of the article 2007 hitman case is too vague, too unspecific and too broad imo. "2007 hitman case" could be just about anything that involves a hitman and took place in 2007. I've tried to find a better title in the article, but I haven't been able to come up with anything. Does anyone who is more familiar with this case have any suggestions? Aecis·(away) talk 14:57, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Illawarra Steam Navigation Company under GA review

Hello there, the article Illawarra Steam Navigation Company which falls under the auspices of this Wikiproject, has come under review as part of GA Sweeps and a number of problems have been identified and listed on the talk page. If these problems have not begun to be addressed by seven days from this notice, the article will be delisted from GA and will have to go through the WP:GAN process all over again to regain its status once improvements have been made. If you have any questions, please drop me a line.--Jackyd101 (talk) 13:59, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Milestone Announcements

Announcements
  • All WikiProjects are invited to have their "milestone-reached" announcements automatically placed onto Wikipedia's announcements page.
  • Milestones could include the number of FAs, GAs or articles covered by the project.
  • No work need be done by the project themselves; they just need to provide some details when they sign up. A bot will do all of the hard work.
Click here for more information or to sign your project up.

I thought this WIkiProject might be interested. Ping me with any specific queries or leave them on the page linked to above. Thanks! - Jarry1250 (t, c) 21:40, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Particpants list

Is there a list somewhere for participants of this wikiproject.

If so where is it.

De Mattia (talk) 08:32, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Dont worry I found it

De Mattia (talk) 08:49, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I just made it a little more obvious at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Australia#Participants. Cuddy Wifter (talk) 20:57, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 04:49, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Just a note that this is being rescoped in response to complaints that it was an exclusive club, and therefore anathema to Wikipedian culture. At present it looks like becoming a working group on article assessment issues. So the people who best fit the bill are people who have long been highly active in that area; Longhair, for example. Hesperian 03:24, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Australia's kind of a weird case in that we've never been formally coordinated - there's been sort of a collegial collectivity amongst the administrators and longer term users, and most of the people got there simply by working hard rather than any genuine sense of seniority. I'd be happy for any one of our number with the time and skills to represent us in such a forum. Orderinchaos 04:00, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Assuming that this group becomes acceptably open, we won't need to nominate a representative. Anyone with an interest in the area can chip in, whether we've endorsed them or not. On the other hand, if the group remains an exclusive club that you can't be a member of unless a WikiProject votes you in, then there are plenty of us who will hound it to a well-deserved death a la Esperanza. Hesperian
Let's hope we can convince them. Orderinchaos 05:46, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Portal:Roads

The World Roads Portal is at Peer Review, if any editors know of any articles, images, news items or DYKs which could be added to the Portal, please add them directly to the portal or contact ....SriMesh | talk 01:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Spirit of Mystery due to arrive in Australia soon

The replica ship Spirit of Mystery is less than 1,000 nautical miles (1,900 km) from the end of her journey to Australia. Are there any members in Australia who would be able to get some photographs of her arrival there? The only photo on Geograph is too distant a view to be useable. — Bellhalla (talk) 17:36, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Akoustic Odyssey

I just have tagged Akoustic Odyssey, a new article currently at AfD for your project. I don't know if this is a notable band. --Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord2 09:46, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

FAR notification for Dietrich v The Queen

I have nominated Dietrich v The Queen 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 "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. D.M.N. (talk) 16:22, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

greg norman an "australian of swedish descent"?

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm almost positive Norman's primary heritage is Finnish, not Swedish; I've actually never heard him or anybody else attribute Swedish lineage to him. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.196.211.246 (talk) 16:42, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Sydney Roosters FAC

I have nominated Sydney Roosters 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 "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Giants2008 (17-14) 01:34, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

The Wall Project

You guys able to shed any light over at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Wall Project? Ta. Hiding T 11:55, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

The first theatre?

I wonder: can anyone here tell me when the first public theatre was founded in Australia? What was it called? I am interested in theatre history. Who were the very first Australian actors and actresses? perhaps someone can give me some names to google? --Aciram (talk) 10:11, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

There's some good information here. Also have a look at:
Theatre of Australia
Theatre Royal, Sydney
George Selth Coppin
Nellie Stewart
-Melburnian (talk) 10:43, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Thank you very much, that was very interesting! You are very helpfull! Perhaps you, or someone else, can also give me the name of the first professional actor and actress in Austrialia? Thanks!--Aciram (talk) 17:41, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

PEZ candy

User:Tohd8BohaithuGh1 added the PEZ candy article to the scope of this Wikiproject with mid importance. PEZ was invented in Austria, so I'm wondering if he's confused. I left a note on his talk page some time ago and he never responded. Is PEZ candy important to Australia? Beakerboy (talk) 15:39, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I have never heard of it. importance=none for WP Australia. Sounds like a typo. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:47, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
I changed the project Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:57, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Cfd

Australia related Referees cfd. Views welcome. Occuli (talk) 21:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

  1. ^ a b Siborne, pp. 775,776
  2. ^ a b Siborne, p. 776
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