Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 57

Hi all. This character has received a fair bit of press lately due to his association with black-birding and indentured labour. The article has a fairly long section on this (the article's longest section - too long?), but it's all un-referenced. I would like to get in there and re-write with references. Hopefully I can have a go soon. I raise it here simply to get more attention on it, and indeed, hopefully someone has more time and better research skills than me. --Merbabu (talk) 07:29, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

@Merbabu: It's not just that article but many biographies are being labelled as blackbirders, slave owners etc. It's a case of people trying WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS on Wikipedia and, yes, rarely do the citations (if any) support the claims being made (fails WP:V). It is also not helpful that recent media uses the term "blackbirding" for any importation of South Sea Islander labourers whereas the more traditional definition of blackbirding refers to the kidnapping or other wrongdoing in the recruitment process and doesn't apply to legitimate contracting. The article Blackbirding itself starts with the kidnapping etc definition in the first paragraph but by the second pargraph refers to any importation as blackbirding. It's all a big mess. I've raised the issue about reliable citations on the Robert Towns content on Talk:Blackbirding since 1 April. No reply by any of those involved. But if you read the cited sources, none of them prove he was engaged in kidnapping. So soon I will be deleting that content as being not verified. I expect I will be then be the subject of personal attacks as a racist or a fascist or a whitewasher or ... that's what usually happens. The problem is this. Yes, there almost certainly was kidnapping, deception etc going on, particularly I suspect at the tail end of a voyage if the captain or their local agents had not obtained the number of recruits specified in their contract. But I very much doubt anyone is going to find reliable sources to pin the blame on Robert Towns and any of other large plantation owners (which is generally the edits being made). Simply, those guys were at the top of large empires; they did not go out in the ships so they weren't personally involved in kidnapping etc. Did they know it was going on and turn a blind eye to it? Perhaps. Did they give a "wink and a nod" to the captain to hint that a little kidnapping was OK by them? Perhaps. But did they leave written instructions to that effect? Not that I have ever seen. Did any ship captain ever testify against them? Not that I have seen. When it was alleged at the time that Robert Towns' ships were involved in kidnapping, Robert Towns cheerfully produced copies of his instructions to his ships' captains for publication in the newspaper. Squeaky clean. A lot of contemporary historians and random journalists are happy to declare them as guilty but they don't set out the evidence for drawing that conclusion; I can't see that as a reliable source. But, certainly if there are reliable sources that can show they instructed their ship captains or others to kidnap etc, by all means, include them! There is a difference between what we suspect to be true and what we can demonstrate to be true. Kerry (talk) 08:23, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Looking forward to your updates. 2 or 3 reliably referenced sentences on the topic would be better than 4 paragraphs of unverified info. I'd be interested to know where the existing info came from.

It's received a bit of coverage recently (as the page views attest), particularly in Neutral Bay where there is a street named after him, and a school house at Neutral Bay PS. And the notion to rename Ben Boyd National Park. --Merbabu (talk) 08:28, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Some wrongs remain very much unrighted. I was struck by how Land selection in Queensland makes no mention of who the land was selected from or that Aboriginals were absolutely prevented from selecting any land including their own. No doubt that has always been the policy of the Queensland government but it does seem one-eyed.--Grahame (talk) 05:06, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Good point. It deals with Crown land but you are right it does not make any commentary on the terra nullius assumption underpinning Crown land. I was not aware that Indigenous people could not apply to select land. Do you have a citation? Kerry (talk) 05:16, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I've added to the lede that on the basis of terra nullius that all the land became Crown land. No problems finding citations for that, but I cannot find anything about Indigenous people being unable to select land (although I can well imagine it was true). Unfortunately every set of key words I can think of just returns huge numbers of search results relating to native title. Kerry (talk) 13:53, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

The Mabo decision made it clear that just because land was declared to be be crown land in 1788 didn't actually make it crown land until the land was legally transferred. It is true that a lot this land was squatted on but this did not necessarily mean ownership under British law had changed. I am sure Aboriginals as legally non-citizens could not have applied for the land (although German immigrants could). I don't know of any particular sources, but that is my understanding.--Grahame (talk) 02:21, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Because the British paid compensation for the abolition of slavery - to the slave owners that is, not the people enslaved, there is an abundance of records as to who the slave owners were and how many people they had enslaved. In Australia slavery was not just immoral, it was illegal, as was kidnapping. This makes it harder to find reliable sources - was there anybody convicted of kidnapping or slavery?

Grahame you raise a very interesting point. I suspect that you won't find evidence as to who couldn't apply, but rather the limitations will be on who could apply - no need to exclude women for example as they could own land except in very limited circumstances. I am not aware of any online access to the text of the relevant acts. Your analysis as to the legality of selection will run into a catch 22 - if first nations people were able to own land at the time, then they already owned the land and there was no "free" land to be selected. The High Court recognition in 1992 that terra nullius was a fiction did not undo the practical exercise of power that progressively dispossessed the first nations people of their land. I agree with you about the slant of the land selection article, like the which reads more like what a fabulous job the government did in dispossessing the first nations people and dividing the land up between the squatters and the selectors. Pretty much the same tone deaf approach as the British treasury tweet about slavery. --Find bruce (talk) 07:21, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

I discussed this with @Kerry Raymond: about a month ago in relation to articles in New South Wales after which it was decided not to take any further action. However yesterday I noticed that @Graham87: was making similar changes to Victorian articles which contain references to the above. And while he was doing that bot InternetArchiveBot created another problem archived entry. After raising the issue with Graham87, he suggested that the issue be raised here.

• contains a list of Victorian articles (locations) which contain a reference referring to premierpostal.com. Many of these locations have been archived by InternetArchiveBot at various times even though the original link is still active. The original link requires that the name of the location is entered for a search before the actual reference is found. But in the archived version the search does not work so even if the original did not work, the archived version is also of no use. Yesterday Graham87 was removing the archived version from all Victorian articles which had been archived. I then mentioned to Graham87 that I had been looking looking at a list of New South Wales articles with such links - he has since since removed the archived version from those which had been archived - for which I thank him. There are similar lists for Queensland, Tasmania and South Australia and a second Victorian list with two entries where the state code is Vic instead of VIC. I believe action has since been taken to stop the bot from archiving such links by User:GreenC.
• In addition there is a further list of locations in all states (except I think Western Australia and Tasmania) where a different format link is used which goes direct to the page required without the search. There are currently 130 items in this list. The Wayback machine contains 198 archived entries with this format which are all dated 2017 or earlier - so about 60 archived one no longer have active live entries. Attempts to archive entries now are rejected "An unknown exception has occurred. javax.net.ssl.SSLProtocolException: handshake alert: unrecognized_name". It has been suggested that the number used in the links to identify the locations is dynamic and may vary from time to time hence making archived versions useless.
• Which format of the link is suggested for future use as with the link without the number an archive will no longer take place while the link with the number can also not be archived? —Fleet Lists (talk • contribs) 04:07, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

I've also removed all the archive links I could find for Queensland and South Australia (I couldn't find any for any other states/territories). Graham87 10:51, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

An editor has suggested that City of Newcastle be moved. Please contribute to the discussion at Talk:City of Newcastle#Requested move 13 July 2020. --AussieLegend (✉) 13:14, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

https://www.lexology.com/905/author/Paulina_Moncrieff/ Health Ombudsman Act 2013 (QLD): A New Landscape for the Regulation of Health Professionals in Queensland 09 Jun 2014 | Australia — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.70.187.45 (talk) 03:16, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Co jurisdictional issues may be unconstitutional with potential test cases such as lung cancer loss of chance doctrine under High Court, and potential Fair Work involvement if bullying occurs, involving public representatives or public figures, with conflicts of interests, perhaps. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jo Motoko (talk • contribs) 03:40, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

https://www.cancer.org/health-care-professionals/american-cancer-society-prevention-early-detection-guidelines/lung-cancer-screening-guidelines.html https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Loss_of_chance_in_English_law http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/UMelbLRS/2010/14.html ( loss of chance doctrine) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jo Motoko (talk • contribs) 03:44, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

WP:NOLEGAL: Wikipedia does not give legal advice or opinions. --Canley (talk) 03:55, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

I removed Category:Australian Aboriginal art from Category:Prehistoric art, on the grounds that not all Australian Aboriginal art is prehistoric; there's quite a lot of current Aboriginal art - the Australian Aboriginal art category includes the sub-category Australian Aboriginal artists, listing 200 people who are clearly not prehistoric. Johnbod reverted, with the assertion that "enough of it is".

I agree that some Aboriginal art is prehistoric - e.g. probably most (but not necessarily all) of Category:Rock art in Australia - but Australian Aboriginal art is not exclusively prehistoric.

I suggest that:

• Category:Australian Aboriginal art should be removed from Category:Prehistoric art
• Individual articles should be placed directly in Category:Prehistoric art only where appropriate.

Possibly Category:Rock art in Australia should be in Category:Prehistoric art, but I don't know enough about the definition of rock art to say whether "rock art" necessarily implies "prehistoric". The lead paragraph of the rock art article mentions "historic and prehistoric rock art", implying that rock art in general need not be prehistoric. Is there a source that says explicitly when the Australian Aboriginal people stopped painting on rocks? According to some Australian Aboriginal rock art depicts contact with early seafarers, well after prehistoric times.

Mitch Ames (talk) 02:30, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

They haven't stopped painting on rocks. Saw some obviously very recent work in Arnhem Land last year. Can't provide a source, and it was explained to me in that form of communication common to Aboriginal issues but unfortunately unacceptable here, orally. I think it's wise to not be absolute in suggesting it has stopped. HiLo48 (talk) 04:07, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree that Mitch's proposal is exactly how categorisation ought to work. Category:Prehistoric art obviously doesn't apply to individuals and art galleries listed in that category. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 05:21, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Categories are not intended to be a 100% fit at every level. If you want to reduce the global visibility of the stuff, fine. I have added the rock art sub-cat instead, since that seems nearly all prehistoric, the modern artists having presumably discovered that galleries pay better than rocks. If that is not liked, individual articles should not be added to the main global category, but Category:Prehistoric art in Australia set up. Johnbod (talk) 12:06, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

200 entries in Category:Australian Aboriginal artists and more than 25 from 39 entries in Category:Australian Aboriginal art refer to contemporary subjects – that leaves 30 entries in Category:Rock art in Australia and a dozen in Category:Australian Aboriginal art; 42 out of ~270 is far from 100%. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:33, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Categories are not intended to be a 100% fit at every level. — We should follow the principles of "defining characteristics". "Rock art in Australia" is not defined as being "prehistoric" (and previous posts above have give examples of non-prehistoric rock art), so even if most rock art (that we know of) is prehistoric, we ought not categorise all rock art as prehistoric. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:06, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

And presumably non-Indigenous people can paint on rocks too if they want. It seems to me whether the work is Indigenous, whether it is old or now and what materials were involved would appear to be quite independent characteristics, so therefore they should have independent category. Indivdidual works can get placed in whichever apply so we can have old Indigenous rock art, as well as new Indigenous bark art, etc. Kerry (talk) 13:41, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

• Prehistoric art has very specific definition and isn't time limited, that definition is where other forms of record keeping are adopted or evolved. Which would mean the current use emoji's would fall within the definition as they are perform the same function. Indigenous art doesnt fit neatly in the prehistoric category because much of the work is contemporary. It may be that the category needs to be cleaned up there is want for such a selection, with that would there would be the need to very sure that those included fit the criteria. With that in mind there will also be the need to cease to mono-cultural identification of Aboriginal because that term is one which has only applied since the late 1700's, so they cant be both Prehistoric and Aboriginal. Gnangarra 04:58, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi all, just passing on that there's 50-odd Australia-related categories up for discussion here, if anyone has a view. -- Euryalus (talk) 09:32, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

The nomination is concerning - those supporting it think suburbs can just be merged to LGAs (which is concerning in itself given that some suburbs have multiple LGAs) and that suburbs in Australia are not fixed areas (which is nonsense). A lot of these are categories that haven't been, but can be, populated. It took me all of 5 minutes to find several articles for a couple of them. The nominator seems to have some sort of hobby horse about deleting these sorts of things, and it would be great for some Australian editors to speak up and let them know that the proposed alternatives are unworkable. Deus et lex (talk) 10:39, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

I found 10 potential candidates for Morpeth alone in the same time. I'm sure I could do the same for other suburbs if I had the time. And yes, I do agree with your assessment of the nominator's intentions. --AussieLegend (✉) 06:53, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Hey guys, new to Wikipedia editing so keen to hear how it'll all works. Have edited a page on a Sydney National Park (Ku-ring-gai) and got kicked out immediately by a user saying 'it's a non-neutral edit'. Wasn't expecting that, to be honest. All I did was added a reference to the original owners of the land and that the very name Kuringai is disputed and most certainly not a language / tribal group as the article wrongly states.

Thoughts? Any first nations people on this thread who feel slightly alarmed by this?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Henni1978 (talk • contribs) 09:59, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Hey Henni1978 and welcome to Wikipedia. You may have seen that I have placed a welcome panel with a lot of links to various types of help with how Wikipedia works and what we're aiming for in articles. There's a lot to learn and it's a slow process - most of us are still learning, so don't be too discouraged if you have your edits reverted. Having had a quick look at your recent contributions, the first thing that strikes me is that you have re-reverted, with a long edit summary (which is not the appropriate place for a 2nd challenge), against the advice of the experienced editor who reverted your edit. So my first observation would be to advise you to look at WP:TALK and use the talk page of the article in question. You can "ping" another editor by using {{ping|username}} or {{u|username}} (as I have to ping you above). Also, please remember to sign any comments here or on talk pages by adding four tildes (~) after your comment. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 10:45, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

I forgot to add, please see wp:editwar, and specifically WP:3RR, as you run the risk of being blocked if you keep reverting without discussion. As a newbie, it's a good idea to keep in mind that most other editors have more experience than you, and may have good reason for their reversion!

With regard to adding information about Indigenous/Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and cultures, you can rest assured that there are many editors trying to improve our coverage of such aspects, but all added content nonetheless has to be within the Wikipedia guidelines and in the right place. (Depending on the topic, and the state of the current article and various other factors, the WP:LEAD in general does not need a lot of detail, and in most cases, in a fully developed article, does not not need any citations at all - so long as the content is repeated and cited within the body (see WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY).) As far as I am aware, we do not have any active Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander editors at the moment, something that I hope will change. You may be interested in having a look at the draft style guide I am creating, based on the fairly extensive review of reliable sources of style guides. (Please do not edit those pages at the moment, but note the conventions such as capitalisation, when appropriate to use the various terms, etc.)

I will have a closer look and make further comment on your changes if need be, but I urge you to start with caution, and you will gain confidence in your decisions with experience. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 11:01, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

While I'm here... This one is just a merge I've just suggested, but as both terms seem to be Australian ones, there may be people here interested in giving an opinion. See Talk:Outstation movement. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 03:40, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Hello Team,

I recently came across Big Day Out lineups by year which is quite long. I have seen other festivals and such that are broken down by year and on the right hand side is a box to select the previous year and the next year. I am wondering if this would work better for this article as it is way to long and as the years go on will only get longer and longer. Thoughts? Thanks, Bakertheacre ^Chat/_{What I Baked} 17:34, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi Bakertheacre, I don't have much experience with List articles, and MOS:LIST doesn't seem to say much about length, but I agree with you, that one does look way too long and difficult to navigate. (I sometimes wonder who has the dedication and patience to create all of those tables, but it was handy to look at as a reminder of the 2006 one I went to!) I think you would have to keep the top level article, containing the links to all of the others (with maybe a couple of the headline acts included in each section), and maybe keep the 1992 one there as it's quite short? If it is split, you would also need to add links to each act not linked to because it's been linked to before above... Probably worthwhile waiting for another opinion on this one though. Anyone? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 03:40, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Laterthanyouthink, thank you for your valuable input. Let me do some research tomorrow to find an article I was thinking of. I know there are other yearly festivals that are major and global that each have their own articles and basically a navigation box to the previous and the following years. Bakertheacre ^Chat/_{What I Baked} 03:44, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, Bakertheacre, I've definitely come across examples too - just can't remember which ones! Laterthanyouthink (talk) 04:09, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Laterthanyouthink, So I found one. It is the chronology of BB King. Look at the infobox. Blues Summit :) Bakertheacre ^Chat/_{What I Baked} 18:14, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

It has been proposed that {{Infobox Australian place}} be merged with {{Infobox settlement}}. Please comment in the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2020 July 19#Template:Infobox Australian place. Thanks. --AussieLegend (✉) 17:52, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

It would be very useful for a non-technical overview of the issues without fear of favour - as we have a few australian editors who appear to have acronym summaries that might not be that easy for those not au fait with the issues in technical detail. Like what was the problem with the Russian templates recently ? JarrahTree 02:01, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't know what happened but I assume it was something that was either ignored during the discussion or was found to be too hard once the merge took place. Back when they decided to change the coordinate system back to a completely manual one, our infobox took a while because of the automation in the infobox. There are a lot of people who think merges are simply transferring parameters and that is rarely the case. Perhaps Ymblanter can shed some light. --AussieLegend (✉) 06:49, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

We had a number of infoboxes which were specially designed to accommodate relevant fields for Russia and which have been around for a decade. We also had a bunch of users who wanted to unify everything and repeatedly nominated these infoboxes for deletion. During the third nomination, I was the only one left defending the infobxes, and I was the only user working with them. I was essentially overvoted with the arguments "I like it more" and "You have not presented any rational arguments why the infoboxes should stay". They were all converted to the wrappers. For at leat a year, the maps were not shown properly, and nobody cared. (I still they are still not whown properly in some cases). Then, after one year and a half, I discovered that the new infoboxes import data (specifically, area of the localities) from Wikidata where they are cited to the Russian Wikipedia and can not be interporeted in any reasonable way (is this an are pf the town, of the metro or whatever); moreover the data became plain wrong after the administrative division has changed. Which means we have wrong data for one year and a half in hundreds of articles. Nobody cared again. After a number of discussions, I have reverted the infobox to the original version and notified the community at ANI. Then of course I had a bunch of people at the talk page of the infobox accusing me in acting against consensus.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:46, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation, a very salient point for the Australian project to consider when it is attacked with the how-dare-you-be-different from the one size fits all part of the community. JarrahTree 09:04, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

"You have not presented any rational arguments - That's one that they always use when they don't understand, don't want to understand, or simply can't refute arguments. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:29, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

I am strongly in favour of a merge. {{Infobox Australian place}} does not play nice with other infoboxes. Betterkeks (talk) 12:55, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Why, simply because you can't embed other infoboxes? That's a minor issue really. What other infoboxes do you wish to embed? --AussieLegend (✉) 13:17, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Should Northern Adelaide redirect to North Adelaide as opposed to Regions of South Australia#Northern Adelaide. Are they the same place or two different places ? Djln Djln (talk) 20:23, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Northern Adelaide is a metropolitan region. North Adelaide is an inner-city suburb. Quite different places.--Grahame (talk) 00:54, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

• @Grahamec: Cheers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Djln (talk • contribs) 13:39, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Redoing ping to Grahamec. Graham87 09:04, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

There is a noticeboard discussion on the reliability of The Australian. If you are interested, please participate at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard § The Australian. — Newslinger talk 19:07, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Just a heads up I have created The Bays, New South Wales in response to a discussion over at iNaturalist, The Bays is a precinct just of Sydney CBD. Gnangarra 11:19, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

dam just found Bays Precinct I have redirected as its a plausible search choice Gnangarra 11:42, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

According the WP:JR/SR, regional variation is acceptable in how articles of people known as Junior or Senior are titled. Almost all Australians with that suffix use "Jr." (ie Gary Ablett Jr. (I've searched, and couldn't find many others, see below for stats). User:Grant65 has recently moved Austin Robertson Jr. and Austin Robertson Sr. to Austin Robertson junior and Austin Robertson senior with the justification of "Normal style in Aus English is lower case "junior" [not "Jr", "Jun.", "Jnr" etc]".

Under Category:Australian people I found 58 with Sr., 85 with Jr., 5 with Jr (no period), 3 each with Jnr or Snr, and 3 with (junior), 4 with (senior) and 1 each with Senior or Junior and only one with ", senior". Some/most of these should probably be moved.

So, is Grant65 correct? Is there an Australian English normal style? Should we stick with the established Jr. and Sr. or should junior and senior become our WP:AUST standard? The-Pope (talk) 14:49, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

I have never seen it spelled out like Grant65's change. I think you are right The-Pope, stick with how the subject spelt their own name. Deus et lex (talk) 12:30, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

As a former junior (now with the birth of a son a senior) the bank account I still maintain has Jnr, something I have always seen. Cavalryman (talk) 13:39, 3 August 2020 (UTC).

As I recollect, when that policy was brought in, there was no regional opt-out and some folks went through enforcing it on all Australian articles. I was not happy as when I went to school here in Qld (some decades ago!), it was "John Smith senior" and his son "John Smith junior" and never "Senior" nor "Junior" as they could be mistaken as surnames. There was never anything said about "Sr." and "Jr." because they were not used as I recall. "Sr." means Sister (as in nuns and nurses) to me. In more recent times I see more Americanisms creep into Australian writing, probably because of American word processors, enforcement on Wikipedia (and all those who copy and paste from it!), etc. So recent Australian content may not be as reliable a guide as older content. If I search the Trove digitised newspapers for "senior son junior"~10 (meaning find those 3 words within a sequence of 10 words) I get over 6000 results, while ""snr son jnr"~10 and "sr son jr"~10 both yield 200+ results (note these searches are all case insensitive). So historically the evidence suggest that "senior" and "junior" are our traditional forms. I note that Australians don't have the same enthuasiasm for naming sons after their fathers as Americans so it is lot less commonplace situation. While I do know some father-and-sons with the same official first name, they invariably have a different middle name and the son is usually referred to by his middle name within the family, but may or may not use that name outside the family (e.g. school, work). And I am not sure I ever met an Australian who was John Smith III or similar, that seems to be very much an American custom. Kerry (talk) 07:25, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

I note that this topic is discussed a bit here Suffix (name)#Generational titles which makes the point that Americans consider the Senior/Junior as part of the name, whereas the British do not and are using it simply to distinguish between them. Assuming our traditions derive from the British, then Wikiepdia article titles for Australians should be John Smith (junior) and John Smith (senior), or perhaps John Smith, i.e. treat it as a disambiguation. Kerry (talk) 07:36, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

If its to disambiguate then (senior/junior) would be the correct method, if the person is written about using the title then use what ever they are known by on Trove like George Thorn Senior you note that at the time of the photo they used senr.. We shouldnt be forcing or making changes to a persons identity nor title to suit ourselves. Gnangarra 07:50, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, if we have evidence that a person used a particular style when writing their own name, I think that it what we should follow. I just checked the Australian Dictionary of Biography searching for articles that use "senior"/"junior" vs "snr/jnr" and "sr"/"jr" and they use "senior" and "junior" almost always. There is one use of "Jnr" and two "Jr"s. There are five Snr"s and no "Sr"s (it means Sister in the ADB it seems -- they must have gone to school with me!). Kerry (talk) 08:03, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

What a good thing this baffling custom is all but extinct in Australia. But to the point at hand: I think the last few comments from Kerry and Gnangarra in particular are on the money. Given that most Australians in this situation (especially recently) will tend to go by their name alone and require the Sr/Jr only as a disambiguator (the Bob Katters and Harry Jenkinses come to mind), we should go with (senior)/(junior) - and not always both if one is the primary topic. This may require an amendment to WP:JR/SR though. I agree with Gnangarra that if we have strong evidence that someone routinely used Sr/Jr in their name (and that it isn't just house style or something), then it should be included outside the brackets, but in this case we should follow WP:JR/SR. I strongly suspect (and correct me if I'm wrong) that most publications will use a house style here and we should be no different. Frickeg (talk) 09:40, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

I think we simply use as found by the person's usage - I think to change from what is found is leaving the project open to problems - Tommy Hanlon Jr. comes to mind - he came from the states and called himself that... JarrahTree 10:57, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

The problem is what is used can be influenced by newspaper's editorial style guides (note how many Australian papers use US style dates these days?), personal preferences of the writer or space constraints. In the Austin Robertson case, I searched the Football Record archive at SLV for "Austin Robertson junior" and only found one recent article. "Austin Robertson jr" was zero. "Austin Robertson jnr" found 96! Now I haven't checked them all, and a lot are probably the same list of Hall of Fame inductees, but ever contemporary articles like this one from 1971 used jnr. and snr. Googling "Gary Ablett jnr" or "Gary Ablett jr" each find about 30000 hits. "Gary Ablett junior" is only 3400. The-Pope (talk) 14:51, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Further input sought here. Frickeg (talk) 07:51, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

I just noticed this edit. It opens up a few cans of worms. It's the opening paragraph of a long broad scope article. I'd suggest that the previous version much better summarizes the article (as the opening should), and the new does not - rather it seems to introduce new points about the historiography of Australia, which is different to what the article proceeds to cover.

What are others' thoughts? --Merbabu (talk) 01:01, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Per WP:LEAD - if it is introducing something not addressing content of the article, and also adding opinion - delete without hesitation. JarrahTree 02:08, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

That's not the situation here. This is an article about history, as opposed to prehistory or archaeology. Wikipedia's definition of history is "History is the study of the past. Events occurring before the invention of writing systems are considered prehistory.]]"

This is what we see in comparable articles such as History of the United States: "The prehistory of the United States started with the arrival of Native Americans before 15,000 BC. Numerous indigenous cultures formed, and many disappeared before 1500. The arrival of Christopher Columbus in the year 1492 started the European colonization of the Americas."

I think it's important to stick to the facts and be clear about what we have records for, and what we have scientific studies such as archaelogy and paleontology to inform us as to what happened in the past. --Pete (talk) 02:53, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

That edit simply doesn't reflect the rest of the article, and uses language with a pointedly negative slant to describe the Aboriginal people. Doesn't belong. I note that it has now been reverted, and that's how things should stay. HiLo48 (talk) 03:12, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

How can you justify that opinion, HiLo? I stated accurately, "Archaeological studies reveal that Australia had at that time been occupied by pre-literate humans for tens of thousands of years, but apart from rock art, they left no records." Surely you are not suggesting that the First Australians were literate???? --Pete (talk) 03:54, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

A classic response from you Pete. I wrote all that I felt (and still do feel) needed writing, and you suggest I mean something else other than what I wrote. Take your tabloid, social media style tactics somewhere else. I'm not biting. HiLo48 (talk) 04:58, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

The edit in question here strikes me as ill-informed and racist prejudice against Indigenous Australians. Nick-D (talk) 04:00, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Your opinion. If we could stick to facts, please, such as the distinction between history and prehistory, which is the point I raise. Are you suggesting, along with HiLo, that there was a literate culture prior to the arrival of Europeans??? --Pete (talk) 04:19, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

There is no need for this racist rubbish, which implies that Australian history began with the arrival of Europeans on the bullshit grounds that they kept written records, to be included in the lead of the article. Or anywhere else for that matter. Nick-D (talk) 04:24, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Nick - i share Nick's "opinion" and it's a perfectly reasonable conclusion to make based on the edit and comments here in support of it.

As for "facts", Skyring quotes Wikipedia's definition of History: "History is the study of the past" ... in contrast, his edit states "The history of Australia is the record of events on the continent of Australia." That's not the same. --Merbabu (talk) 04:38, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

You omitted the rest of Wikipedia's definition: "Events occurring before the invention of writing systems are considered prehistory." Are you saying that history and prehistory are the same thing??? --Pete (talk) 05:48, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

History and prehistory can be happily accommodated together in one article. As it is in this Australian article and the half dozen big country articles i just checked (both the "History of X" and the actual country articles - eg, Austrlia). All of them do it better than the edit you provided. I trust you aren't going to now introduce separate pre-history and history sections across wikipedia. --Merbabu (talk) 06:01, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Such as Prehistory of Australia, you mean? --Pete (talk) 06:26, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

No, that's not what I meant. I actually meant what I said. Read it again. Here, more specifically: Australia#History contains a pre-history section. I'm betting so do all the other country articles. --Merbabu (talk) 06:46, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

And you think I have some sort of objection to this? I don't. What makes you think otherwise? My objection is to the imprecision of the lede paragraph. --Pete (talk) 06:54, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree entirely that the edit was a poor one and am glad it was reverted. However, it's worth noting that the current lead sentence ("The history of Australia is the history of the area and people of the Indigenous and the more recently arrived settlers from the late 18th century onward.") is pretty awful syntactically. This might be a good opportunity to workshop something better. Frickeg (talk) 05:31, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

If we could distinguish between history and prehistory. Or recorded events and archaeology/paleontology. --Pete (talk) 05:48, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Frickeg, agree that there is room to improve sentence structure. Are you able to suggest something?

Skyring, why do you feel that this is such an important distinguish to make? So important that it needs to go in the lead sentence? Other similar articles all have prehistory sections and without the, shall we say, clumsiness, of your reverted edit. --Merbabu (talk) 05:56, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Call me pedantic, but I don't see history and prehistory as being the same thing. The current wording doesn't make that distinction. We can tell the story of what happened here before Europeans had anything to say about it, but without giving the impression that there were contemprary records to draw upon, as we might find in (say) Egypt, Persia, China, Mexico, Peru and so on. New Zealand has a strong oral history tradition, and there are elements that may be separated from myth, such as the number and names of the ancestral canoes, but there doesn't appear to be anything of that nature in Australia. --Pete (talk) 06:22, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

That's correct, history and prehistory are not the same thing, and one doesn't have to be particularly clever to appreciate that. We all get the distinction. But, it's not the point. The question to you has been why does this distinction need to be in this article in the first two sentences? I'm sure it wasn't your intent, but the edit struck a dismissive and demeaning tone. And as I mention above, it was not representative of the article content as a lead should be.--Merbabu (talk) 06:52, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

I had a look at a number of our other articles titled "History of...." Almost all apply that topic name to the entire period of human habitation of a country, independent of whether a written language was used throughout that time. There are many diverse openings, but I like this one... "The history of Canada covers the period from the arrival of the Paleo-Indians thousands of years ago to the present day." For History of Australia I would suggest "The history of Australia covers the period from the arrival of Aboriginal Australians over 50,000 years ago to the present day." That "over 50,000 years" wording comes from the lead of our Aboriginal Australians article. HiLo48 (talk) 06:18, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Nobody is disputing the fact that there were people here for tens of thousands of years. We can't tell the story of the continent without mentioning it. My point - and I don't think you appreciate it - is that there is a distinction between history and prehistory. --Pete (talk) 06:30, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

I think you just ignored what I actually wrote. Again. HiLo48 (talk) 06:32, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes Skyring, I get the difference between history and prehistory. It's not a hard one. But that's not the point. --Merbabu (talk) 06:46, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Well, it's the point I'm making. Saying there's no difference, in a history article of all places, is nonsensical. What is your point? --Pete (talk) 06:59, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The notion that if something wasn't written down at the time it's a different type of history is rather outdated. Historians have done lots of work in Australia and elsewhere to trace the history of Indigenous peoples using their oral histories, archaeology, genetics, environmental history, etc. The same approaches have been used to enrich our understanding of the ancient societies for which written records survive. Nick-D (talk) 07:03, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Outdated or not, there is a distinction. My objection is to the imprecision of the lede, which admits no difference. Saying that archaeology, genetics, geology and so on are history when we are describing the human narrative is unsatisfying and imprecise, and short-changes our readers. --Pete (talk) 07:21, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

No-one says there is not a distinction. I've already said that. And I understand your point, just not its application. Other editors agree. We are going around in circles. --Merbabu (talk) 08:31, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Typically the major issue with making a WP:POINT on the noticeboard - after all this chatter, nothing has convinced me that the issue's brought up by Pete deserve space in a WP:LEAD other than delete - there is no short-changing as the article itself does not deal with the complexities of the richness of the pre-european cultural traditions that do in their inherent way constitute and provide evidence in a very different manner than the europeantradition. The whole set of arguments and issues here deserve a separate article - which if dealt with in a manner that relates to the available literature, can provide the reader with a clearer understanding of cultural traditions and transferral of knowledge that has existed long before the western traditions even started... but to say what I did at the beginning - a lead paragraph is not the place to invoke the issue - wrong place. Another article, that can explore the very interesting issues of cultural and knowledge transmission over millenia. JarrahTree 08:42, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Your edit made a number of contentious statements (surely you can see the problem with "apart from rock art, they left no records"), and describes Indigenous Australians as "pre-literate human". It clearly reads as minimising Aboriginal history - indeed, it rather awkwardly avoids mentioning Aboriginal Australians directly at all, which at least seems like an attempt to introduce a very fringe historiography into the lead. As for my earlier issue with sentence structure, like HiLo I had a look at some equivalent articles to get some ideas (and there is clearly a mix between those that emphasise written records and those that do not - with the latter notably including many where written records came much later; as our own page states, "the term [prehistory] is less often used in discussing societies where prehistory ended relatively recently"):

• History of Europe: "The history of Europe concerns itself with the discovery and collection, the study, organization and presentation and the interpretation of past events and affairs of the people of Europe since the beginning of written records."
• History of China: "The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC), during the king Wu Ding's reign, who was mentioned as the twenty-first Shang king by the same."
• History of Africa: "The history of Africa begins with the emergence of hominids, archaic humans and—at least 200,000 years ago—anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens), in East Africa, and continues unbroken into the present as a patchwork of diverse and politically developing nation states."
• History of the Americas: "The prehistory of the Americas (North, South, and Central America, and the Caribbean) begins with people migrating to these areas from Asia during the height of an Ice Age."

I note that the exact words "history of Australia" need not appear, so I wonder if we can dive right in with the current second and third sentences ("Aboriginal Australians arrived on the Australian mainland by sea from Maritime Southeast Asia between 40,000 and 70,000 years ago. The artistic, musical and spiritual traditions they established are among the longest surviving such traditions in human history."), and then add a sentence after that dealing with the arrival of Europeans (which could also mention that they brought written records with them, hopefully going some way to addressing Pete's concern). Alternatively I would be fine with HiLo's suggestion above. Frickeg (talk) 08:44, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Up above Pete pointed us at History#History and prehistory. He apparently didn't read the final sentence of that section, which says "This definition includes within the scope of history the strong interests of peoples, such as Indigenous Australians and New Zealand Māori in the past, and the oral records maintained and transmitted to succeeding generations, even before their contact with European civilization." So, despite no formal writing system in the European sense, what Aboriginal people did in Australia before Europeans arrived is history, not prehistory. HiLo48 (talk) 09:39, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

I read that, HiLo. What point are you making? "Strong interest in the past" doesn't equate to "records made at the time", and I've already mentioned the oral history tradition of the Māori. In Australian terms, the myths and legends passed down are more spiritual than historical. Typically, a narrative of the past will deal with animal behaviour, geography, and the local law, and the cited behaviour often strains credibility. For example, it is hard to accept that a tale of somebody turning into a mountain has any historic merit. Do you have any suggestions for clarifying the wording of the lede? --Pete (talk) 10:00, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm getting seriously concerned about your competence here Pete. That quote, to me, simply says that Aboriginal history is history, not prehistory, and yes, I do have suggestions for clarifying the wording of the lead. I explicitly made them above. This conversation is becoming ridiculous. Nobody is agreeing with you, and you are not comprehending or noticing what others have written. And again, your comment there about Aboriginal legends is bordering on being derogatory and racist. HiLo48 (talk) 10:23, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Be reasonable, HiLo! If something is history, it can hardly be prehistory at the same time, now can it? As for legends, you need to cast your mind back to pre-European times. In a pre or poorly literate society, information is transmitted orally. The stories of Homer, the teachings of Jesus, the epic of the Bhagavad Gita. To survive over generations, these stories must contain elements that aid memory and prevent alteration. The Sanskrit verse of the Gita is encoded in its rhythmns and meters so that any error is immediately obvious. Bruce Chatwin in his marvellous book The Songlines talks about memory and song and geography. I make no doubt that the same sort of mnemonic devices were used to ensure the information held by the story remained intact. The sort of information contained in these legends is more than just entertainment.

Of course, exciting and dramatic stories more easily hold attention, which is important when teaching children their cultural legacy, but we also see the treasures carried by the story in teaching the local geography and elements of behaviour. Respect for elders, how to find food, and so on. These are not just stories for entertainment, any more than The Odyssey is an exciting tale about an incompetent mariner, or the Gita is just a pause in a battle while a warrior chats with his chariot driver, or the Good Samaritan is a story of an encounter on the road. Chatwin goes into some detail about the vital part the Aboriginal narrative tradition plays in survival, and I cannot recommend his excellent book too highly.

The First Australians may not have had a system of writing, but the complexity, depth and richness of their cultural artifacts such as the oral tradition and artwork is extraordinary. Good Aboriginal art - as opposed to the tat produced for tourists - is genuinely thrilling, engaging the mind for those who can read the symbology. Perhaps it is too subtle for some to appreciate, but you might enrich yourself immeasurably if you were to look into the way these things are put together. If you think my sincere appreciation for Aboriginal culture is derogatory and racist, well, I suggest you should examine your own views, and perhaps learn something about this rich cultural legacy.--Pete (talk) 16:22, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Waaaayy off topic. HiLo48 (talk) 23:23, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia works because we as editors have to work together. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. You have made a vile personal attack, HiLo, and I ask you kindly to withdraw it. --Pete (talk) 09:43, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

The current opening sentence is ungrammatical ("the history of the area and people of the Indigenous"?) and a bit redundant, but the rest of the opening paragraph is fine. Ivar the Boneful (talk) 10:45, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

{{Infobox Australia state or territory}} has been nominated for merge with infobox settlement. The discussion is here. --AussieLegend (✉) 04:15, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Please note this discussion closed as merge to infobox settlement. --AussieLegend (✉) 07:03, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

this diff looks suss. Uncited plus random capitalisation. PAustin4thApril1980 (talk) 03:51, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

I've reverted it as per BRD. For one thing, we need secondary sources. An editor's interpretation of a primary source that is full of high-level legalese might notr be quite the thing. --Pete (talk) 04:07, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

It's not really correct anyway, agree with reverting. Deus et lex (talk) 09:12, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Editorial opinion is sought at Category talk:Tourist attractions in Perth, Western Australia#Context. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:07, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

As a photographer, I know that a good portrait can be difficult to achieve. Apart from the technical issues of getting a good focal length, having the settings on the exposure/aperture/ISO triangle more or less in the ball park, getting sufficient resolution and so on, a portrait should ideally capture the essence of the subject. In Wikipedia, we are handicapped by needing to use a free image. Official portraits are by no means ours for the taking, and while someone's selfie with an ex-PM uploaded on Flickr may have a Creative Commons license, it is rare that these sorts of happy snaps are much chop.

The various articles on our PMs generally have a fair bit of discussion on the lead image, and it's always good to see some consensus emerge from editors who usually disagree on politics, but are united in the ideal of making the best possible Wikipedia. For example, this portrait of Julia Gillard is superb. That look of steely determination captures her personality well, and it was shot with professional gear by a photographer who knew what they were doing. I think our best Tony Abbott image came from the same bloke. Our Rudd and Turnbull articles have okay images, but nothing sparkling. Rudd often looks wishy-washy, and Turnbull seems to turn on his quizzical face when a camera is pointed at him.

On that note, we don't seem to have a good image of Paul Keating as PM. A pity. One of the more colourful characters in Australian politics, and the one we use makes him look like George Bush's press secretary.

Over the years I've encountered Wikipedians who use images of politicians as weapons. They hunt down every article on a politician they dislike and substitute it for something that was emphatically rejected from the politician's bio. John Howard is a case in point. Both images are from American trips, where we have the advantage that official American government photographs are placed in the public domain. The 1997 image is pretty crappy, but the second from a later trip captures the guy well and is the image we use in his bio. It's a good clear shot, has an Australian flag behind him, and picks up on Howard's earnestness. I also like the extra dose of eyebrows. And again, it emerges from a discussion on the BLP talk page.

And yet, we see people swapping out a good image for a poor replacement. Incidentally, isn't that a fabulous 2005 shot of Kim Beazley?

I've been hunting down occurrences of the really bad Howard shot and replacing them with the one we use in his bio, but I've encountered a bit of pushback from someone who thinks the bad shot is better. Opinions? --Pete (talk) 11:28, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Incidentally, this is probably more than PM images being horrified. If anybody is aware of any other politician getting similar treatment, let me know, please? As an aside, I know about the Shane Rattenbury thing, but there's not much can be done. That's just the way he looks. --Pete (talk) 07:02, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Do we not have any older pictures of Howard? If not, I really don't think the 2003 one is much better than the 1997 one. The lighting and definition are better, but the angle is much worse. They both capture a (very similar) characteristic Howard expression. I'd go with 1997 for sure for anything pre-2000. Frickeg (talk) 09:32, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, the 97 and 03 images are not great. But if I had to chose, I'd go with the 97 shot as the better photo. It's a better angle, and is face is not all screwed up. --Merbabu (talk) 10:08, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Frickeg hits the nail on the head perfectly here, and fully sums up my view on this. The 97 shot is not a bad photo at all, and is one of the two best Howard photos currently available on Wikipedia alongside the 2003 photo. Why intentionally replace shots of the older, 1997 photo with the 2003 one for any article to do with John Howard set before 2000? I agree that the main photo on Howard's bio ought to be the 2003 photo as it currently is. But to me it makes zero sense to use a photo from 2003 for an article about, for example, a leadership election from 1983 when we have a perfectly good photo of Howard from the same century - a view which the others here also evidently agree with. For me, and I'm sure for many others, we ought to prioritise photos closer to the date when the article is set, particularly since it would be better representative of how they actually looked at the time (Howard for example had visibly aged between 1997 and 2003, and lost what remained of his hair from the top of his head). Furthermore, as I have often noticed your edits (specifically reversions) on the different pages when it comes to PM photos, you often bring up the need for consensus before changing the image - which is something that is only actually needed for the main pages of the PMs, not for any other page such as for House of Representatives seats or for elections. --Thescrubbythug (talk) 17:46, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

I have just come across a number of similar posts by 2 editors over the past month or so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Meganfixo and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Talianak Each posts adds a map to the Infobox of an Australian town or locality in alphabetical order. In some cases the map contains what appears to be advertising material such as in https://2ua.org/aus/nsw/biniguy/map/ , https://2ua.org/aus/nsw/big_jacks_creek/map/ or https://2ua.org/aus/nsw/bellevue_hill/map/ . What action if any, should be taken on this? Fleet Lists (talk) 12:16, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Think it needs some close look - and as to what is going on.. JarrahTree 12:36, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I can add a few more accounts - including those four, I'm up to 12 and climbing. Edits are in a literal round robin, with each one taking a turn a minute or so after the previous until they start again at the first. Maybe an SPI will help? - Bilby (talk) 13:53, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

There is no information about the website so I don't see how it can be regarded to be a reliable source and the edits are effectively spam. I think an SPI is definitely called for. --AussieLegend (✉) 16:19, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Worth reporting to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam? --Find bruce (talk) 21:13, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

All the accounts have been blocked including a few sleepers. - Bilby (talk) 10:45, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for that... JarrahTree 13:15, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

I think I have reverted all edits except for one outside Australia - over 100 reversions. Fleet Lists (talk) 06:10, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Why was the addition of https://australia.2ua.org/nsw/ballina/ to the infobox of Ballina, New South Wales, a bad thing? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 09:45, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

As stated above the edits were considered SPAM - would have been OK if it had just been the map.Fleet Lists (talk) 09:54, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Is it just me or are articles using this template displaying the infobox on the left without the box? It seems to have happened this afternoon (working for me before lunch, broken now). There have been no recent edits on the template so I am guessing this is related to a change in some other templates used by it? Kerry (talk) 07:17, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

It seems to be affecting all infoboxes on my laptop and IP. Kerry (talk) 07:19, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Doesn't seem like it was an isolated problem (see VPT thread). I had the same issue, but it seems to have been fixed now. – Teratix ₵ 07:35, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, fixed now. Kerry (talk) 07:37, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

There is a current discussion on the koala talk page about the whether or not to describe the term "koala bear" as inaccurate or not. Members of this project may wish to contribute to that discussion. - Nick Thorne ^talk 00:42, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

I've added comments to the article. Ridiculous that it is in the lead at all. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 12:20, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Is this article about an associate of Fred Walker (entrepreneur) (the Vegemite man) a hoax? An AfD candidate? Doug butler (talk) 00:29, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure that it's a hoax, but it definitely fails WP:GNG - none of the references mention Tors Peerson. Mitch Ames (talk) 01:50, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm for the hoax (note the anagram), and Mr. Carty is a master of verisimilitude. Doug butler (talk) 03:17, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

I've nominated for AfD - see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tors Peerson. Deus et lex (talk) 06:01, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Emmuldoon from the City of Melbourne communications team made a request to edit City of Melbourne#Composition of current Council on 17 August at Talk:City of Melbourne#Edit request 30 July 2020: "Hi thank you for updating the list of Councillors. Much appreciated. There's a problem with the middle column of the table titled 'Party'. It lists some Councillors as 'Team Doyle' and 'Team Morgan'. This information was not there in the last [City of Melbourne communications team] approved update. It is incorrect as these parties do not exist anymore. On the City of Melbourne website, only their names are listed. Can this middle column please be removed or at least the references to 'Team Doyle' and 'Team Morgan'. Thanks heaps."

Please can Australian Wikipedians advise on best practice for handling changes in councilor party affiliation between elections. TSventon (talk) 08:11, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

very simple - either by the current version of OTRS system - or they can be provided on their talk page with the WP:COI welcome that is in twinkle which offers the strategies about 'paid' and 'COI' issues.

This issue arises so regularly on the Australian project - there is a need for a template specifically for the issue of 'updates' by people in organisations that have articles. It will not go away. JarrahTree 08:52, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

@JarrahTree: Emmuldoon has followed WP:COIEDIT by making a Declaration of COI and requesting an edit on the article talk page, but I am not familiar with Australian politics Wikipedia pages so I am seeking advice on whether and how to update the article in response to her request. As Robert Doyle has resigned it seems likely that there is no longer a 'Team Doyle' faction. TSventon (talk) 09:38, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

I suggest changing the column title from "Party" to "Elected under ticket group (2016)" or similar, as it reflects what the situation was at the 2016 election and can be referenced to the VEC results ("Party" probably isn't accurate anyway for some of these teams and groups). The other option is to remove the column entirely, which removes useful information I think... although the election is in October so it wouldn't be for long and when the new council is elected the column could be restored with the 2020 ticket groups. --Canley (talk) 14:33, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

@Canley: thanks for replying, I am happy to change the column title: "Group when elected" would be shorter. I will wait a few more days for any further suggestions. TSventon (talk) 20:22, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks all, I have now answered the query in line with Canley's suggestion. TSventon (talk) 10:18, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Trove's automatic Wikipedia citations are great, but would be improved if so many of their template-generated newspaper names didn't need editing to match WP titles. Is anyone in conversation with the helpful folk at NLA on this subject? I can't believe I'm the only one to see the need. Doug butler (talk) 01:58, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Have you got a couple of examples of the issues you're facing? Hack (talk) 05:52, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

I corresponded with them about eight years ago about this and other topics; Kerry Raymond might remember a conversation about this. Apparently the newspaper titles they have come from a database that they can't change for some reason. Graham87 08:49, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

There have been a few exchanges over the years on this topic. It always seemed to be "this is a task for our developers, and we don't have any funding for development". However, they do appear to have some funds at the moment for development, and WMAU was thinking of approaching them on this issue. So please if you know of any of newspaper names that need fixing, can you please email me at kerry.raymond@wikimedia.org.au with the name of the current link they generate and what it should be (or what the options are if it is a disambiguation siutation). If you can give me the relevant newspaper title URL that helps too. They are more likely to be responsive if we can give them one big specific list of changes needed. My personal bugbear is The Telegraph instead of The Telegraph. If only I had a dollar for every one of those I've fixed ... Kerry (talk) 08:56, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

There are a bunch at Category:Redirects for newspapers on Trove but they are not really a problem as they redirect to the correct title. The problematic ones link to either a different page or a disambiguation page. I'm away this week, so would need to check my notes for those, from memory the various telegraph titles (Adelaide, Sydney etc) & The Australian (1824 newspaper) are similarly problematic. --Find bruce (talk) 10:26, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Kerry should have a good number by now, but here's one I hadn't seen before

• newspaper=The Week to newspaper=The Week (Brisbane) (is this format OK?) Doug butler (talk) 14:35, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Doug! That format is ok. But no I haven't received very many, so please folks write here or whatever. Kerry (talk) 19:18, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

I think I gave you Evening News → The Evening News (Sydney) but I find their "Evening News" could also be The Evening News (Rockhampton) Doug butler (talk) 04:14, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder to go back and look at my notes. The irony in all of this is that where the wikipedia article exists, the Trove page for the paper has the correct link. The following list of A-C shows the scale of the issue. THe disambiguation links are less of a problem that the links to the incorrect article as they can are routinely detected. --Find bruce (talk) 06:54, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Daily Standard → The Daily Standard (Brisbane) Doug butler (talk) 23:57, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

The Daily News → The Daily News (Perth). Doug butler (talk) 22:08, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Standard → The Port Melbourne Standard Doug butler (talk) 01:03, 15 September 2020 (UTC) — from 1914–1920 OK as Port Melbourne Standard (same paper, new banner)

Western Herald → Western Herald (Bourke) Doug butler (talk) 14:22, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia is near its death. Where are the editors? A naughty boy has successfully deleted the article Exclusive economic zone of Australia after acquiring just one support in the talk page from a sockpuppet (User:I-82-I, now banned indefinitely). Any admin out there please help me to restore this article to its former glory. Thanks. 2001:8003:9008:1301:CD0E:CD14:AB99:BBA6 (talk) 13:28, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

I have reverted the edits made by the sockpuppet to the article and its talk page. Since the move discussion was closed by the sock, who was the only supporter, that means that the article and the move discussion have been restored. As a participant in the move discussion, the sock should not have closed that discussion. --AussieLegend (✉) 17:14, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Legend, you are a champion! 2001:8003:9008:1301:CD0E:CD14:AB99:BBA6 (talk) 17:53, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

@AussieLegend: The guy who started the merge proposal is still going at it. He is still defending the sock puppet which makes him look pretty suspicious. He started the merge proposal on 2 August 2020, the proposal received no attention from the community. On 14 August 2020, the sock puppet came and pledged its support for his proposal, just two days before the discussion was scheduled to be closed due to a lack of participation from the community. On 16 August 2020, exactly 14 days after the initial proposal was lodged, the sock puppet closed the discussion and manually created a redirect by deleting the whole article. This looks like a planned action, a one-man show orchestrated by a sockmaster. 2001:8003:9008:1301:B4EE:DD6E:6A85:7A27 (talk) 02:43, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

It might be worth having a look at Bushfires in Australia for the talk page conversation about moving the article... JarrahTree 01:11, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

This stupid proposal pissed me off, mate. Kenwick (talk) 08:35, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

I have closed this discussion (due to snow keep vote). Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:05, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

There has been some unusual activity at this biography that editors here may want to take a look at. There has been a push by some with accounts created around June 2020 and later to include content promotional and personally detailed of the subject, and from many sources by the subject himself and sources close to the subject. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:03, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

On this topic, was Hastie's section relating to the "severed hands incident" ever that small and insignificant? Despite the significant coverage, and all these new additions by these editors, there's only a tiny section about how Hastie "was met with media criticism about the "severed hands" incident". He was a significant player in the event as revealed by the Afghan Files, being the person to sound the alarm that one of his soldiers was committing war crimes. Catiline52 (talk) 06:56, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

One of the editors that is continually editing the page is "a very junior staffer working in the Australia political space". This seems like a potential WP:COI issue, they haven't disclosed who they work for and they're heavily editing this one page. Catiline52 (talk) 07:09, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

There doesn't appear to be much in the media about it. There doesn't appear to be more to it than a soldier, or potentially soldiers, had removed hands from corpses, and that this was something Hastie reported and told soldiers not to do again. This was a matter that was covered by the media in 2015 and again in 2017. Probably an open question as to how much weight we give this.

That particular editor has stated they work for various federal MPs, but have not said which. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:15, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

On that basis alone - I have added WP:COI at the talk page. JarrahTree 11:03, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Nickm57 alerted me on my talk page to this article because he was sceptical about its veracity. I agree with him. In fact my feelings really are a lot stronger than that. It was created just over a month ago, and is the work of pretty much just one editor. While I'm calming done before rushing in, maybe some other editors might feel like taking a look. HiLo48 (talk) 03:49, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks HiLo48 - apologies all I didn't think of coming here too, but did take it to the fringe noticeboard and alert the author, who immediately went to ground for several weeks. It is indeed rubbish. I started to edit it offline but quickly gave up - I think its unfixable.Nickm57 (talk) 04:14, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

There should be the opportunity for other views than those above to be adequately checked. The issues raised by the article may not be as simply summarised in some cases. JarrahTree 05:46, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Good idea. However, we would want to make sure that because it is a bit obscure it doesn't fall through the cracks. I did ask the editor, two weeks ago, to justify the fairly contentious and possibly offensive claim that "Black labor was imported (to Java) from Jenggi (Zanzibar), Pujut (Australia)..." An authority called "Naerssen" appears in the next sentence, a source for the comment "they (indigenous Australians) arrived in Java by trading (bought by merchants) or being taken prisoner during a war and then made slaves". I certainly have never read an academic who makes such claims and Naerssen isnt sourced or mentioned again. However I'm always happy to learn. Nickm57 (talk) 06:46, 1 October 2020 (UTC)