Wikipedia:Peer review/Melbourne/archive1

Melbourne edit

One of the world's greatest cities (twice voted World's Most Liveable City), and a very comprehensive article. Covers most areas I can think of, and I'm hoping to hear some thoughts on what others think. Thanks. Harro5 23:48, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

First, it needs references. Secondly, the smaller sections need expand. Other than that, the groundwork is basically set. - Mailer Diablo 00:46, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

From a quick glance I agree with Mailer above. Here are some comments on hurdles you might hit if going up for FAC:
- It needs to be properly referenced with extensive footnotes (this seems to have become a requirement at FAC).
- Some of the sections are too short. Culprits include Geography, Education, Transport, Landmarks and tourist information and Media. Some of these seem to have taken the summary style to the extreme, and are now way too short. For example, why do Melbourne's Trams only deserve half a sentence while subjects like popular music get three paragraphs. The Education section seems to be a list of universities.
- The layout of the Melbourne population by year data is confusing. Could this be made into a graph or formatted in a table or something to make it more clear?
- Third level headings in Sport should be avoided if possible.
- The Second level headings in People are probably redundant.
- External links in the article should be moved to External links or Notes.
- Several one sentence paragraphs in Melbourne in culture

I will read through the prose and see if I pick up anything else. --Martyman-(talk) 03:29, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps there should be something about the bay and it's uses: Sailing, Fishing, Swimming, Sunbaking, Jogging around, Skating around, Surfing? I also recall bayside festivals, markets, performers and a massive kitesurfing community --Metta Bubble 07:49, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps something on the native birdlife too. Or is that just in the gardens? --Metta Bubble 07:49, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
As well as some paragraphs being short as mentioned above, I really don't like the new infobox. The whole article is clearly talking about the whole metropolitan area, so it is inappropriate to include the City of Melbourne local government area info in the infobox. JPD (talk) 09:56, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Try and model the structure, i.e. the section headings and section length, of the article on Ann Arbor, Michigan, Canberra or any of the recently featured cities. Ideally this article would borrow a lot from Canberra where appropriate, mirroring the level of detail in the deographics, education and culture, since they are both Australian cities. I also agree with JPD, the infobox is not appropriate for the article since it mixes non-applicable city council information with metropolitan details, that is why we made the Aus-city box which appears on Canberra. There is no excuse for lists in this kind of article- tunr them to prose, or ask someone to make a graph of data. References are very important for any statistcs quoted, use a reputable source like the ABS.--nixie 10:07, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree about the infobox. Uniformity amoung Australian city infoboxes would be a good thing. Also the City council info is not relavent to the majority of Melbourne. --Martyman-(talk) 06:34, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A mayor field, however, wouldn't go astray; it would apply to most cities apart from Canberra. Ambi 08:51, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Is the mayor of most cities the mayor of the greater city area or just the central "city" area? This could probably be implemented as an optional fiel din the standard template. --Martyman-(talk) 09:33, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Either way, they're usually important across the whole area. Optional field sounds good to me. Ambi 09:45, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I have figured out how to implement optional parameters in {{Infobox Australian City}} maybe we could generate some discussion an develop it into a template that will suit everyone? --Martyman-(talk) 11:10, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Make sure we keep it to talk until we're ready to make the chnges, or terrible things will happen. --bainer (talk) 23:45, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Um, no. That is the whole point, optional field make no differnce to existing implementaitons of a template. The Mayor field is already active and the daylight savings field is now optional as well. --Martyman-(talk) 22:51, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

User:Vincentshia added a huge amount of photos, each with varying states of copyright, to the article, and I have since removed most of them. I'd like to hear thoughts about whether others agree that the image has enough or too few images. Harro5 20:36, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Harro, I completely agree with your culling of the majority of Vincentshia's photos as they were not all particularly relevent to Melbourne itself, and I do agree that there were perhaps too many photos, but I think you've overculled them and some good photos were lost, while lower quality photos were retained. We don't have a single good 'representative' photo of 'Melbourne' left on the article. We have a panorama (mine, actually) which is demonstrative of the Yarra in relation to Southbank and the CBD, and we have a view from the Rialto Towers, but no 'typical' view as of your last edit[1]. Also, I don't think the image of Parliament is worthy as it relates more so to the state of Victoria than Melbourne, and is a poorly framed photo. I'm going to re-add a few as I think there is still room for some well-placed, well-selected images. Regardless, it is good to see a bit of a shake-up there. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 22:08, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- The Parliament photo could probably go, and I agree with what you are saying. There was one night-time view of the city from the Rialto (here), but in my view it's pretty blurry and could be any city around the world. I love the photo looking up the Yarra, and the CBD from the Rialto, but prehaps this could be re-added. My only problem with this is that all the images seem to be different views of the same buildings. I'd be interested to hear more thoughts. Harro5 22:15, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  - Well, I agree with some of what you said about the night-time shot from the Rialto - it is a little blurry when viewed at 100% res, but I can recognise certain features in it. I guess the thing is that it might be so useful for someone who is looking at Melbourne for the first time. :) In any case, I've linked that image to the Melbourne Docklands article, since it is somewhat more relevent and interesting in there. As for all the images being different views of the same buildings, well, you're correct to an extent.. It is the CBD, so of course you're going to see the same buildings - however, due to the slopes of the land and due to the fact that most of the skyscrapers are centred around the north and south ends of Bourke and Collins streets, with a shopping district in the middle, certain buildings are completely hidden in some views and not in others. We used to have a lot more varied photos of Melbourne transport (taxis, trams, and trams) and landmarks... Where have they all gone? Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 22:58, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    - I think the article could do with more images, especially if some of the overly short sections are expanded. For example the sport section could do with an illustration, maybe the MCG or some other venue. Education could support an image too, maybe a nice one of Melbourne Uni. --Martyman-(talk) 23:05, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      - I went back to a version of the page from September, which had some different images. What about the city Coat of Arms somewhere? This is standard in US city articles. PD image of trains here (Image:Hitxtrapfss.jpg), and GNU pic of transport here (Image:Melbourne transport.jpg). Great GNU Shrine pic here (Image:Melbourne war memorial.jpg). What about using those in the article, or a few of them? Harro5 23:08, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        The problem with the Melbourne Coat of Arms is that it relates to the City of Melbourne, which covers only the CBD and parts of neighbouring suburbs, as opposed to Greater Melbourne, which is what the main article is. I really like the shrine pic and I'm surprised Fir002 never included it for the shrine article (which I have edited recently and likewise removed a large number of redundant photos, including some of his), as it is probably his best image. I'd include that shrine image. I don't particularly like the photo of the taxis and trams although it is a nice idea to try to include both. Its just the photo itself that sucks, basically. :) Sorry, I'm picky with photos. The image of the trains at flinders st isn't bad though, until someone can provide a better one, anyway. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 23:25, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I find it confusing that "Melbourne In Culture" appears in the "Culture" section. Let's try something like:
- Arts -- change to --> Performing Arts
- Melbourne In Culture -- change to --> Visual Arts

Or something along those lines. Maybe even add a Film & Television section. If you read the content in those sections you'll see what I mean. Peace. Metta Bubble 03:48, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]