Talk:Centenary of Albany, Western Australia

Latest comment: 7 years ago by Mitch Ames in topic not complimentary

One event or many? edit

  Resolved

Was the Centenary a single event or multiple events? The lead sentence says it was "an event", but the third paragraph refers to multiple "main events".

Perhaps it should be defined as "... a series of events" or "a series of events and a booklet". Or we could get around the problem by just saying:

"The Centenary of Albany in 1927 commemorated one hundred years since the founding of Albany, Western Australia."

Mitch Ames (talk) 13:29, 8 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

warning, creating a meaningless tautology and 3RR if you try that one mitch JarrahTree 13:31, 8 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
questions like this about a subject you know nothing about, and where no one else turns up and the question remains hanging - look at a trove article, read it, and make your mind JarrahTree 13:34, 8 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
This would eliminate the duplication:
The Centenary of Albany in 1927 commemorated the founding of Albany, Western Australia.
Are we treating "Centenary" here as a proper noun? If so, we should probably say explicitly that it was something specific, not just the commemorative anniversary, eg:
The Centenary of Albany was a series of events in 1927 to commemorate the founding of Albany, Western Australia.
Otherwise "centenary" should be lowercase. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:52, 8 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
repeatedly removing a link to edmund lockyer might satisfy your sense of MOS but it does not improve the article context at all, it reduces it JarrahTree 14:10, 8 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Feel free to propose a change to MOS. There's actually some support for the idea - if you can get more than two editors to agree on the new wording. The previous discussion is Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive 186#Proposed revision: links within quotes.
In the meantime this edit replaces the quote with a paraphrase, including all the important information, and a link. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:32, 9 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

It sounds like it was a "series of events" to me. But is coverage in one local newspaper enough to establish notability? AtHomeIn神戸 (talk) 00:56, 9 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

Not sure what you are looking at, http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/result?q=albany+centenary&s=80 suggests over 10 newspapers, including inter-state JarrahTree 04:28, 9 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
This whole section is redundant - see recent addition of the troves refs that show it was a week of events. JarrahTree 13:56, 10 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

Why the direct conflict and derogatory comments? edit

Now that we've established the relative importance of Albany's preceding Perth's centenary, it might be helpful to the reader if the article body expanded on the "direct conflict" between Albany and the WA government. In particular the reader, who knows nothing of these matters, wants to know why there was direct conflict, but the article neglects to tell him (or her). Likewise, why the non-complimentary and derogatory comments about the Albany celebrations?

Supporting quote from MOS:LEAD: Apart from basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article.

Mitch Ames (talk) 02:08, 11 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

Quotation with no introduction or in-text attribution edit

The Events section starts with a block quotation. I'm sure the quote is reasonable and not excessive, but it almost certainly needs some introductory text and/or (per WP:QUOTE § General guidelines) "Attribution ... in the text of the article, not exclusively in a footnote or citation." The simplest solution would be inserting a line "According to Garden:", eg:

According to Garden:[1]

On 21 January 1927 normal business came to a standstill for the festivities. 

A message of congratulations arrived from King George V, who had twice unexpectedly visited the town... 

(it was followed by) a week of sports, dinners, picnics and a regatta

  1. ^ Garden, Albany, page 316

I'd fix it myself but I haven't read Garden and I don't have access to it; I wouldn't want to add a statement such as "according to Garden" to an article when I don't know anything about what Garden may or may not have said or written. Mitch Ames (talk) 03:16, 11 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

Regarding the problems between those who disagreed edit

(Previous relevant edits [1][2].)

The article had this text in the Notes/refs:

Regarding the problems between Albany authorities and the government in Perth and the Western Australian premier over the Albany event and its proximity to the state centenary of 1929, both before the centenary and after - pages page 315 and 316 of Garden ...

This is essentially a re-iteration of the text in the article body - with some extra information added: "proximity to the state centenary", "before the centenary and after".

  • If it is intended to add extra information, it should be in the article body itself. (See #Why the direct conflict and derogatory comments? above.)
  • If it is intended to merely say "the text in the article is supported by Garden ..." it is redundant - that's what the notes/refs are for, so there's no need to say it explicitly.

Thus I have moved the extra information ("proximity to the state centenary", "before the centenary and after") into the article body, where it belongs, and deleted the redundant text from the ref/note.

Note that "before the centenary and after" needs clarification - does it refer to Albany's or Perth's or both? Mitch Ames (talk) 13:44, 11 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

not complimentary edit

Re: complimentary --> complimentarily

In the sentence as currently written:

Other regional newspapers also acknowledged Albany's founding and difference from state centenary, not all necessarily complimentarily.

"complimentarily" (an adverb) is correct because it qualifies "acknowledged" (a verb).

Of course, the sentence as currently written is straining the friendship between writer and reader, so perhaps some collaborative discussion would help improve it.

  • Should there an article before either/each of "difference", "state centenary"?
  • Alluding to the difference from (or should this be "between") "Albany's founding" and "state centenary" seems about odd - the difference between those two events was 102 years - should we instead be referring to the difference between two foundings, or between two centenaries? Are there some other words missing from the sentence?
  • Perhaps the the sentence is trying tell us that Albany's and Perth's foundings/centenaries would not complement each other, in which case what we intended was more like:

Other regional newspapers also acknowledged Albany's founding and difference from state centenary, [the two foundings/centenaries being] not all necessarily complementary.

Mitch Ames (talk) 13:39, 12 February 2017 (UTC)Reply