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Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 24

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Newspaper archive help

A while ago, some information I had on Ahmed Habib (son of Mamdouh Habib) was removed as I linked to a blog with a copy of an article rather than linking to the article itself. Would someone with access to archives be able to confirm that the content about Ahmed is backed up by the following article: "Prisoner's son charged with kidnap" The Sunday Telegraph, 23 NOV 2003, Page 017. Thanks, Andjam 00:38, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

That's essentially what is in the newspaper article. However Islam Hassam is the victim's twin brother, not Habib's brother. Your wording is also a little loose about who was involved - all that the newspaper alleges Habib to have done is to have been present, and intervening to have the woman put into the back seat rather than the boot.
I would refrain from putting this information in, however, since there is no subsequent reporting anywhere on the incident and the allegation doesn't seem to have gone anywhere. I imagine that it was only reported in the first place because of the connection to Mamdouh Habib. --bainer (talk) 01:30, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

RIP Australian Places Gazetteer

It appears that Monash have removed the Australian Places Gazetteer from their website [1]. This was an incredibly useful tool for editing entries on suburbs and towns. Cnwb 01:39, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

How irritating - I don't understand why they'd take it down rather than archive it. It should still be available on archive.org though. Rebecca 02:59, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
You're right, the list of place names with active links to the articles can be found here.--Melburnian 03:27, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Did that resource have additional information not available from Geoscience Australia's Place Name Search? --Scott Davis Talk 11:16, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, often quite detailed historical information for each of the localities covered (mostly in Victoria).--Melburnian 01:52, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Proposed moved: Australian Gannnet to Australasian Gannet

I have proposed a move which may be of interest to Kiwis and Aussies. Check out the discussion here Talk:Australian Gannet Nil Einne 08:05, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia mentioned in Media Watch

The wikipedia entry on the Mitchell Freeway is mentioned in an article on plagiarism. Andjam 13:13, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

DYK

The DYK section featured on the main page is always looking for interesting new and recently expanded stubs from different parts of the world. Please make a suggestion.--Peta 01:58, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Blowie

I know this sounds silly, but could someone confirm the veracity of this edit. I have been reverting the rest of the edits of this UQ Residence hall IP, however, this one is the closest to regular, and since Wikipedia is not censored for children, I am slightly reluctant to revert it. [2] Ansell 12:31, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

It was reverted anyway after the anon's next edit ([3]). --bainer (talk) 13:07, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Article on Wayne Smith and bindiirwin dot com

In the Sydney Morning Herald: Unauthorised Bindi site 'not unethical'. An article on Wayne Smith (better known in wikipedia as Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Universe Daily), focusing on him cybersquatting bindiirwin dot com along with hosting anti-government and anti-Israel web sites. No mention of wikipedia (probably for the best!) Andjam 17:22, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

There's a brief mention of Wikipedia in the related story however. See Bindi website squatter 'abhorrent' from October 5. -- Longhair\talk 06:11, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
"... The main reason I purchased it was to keep it out of the hands of advertising agencies." Sure Wayne. [4] -- I@n 14:45, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Lofty Aropax

There appear to be a number of spoof articles inserted by Theoriginalrevdoc with druggy names: Lofty Aropax, Mogodàn, Zoloft Aropax, a Life of Sad Stories (and linked to Woonona, New South Wales). Might need to be deleted.--Grahamec 14:15, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Taken care of. Thanks for pointing these out. --Peta 14:29, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Bushfires

While Australia has had some really terrible bushfires (like Ash Wednesday, Canberra 2003 etc); most bushfires are not suitable material for an encyclopedia. Instead of writing an article about every fire that occurs (there are 10s of big fires every year) would people please consider doing any of the following:

  1. Contributing a story to wikinews
  2. Adding the detail to the relevant town, region, or national park article

Thanks. --Peta 04:53, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

But every year there are one or two, or a weeks worth, that truly make the news and should have their own article, such as 2006 Location bushfires or the November 2006 bushfires in Location? But agreed not every fire that (unfortunately) burns a house down should be its own article. The Bushfires article has links to the major ones. --Steve 06:40, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Why not create a list for each year, which contains the major bushfires of that year, e.g. Australian bushfires of 2006 (or whatever naming convention you want). You could then inlcude some information on each fire within the list (using a table). --liquidGhoul 06:48, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I made a similar suggestion on the AfD page that inspired this post - Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/2006_Eastern_New_South_Wales_bushfires - the name I suggested was 2006-07 Australian bushfire season -- Chuq 06:54, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
It's strange that for geography related topics there are those that would create an article for every rocky outcrop in Australia, but for other areas the move is to aggregate them up from the outset. I concur with the super-article and the sub-articles for notable ones --Steve 07:03, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

- Perhaps an article covering the whole of a Bushfire season. For example, Victoria has already had quite a few fires this season. A 2006 Victorian Bushfires or bushfire season might be good. --Crazycrazyduck 10:35, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Steve, Chuq, Crazyduck I agree with that approach. See how the hurricanes and cyclones are done already. It is a really effective pattern to follow I think. It helps that all cyclones are named which gives them an advantage (see 2005 Pacific hurricane season for example), but a 2005 Australian bushfire season article would still have enough notable information to constitute a full article and summarise major distastrous fires. I think the level of disastrousness to warrant a sub article for a single cluster of fires would have to be like that of Ash Wednesday so there would be fewer sub-articlse than for the parallel hurricane article. — Donama 01:23, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
(somewhat off topic) I'll second Steve's comment that we are inconsistent in our application of notability. An obscure species of fungus is unanimously considered notable, but an obscure historical figure may generate heated debate. A rocky outcrop is notable because it is a geographical feature, but last year's bushfire is not, even though it generated pages of broadsheet coverage, simply because it is an event that has passed.
(on topic) I think that any bushfire that received significant media coverage merits Wikipedia content. I have no objection to that content appearing in a stand-alone article.
Snottygobble 01:51, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
But what is significant media coverage? Every big fire will get a mention in local or national media; I don't think that automatically qualifies a fire in Australia (given the number and frequency of fires each year) worthy of an encyclopedia article. --Peta 02:06, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I have long ago accepted that I cannot convince you all to adopt my unusually low notability threshold. Instead, perhaps we could agree to write articles only about those bushfires (or other disasters) that are gazetted disasters, as determined by whether or not they appear in the EMA Disasters Database - "the primary Australian Government database containing records of all natural and non-natural disasters within Australia". Snottygobble 02:55, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
That is a neat database. Do you know how current it is?--Peta 03:11, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
It is constantly maintained. The very second that a disaster is gazetted as such, it gets added to the database. Snottygobble 03:12, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Replying to Snottygobble's comment - I guess the reasoning may be that a small town and a bushfire cover similar areas, yet a town exists for decades/centuries, whereas a bushfire exists for a couple of days. The total media coverage that the town has received over its entire existence is probably greater that the coverage of a bushfire would get over a week. -- Chuq 05:30, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
The seasons for bushfires is probably the best approach then. For example, the fire at Yallorn currently has the potential to cut Victoria's energy supply by a third (well I don't know the latest, it had this morning)- while it isnt worthy of an article on its own it is quite a large fire. Perhaps even an article for the whole country (ie- 2006-07 Australian Bushfire Season or whatever the appropriate naming convention is). --Crazycrazyduck 08:47, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

renaming ANZ Bank

There is a discussion at Talk:ANZ Bank#Incorrect Article Name suggesting that the current name of the ANZ Bank article is wrong. More thoughts would be appreciated. --Scott Davis Talk 07:31, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Completely agree that the name was incorrect - the company's full name is Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited, with ANZ being the only approved abbreviation. The only public reference I've seen to this was in AFR, but this message has been communicated within the bank for several years. I've just moved the article to Australia and New Zealand Banking Group as per the discussion and switched most links. Pedronet 14:46, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

2002 Bali bombing article

An editor is claiming that Abu Bakir Bashir wasn't found guilty of conspiracy for the bombings. Would wikipedians interesting in this issue be able to help? Thanks, Andjam 08:14, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

If you're as lazy as I, 2002 Bali Bombing. Lankiveil 04:50, 13 October 2006 (UTC).

Gough Whitlam is Australian collaboration

  The current Australian Collaboration of the Fortnight is {{Collab-australian}}.
Every fortnight a different Australia-related topic, stub or non-existent article is picked.
Please read the nomination text and improve the article any way you can.

The article Gough Whitlam is a former featured article, and has been selected for us to collaborate to return it to that status.

I have been travelling, and nobody else selected a new collaboration, so National Gallery of Australia was selected for four weeks from 17 September 2006 to 15 October 2006.

I have extended the deadlines for removal of current nominations to allow for the slower turnover of the last two collaborations. There are several that will expire in the next few days anyway if no more people vote for them. Please have a look at Current candidates and Category:Australia collaboration candidates and vote if you want to. --Scott Davis Talk 13:07, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

What were the problems that led to it losing FA status? Lankiveil 15:04, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Converting some text to prose, doing a slight reorganisation and adding a plethora of footnotes shouldn't be too hard. Gough is certainly an interesting character—I'll attempt to get my hands on some books. michael talk 15:08, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates/Gough Whitlam.--cj | talk 03:47, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

A Cry in the Dark (Evil Angels)

Shouldn't this article on the original fictional movie about the Azaria Chamberlain dissapearance be under its original Australia-release name, Evil Angels. It is the original name, and its English in an English speaking country. --ZayZayEM 02:07, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

That seems reasonable. If the article was originally produced under a certain name, and that name is still actually in use then I do not see any reason why it should not be the main title. Ansell 01:34, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Australia voter turnout

I would like to gauge interest in the Australia page with reference to a consistent removal of statements, for the reason that the information is "irrelevant". I, and two other editors so far, happen to think that australias high voter turnout is a relevant fact on the page. Ansell 01:34, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Please keep discussion centralised at Talk:Australia.--cj | talk 01:51, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I brought the discussion here to open it up. BTW, I notice you have not discussed it there yet. Ansell 01:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

The Dome

Please watch the edits of user:Melbcity who is pushing an essay by Arnold Zable. -- RHaworth 08:24, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

2006 Melbourne teenage DVD controversy

I have started an article on this terrible and escalating controversy. Please assist with maintaining NPOV (difficult in a case like this) and edit when the story develops. The article's title is fairly ambiguous, but I think acceptable; feel free to move the page if you have a better proposal. Harro5 05:24, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Keep an eye on the revert war on this at Werribee, Victoria also. --Bduke 06:10, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Admiralty House/Kirribilli House open day

If anyone is interested there is an open day for Kirribilli and Admiralty House on October 29th. It costs money, but it would be fantastic to get some photos (at least outdoor ones if they let you), given that the public can't get anywhere near them normally. Details here. (JROBBO 06:32, 25 October 2006 (UTC))

Australia Literature content on Wikipedia lambasted in the Australian

See this article in The Australian. I quote the following:

"Why should anyone in Australia care? Wikipedia is a US-based site. It has no official status: no government funding, no university imprimatur, no editor-in-chief. But then, neither does Google, the search engine whose name recently made it into the Oxford English Dictionary as a verb."

I don't think the author is aware that there are more than a number of Australian admins and contributors. He She (oops!) does have a point about the dire situation about articles about our authors though. Anyone game enough to give it a go at fixing this situation? - Ta bu shi da yu 10:39, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

P.S. in case anyone thinks I'm having a go, I think their suggestion is very good:
"If it's not my job to clean it up -- and such a task is utterly beyond the resources of a single person anyway -- then whose is it? Editing Wikipedia is easy. You don't have to join, although it helps. A page can be updated in seconds by anyone, or created in minutes by a member. Any writer, publisher, agent, arts bureaucrat or editor could add a listing for themselves, their colleagues, their clients or their organisation in moments -- and add it to a watchlist to guard against misinformation."
"Perhaps the people who administer the Patrick White Award could take a moment to honour the past recipients with listings; perhaps a student writing her thesis on Australian short stories could spend half an hour adding a few words; maybe even the Australia Council could get their PR people to improve its listing beyond "stub" status. That's how those million-plus articles got there to start with: people cared enough to spend their time writing them. The state of Wikipedia makes me wonder if anyone in Australia cares about the international face of our literature, and about the next generation of readers. (They certainly care about football: "Australian Rules", a well-written entry, has 18 verifiable references: "Australian Literature" has none.) In other words, it's everyone's job."
"Meanwhile, I'm off to create that listing for Jessica Anderson. It's what Patrick White would have wanted." - Ta bu shi da yu 10:46, 14 October 2006 (UTC)


Perhaps I'm out of my head, but I certainly didn't see that article as a criticism of Wikipedia. It merely seemed to be a call-to-arms for people who care about Australian Literature to get stuck in and put some decent information about great Australia authors up on the world's most read encyclopaedia. Good on 'im! Leeborkman 11:02, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Likewise, I didn't see it as an attack, but certainly pointing out one of Wikipedia's current weak spots, with a very nice suggestion on how the average Joe could help fix things. Likewise, good on 'er! Confusing Manifestation 13:02, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
I actually thought it was a decent article and let's face facts, it was basically true. Okay, she doesn't have a great understanding of some aspects of Wikipedia, but she's on the money when she writes about certain areas of Australian content lacking. We should be grateful to her for her call-to-arms. Maybe we'll see some new Aussie editors. Sarah Ewart (Talk) 13:43, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Also, to the people referring to the journalist as "he", her name is Jenny Sinclair and hence, I assume, female. Sarah Ewart (Talk) 13:51, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, hence when I noticed her username was her real name, I linked to her talk page. Confusing Manifestation 02:52, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Whoops. My mistake! "Lambasted" was also the wrong term for me to use, it makes things look confrontational. A bit misleading, and not something that I meant to imply. - Ta bu shi da yu 01:05, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
I've added a bit to Jessica Anderson and created a Nancy Phelan stub. I'll add some more of the Patrick White Award redlinks over the next week. --Canley 04:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Part of a peripheral conversation about this - more particularly about Western Australia has occurred also at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Australia -SatuSuro

Coming in late, I hope it wasn't interpreted as an attack, any more than any pointing out of areas in need of improvement is an attack. Yes, I'm aware there are Australians working on Wikipedia, but few literature specialists; and the aim of the article was to draw in experts who may not be existing Wikipedia contributors.

I've also been made aware of the collaboration of the fortnight area, and I'll be going there to put this up for consideration too. Cheers, Jenny Sinclair 10:20, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

In the days after Jenny's article was published, I noticed two new people editing Australian literature articles. They had signed up the day and the day after the article was published. Sadly, though, one (who appeared to be from the Australian Society of Authors) was posting copyright violations. :( Sarah Ewart (Talk) 11:52, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Keysar Trad

Anybody else care to add it to their watchlist. Made only a few minor inputs myself. It was created today or yesterday, propelled into WP following the Sheik Taj controversy. It wasn't there around lunch time yesterday when I looked for info about Trad. — Donama 07:20, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

"Official" edit to Victorian Certificate of Education by VCAA?

This seems a bit suss to me. (See also User:Vcaaweb) I mentioned it on WP:AN to no great effect. Any thoughts? It seems rather the same to me as allowing a company to edit its own article, or an individual for that matter. --pfctdayelise (translate?) 09:14, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Hm, all I can think of is when US congress edited articles on political topics they were reverted without further thought. However, this account should probably be blocked as a shared account, see the userpage, it says "Our account was created so we can keep track of (and remediate) pages of interest the the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA)". Either way this account probably shouldn't be editing that article .... Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 09:31, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure that's what the blocking policy says at all. It says that ""Public" accounts, where the password is publicly available or shared with a large group" can be blocked - the password isn't publicly accessible, and if it's restricted to the web unit of a government department, it's not really a "large group" at all. Has anyone emailed them to check on their claim of who they are? enochlau (talk) 09:37, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Ah, my mistake, seems I misintrpreted User talk:X when I read it a while back :-) Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 10:28, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) As long as they are updating the article, keeping themselves to uncontroversial facts, I don't see anything wrong with it. A short look at the diff suggests that this is the case. The text is parly a copy of http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/vce/adults/vce_adult.html which has a copyright notice, so we might want to seek confirmation that the account is indeed the VCAA. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 09:38, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Take a read over m:Role account which covers this more precisely than the blocking policy. -- Longhair\talk 11:40, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Former Featured Articles

I note that Platypus and Brolga were former featured articles. I just had a go at rewritingthe intro for platypus as it was a bit unwieldy but surely shouldn't take too much work to get Featured again...Cas Liber 09:12, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually Sarus crane is in better shape than Brolga in some ways....Cas Liber 05:22, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Platypus is a current Featured article candidate.Cas Liber 06:56, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Articles on Aussie bloggers

I notice there are some really notable (in my opinion) Aussie bloggers missing from the Category:Australian bloggers. For example Mark Bahnish of Larvatus Prodeo blog who is kind of like a father of Australian blogging doesn't have an article at all. And much-read group blogs like Larvatus Prodeo are probably notable in their own right even if some of the individual bloggers who contribute to them aren't. What do you think? Are Aussie bloggers notable just for being bloggers? Will this open a Pandora's box of wondering how good their blog has to be before they could be considered a "notable" blogger? Other thoughts? — Donama 01:01, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

In order to avoid original research or unreliable sources, I'd suggest people cite what dead tree media have written about bloggers, rather than citing the blog itself. Andjam 01:54, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject Gold Coast

I just started Wikipedia:WikiProject Gold Coast. -- Nathannoblet 06:08, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Link added! -- Chuq 00:18, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of WikiProjects, is WikiProject Lake Macquarie still active? It only has 2 users and not much seems to have been done in the last while... Is it still going or should it be merged in, with, say, WikiProject Sydney? JROBBO 05:17, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd merge it. It was Tim Starling's idea, if I remember rightly, but he never did anything else with it and no one else was interested. Rebecca 07:33, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Next Melbourne meetup?

  Melbourne Meetup
 
See also: Australian events listed at Wikimedia.org.au (or on Facebook)

I'm going to be in Melbourne during November 18-22. I notice your last meetup was in June, so it would be good to catch up with other Wikipedians during this time if there is any interest? I'll post my exact availability soon (all I know from memory is the Sunday night is out for me!) -- Chuq 00:17, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll still be in Canberra until sometime in December, so I don't think I'll be able to make it this time around, but I'd be up for a meetup sometime soon. Rebecca 00:33, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
I was thinking about this just the other day. I've now archived the old discussion, so people can suggest dates, locations etc over at Wikipedia:Meetup/Melbourne. --bainer (talk) 06:22, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Wally Foreman

I'm sorry to report that Wally has just passed away.[5] — Moondyne 08:51, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

It's a sad day for sports-mad West Aussies. :-( I've listened to that man so much over the years, I've adopted his penchant for the word "golly". He won't be forgotten. Hesperian 11:45, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Coolac massacre

The anon is putting in Coolac massacre info into the Hume Highway (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) article with cites that I would say are unreliable. I have obviously been battling this too long. Can someone else please take a look. - see 203.54.9.163 (talk · contribs) and the reference she is citing: http://help.com/post/3296/coolac-massacre/ I don't beleive this meets the criteria under Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Using_online_and_self-published_sources - specifically Posts to bulletin boards, Usenet, and wikis, or messages left on blogs, should not be used as sources. --Golden Wattle talk 19:43, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Kinda like Groundhog Day aint it? :/ I'm with you, the reference fails WP:RS. -- Longhair\talk 20:38, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't know, I really like that movie. On the other hand, I don't like this ;-). Lankiveil 23:51, 24 October 2006 (UTC).
I have deleted this section, I notice that the source on Usenet has also been deleted. Keep up the good work.--Grahamec 00:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
As someone uninvolved with the RFC, or indeed this case in the past, I'll watch both articles and remove anything sus that I see being put up. Lankiveil 01:30, 25 October 2006 (UTC).
I probably shouldn't have deleted it as the anonymous user has bad mouthed me in the past, although I'm not involved with the RFC.--Grahamec 02:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

While we're discussing this, is there any verifiable truth to what the editor is claiming happened? I'm no expert on Aboriginal history, but if this massacre is commonly held by those educated on the subject to have occured, writing a well-cited piece in the appropriate article (Coolac, New South Wales, I guess) could go a long way towards defusing the situation. Lankiveil 03:21, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm no expert either, but if there was a verifiable truth, they'd have linked to it well before now, sparing us the melodrama. -- Longhair\talk 03:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I have read some of the early documents/drafts prepared by archaeologists relating to the RTA's application for consents for disturbance of indigenous heritage (note this is not an Environmental Impact Statement - that was finished years ago) for the Coolac Bypass before I prematurely resigned/retired in June. The simple answer is that there is no written evidence, which is not to say that no massacre occurred. Some are hoping that the current exercise will show that there was a massacre. However, this is unlikely because:

  • it is unlikely that a massacre would have occured on precisely the route being planned, and this is the only section that is being investigated
  • the only hope of finding evidence would be from datable burial sites, but if there were deaths, bodies would more than likely have been buried elsewhere (and not be found by the current investigation) or not have been buried at all (which would mean they would leave no trace).--Grahamec 04:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Is it enough of a mainstream view that it could reasonably be included though? Some quick Googling doesn't turn up anything for "Coolac Massacre" or "Gundagai Massacre", but I don't really have my finger on the pulse of indigenous politics in this country. If there's a significant minority that do believe it happened, then perhaps we should make a quick mention along the lines of "some believe a massacre occured here".
Basically, I'm just trying to extend the benefit of the doubt to this anon and assume good faith; while she has a lot to learn about civility, I think that Wikipedia as a whole would certainly benefit from more Aboriginal perspective. Lankiveil 08:52, 26 October 2006 (UTC).
There are apparently no reliable sources on this alleged massacre other than the one (unreliable source) above and references to alleged massacre claims on the ABC news from one resident and discussion about it do not seem to equal that there was a masssacre - very few refs. Please review the arbcom debate before assuming good faith and think about the other editors who ahve ben dealing with this anon: see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gundagai editors/Workshop and Evidence. Wikipedia will only benefit from verifiable material with no original research. It is sad that there is a lack of material but we can't make it up to produce balance- that is part of the constraint wikipedians operate under.--Golden Wattle talk 10:33, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
I've spent the best part of thirty minutes looking for anything on this "massacre" that isn't obviously sourced from this one user (their writing style is rather... distinctive), and I've drawn a blank. I think we can definitely relegate her claims to the realm of crankery. Luckily, I haven't seen her about for a couple of days, maybe she's gotten bored. Lankiveil 12:37, 26 October 2006 (UTC).
At the end of the day (I've looked too), it comes down to what Wikipedia is about - verifiability. If a massacre did occur, that is the realm of academics and anthropologists and historians to discuss, sort out, talk to sources, research the claims, publish, peer review, then we can put it up. There is info I'd dearly like to put into some articles as let's say in some cases there are Government facts and there are facts, and the latter don't get an airing. However, just because I may personally know it to be true doesn't mean I can verify it, and therefore it shouldn't be in Wikipedia. Orderinchaos78 (t|c) 12:16, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The arbcom has banned the editor for one year see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gundagai editors and note that enforcement of the ban may explains some edits in the future that to some would otherwise fail to assume good faith --Golden Wattle talk 19:09, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

SMH Article

There is an article on the SMH website here re Wikipedia plagiarism and Daniel Brandt. amitch 23:28, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The same article appears here in The Age (also run by Fairfax), and appears to have been sourced from AP Digital, which sells its stories for reprint. Cheers --Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 00:40, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-10-30/Plagiarism cleanup also from last week's Signpost. -- Longhair\talk 00:53, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Quote from the Signpost article: So far around 100 articles have been cleaned of plagiarized text, in addition to the 142 originally reported by Brandt.. How amusing that by the time the article appeared in SMH and The Age, the problem no longer existed! (Not copyright problems in general, but the specific complaints) -- Chuq 01:04, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
It's hardly a fair contest when dead tree media criticise wikipedia. Andjam 01:56, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Link between HG Nelson (politician) & HG Nelson (character)?

I've just completed Harold Nelson (Australian politician) (the first federal member for the Northern Territory) and I note that he was always known as "HG Nelson". Is anyone aware whether HG Nelson named himself after Nelson or whether it was a coincidence? --Roisterer 02:57, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Wayne Smith (aka. Universe Daily) is back

Just when we were starting to think the whole Bindi Irwin fiasco was the end of it, it seems like Wayne has returned to cybersquatting and linkspamming the following sites at Murdoch/Packer related articles:

  • chloemurdoch.com
  • jamespacker.net
  • jamespacker.org
  • jodhipacker.com
  • lachlanmurdoch.net
  • lachlanmurdoch.org
  • wendimurdoch.com

Recently spotted 203.56.233.122 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) and Fogmaker (talk ·  contribs) --  Netsnipe  ►  04:58, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Indigenous Australians - Cannibalism

There has been a rather bizarre conversation going on regarding the supposed cannibalism of early Indigenous Australians. Where it's a problem is that we have a newly registered user (Premier) with numerous IP sock puppets who seems obsessed with this issue and keeps filling the talk page with rubbish about it. It's going back more than a month now - if you look in Archive 4 there's quite a bit there as well. Completely avoiding the topic of whether it occurred or not - what should we be do about this particular troll? Orderinchaos78 (t|c) 14:09, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Australian "article for deletion" not listed at Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board

Why is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/City of Dubbo not listed at this notice board? This discussion seems to ignore the work being done at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian places.--Grahamec 04:06, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a volunteer effort. Somebody (usually an Australian editor, but not always) has to actually notice than an Australia-related article has been listed at WP:AFD first, then it's listed here and at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Australia. City of Dubbo has been listed now, hopefully bringing more Australian eyes to the discussion. -- Longhair\talk 04:14, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Longhair's statement. People aren't perfect. It isn't reasonable to expect an AfD to be listed on the notice board the instant it's nominated.--TBCΦtalk? 04:15, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Blimey, mate. It was only listed an hour before you complained here. It was 2 below the bottom one on AfD the last time I looked and that was not too long ago. Please join the rest of us who look at AfD and copy stuff into Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Australia and Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/AfD. It is dirty work, but someone has to do it. --Bduke 04:38, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
To extend good faith, Grahamec may have assumed the process was automated. It isn't, but it'd be grand if it was. -- Longhair\talk 04:42, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
I came accross this nomination by accident and it appeared to be a surreptitious process. I was under the impression that I was creating a stub, mainly containing the LGA infobox at this stage (which in my opinion is better not on the town article where it clashes with the town infobox). It would obviously need to be improved in future. Sorry if I over-reacted.--Grahamec 12:52, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Redirect up for deletion

Just in case anyone interested hasn't noticed, Wikiproject: Sydney (a redirect to the correct project page) is nominated for deletion here: Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2006 November 11. To me it looks like a case of trigger happyness, and someone might like to leave a comment there. πίππύ δ'Ω∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 22:13, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

ACOTF - well done - new selection

Bringing Them Home was Australian Collaboration of the fortnight from 29 October 2006 to 12 November 2006

  • 10 contributors made 57 edits
  • The article increased from 1.2 kb to 10.9 kb - 9 times longer
  • See how it changed

The new selection was a late come-from-behind nomination of United States-Australia relations. Please help to improve it in any way you can. If you're interested, please also look at WP:ACOTF and vote for any nominations you would like to collaborate on improving. There are several nominations that will expire in the next few days if they don't get more votes, and the two front runners also need more votes if they are both to get a turn, due to the rules about how long nominations stay on the page. --Scott Davis Talk 12:49, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

List of songs about Melbourne - nominated for deletion

List of songs about Melbourne has been nominated for deletion, although the link to AfD is currently incorrect.--Melburnian 00:28, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Also List of songs about Sydney. The nominator has listed nearly 80 "List of songs about..." articles for deletion, kind of ironically as they are using an indiscriminate listing to get rid of what they call indiscriminate listings. For those interested, the discussion is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs about drugs. --Canley 04:32, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Brisbane Meetup - Invite

 
Brisbane Meetup Invitation

The First Brisbane Meetup of Wikipedians in Queensland is in the Planning Stage.

If you're interested in meeting other Wikipedians, please join us!

Hi everyone,

I gather that a meetup hasn't been organised yet in Brisbane. I'd like to take this opportunity to invite everyone interested in the first ever meetup in Brisbane.

If you like to invite other wikipedians you know, do pass it on by using the following template {{subst:Wikipedia:Meetup/Brisbane/Invite}} Cheers. -- Chez (Discuss / Email) 04:52, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I dunno, do you promise not to murder me and use my skin as a coat? (yes, I am interested, provisionally). Lankiveil 05:55, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedians wanted for interview

David Adams is writing for The Age's Livewire section and is putting together a piece on Wikipedia, particularly looking at the community of people who create Wikipedia entries. He would like to chat to Australian Wikipedians about their involvement with the project. If you'd like to be interviewed, please contact him at <dadams at iprimus com au>. Angela. 15:49, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Sure, I'll give him a buzz. — Werdna talk criticism 08:09, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I wonder if he wants our real names or usernames. My username is very transparent. Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 08:13, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I've just exchanged emails with him, and will be interviewed by phone tomorrow afternoon. — Werdna talk criticism 08:22, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Do you think "community" means the interaction between wikipedians, or what an average wikipedian is like? Andjam 13:01, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Based on the questions he asked, I'd say both. Angela.

I did not receive a follow-up call at the time I nominated. — Werdna talk criticism 00:35, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Mike and I emailed him 2 days ago, and are still waiting for a call/email.. --Deon555talkReview 06:37, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
4 days on, still nothing, anyone else heard back? Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 03:25, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Now 2 weeks. — Deon555talkReview 06:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Will he be able to interview people solely by e-mail. -- Nathannoblet 06:07, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
See also: Wikimediaau-l mailing list archives for this month [6], where this was also discussed. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 10:37, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

He sent me an e-mail yesterday, as some of you on IRC might know. I forwarded the e-mail to interested parties, once again. riana_dzasta 10:59, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Daniel Bryant and I both e-mailed him (second time around for me) and he promptly replied with questions. If anyone is interested in reading the answers we left him, they can be found here in Daniel's userspace. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 11:50, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
That's pretty cool! Maybe he just forgot... riana_dzasta 11:56, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

20 to 1

I've come across a lot of articles recently (in the wikify and categorise lists) which are episodes of the Channel Nine program 20 to 1 hosted by Bert Newton (and previously Charles "Bud" Tingwell). For those not familiar with the show, it lists in reverse order events under a certain topic such as "Celebrity Scandals" or "Great Aussie Ideas, Icons and Inventions". These articles are essentially the lists presented on the show (with wikilinks where available). I just wanted to get other Australian users' opinion on these (they are mostly under Category:20 to 1 if you want to take a look). I've taken note of some issues I'm concerned about:

  • The formatting is wildly inconsistent, sometimes the numbering goes from 1 to 20 and sometimes 20 to 1 (as presented on the show).
  • I just noticed Channel Nine provide the lists on their website. I suspect some of the articles are directly cut-and-pasted from that site (the ones with no wiki formatting on the numbered lists). Also, if the lists are on the Channel Nine site, should they be here?
  • The lists are undoubtedly POV, is there a policy on regurgitation/copying of such lists on Wikipedia? Is there a copyright issue?

--Canley 14:15, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm generally against lists on WP, but I have to admit I've looked these particular ones up here to settle discussions I've been in. I think we could probably do without them, though. Lankiveil 14:40, 13 November 2006 (UTC).
They're really unencyclopedic. You might want to put the episodes on afd. --Peta 23:02, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd support deletion.--cj | talk 02:32, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
They are encyclopedic in the same way that We Didn't Start The Fire is. ie. the wikilinks in them are worth more than the actual article topic itself. Also I'm guessing an afd listing would result in them being merged. -- Chuq 02:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
There was an AfD discussion on one of these articles in February: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/20 to 1: One Hit Wonders--Melburnian 07:00, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Ian Thorpe and the gay icon category

Err, seeing as this might be a touchy topic, so I was putting it here for more information. I was wondering whether Thorpe should be added to the gay icons category. The information is in the "Out of the water" section at the bottom. Oh, and I had to put a plug here that there is a peer review Wikipedia:Peer review/Ian Thorpe/archive1 and please don't hold back. Regards, Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:04, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Category:Gay icons (linked to in your edit summary) is delete-protected. What category did you have in mind? Hesperian 02:11, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
That would have been it then - it appears to have been CFDed then. Problem solved then I guess.Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:16, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Ten Network uses Wikipedia article in advertisements for Jericho (TV series)

I noticed that Channel 10 have an ad running for Jericho at the moment, which says something like "Do you believe in conspiracies? Then check out wikipedia.org and type in 'Jericho (TV series)'". I've also noticed that Jericho (TV series) is now locked due to vandalism. I wonder if there's a connection? Cnwb 22:36, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I guess I spoke too soon. It's already been discussed here - Talk:Jericho (TV series)/Television promotion. Cnwb 22:40, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
FWIW discussion actually at Talk:Jericho (TV series)#"wiki/Jericho (tv series)" advertised on Australian national tv--Golden Wattle talk 22:44, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the link that Cnwb gave is the proposed "sorry, this isn't a place for discussing conspiracy theories, CBS/Ch10 are wrong" message. I don't know if it is the fact they just don't know what Wikipedia is, or they just don't care.
One think I didn't know until your first comment - they are saying this on ads? I thought it was just a voiceover type trailer at the end of the show. -- Chuq 11:01, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
According to some of the material I read about the show before it started, Jericho is intended to incorporate some content that is only on the internet and not on the television show itself. Now I don't know that this means some people connected with the show were using WP to host this material, but there were a couple of articles that popped up around the same time as this ad, written from an in-universe view, about fictional companies in the show, and there were some edits like that to the Jericho page itself.
This could be viral marketing type stuff, or it could just be regular cruft. --bainer (talk) 11:56, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I believe the internet material refers to "Beyond Jericho" and "Countdown" which are on the official CBS site. I don't know if Wikipedia was part of their plan from the start, although the articles you mentioned were created by User:VmillerKS (Victor Miller - a character from the show, KS - Kansas) so they are "official CBS product". (I posted this on the Signpost suggestion page but it wasn't picked up). -- Chuq 12:08, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

New user starts own Port Adelaide Football Club page

A new user, User:Outbackjack, appears to be opposed to some of the information on the Port Adelaide Football Club page and as a response has created his own page at Port Adelaide Power (with Port Power, Port Power Football Club and Port Adelaide Power Football Club all redirecting to each other). When I discovered this and redirected the pages back to the correct Port Adelaide Football Club page, I found my changes reverted (with the message "* fixing vandalism. If you want to take the agenda driven by unfactual information, then do so on the Port Adelaide Football Club page. Do not vandalise this one. Thanks" attached) and a message from Outbackjack on my talk page stating

"I know some of the people who write on here have different agendas they want to follow, but please refrain from using vandalism on these pages:
- Port Power - Port Power Football Club - Port Adelaide Power Football Club
If you want to a skewed view you can do so on this page: Port Adelaide Football Club. On the other pages i have mentioned i will look for a more accurate reflection of the truth, which is what wikki is meant for. Consult me if you have any questions."

I would prefer not to have to get into yet another edit war over the Port Adelaide Football Club page (I have made over 50 edits to the Port page, with nearly all of them purely reverting vandalism) but if anyone else has any ideas on how to combat this, then I would be pleased to hear it. --Roisterer 12:08, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

IMO all those pages need to be redirected to Port Adelaide Football Club (as it appears they have been); if he reverts them, he should be educated & warned. Perhaps ask specifically what on the page he has a problem with, if it isn't referenced, it either should be referenced or deleted. Discussions on differences of opinion and page can go on the PAFC talk page - this shouldn't stop the pages mentioned above from being converted to redirects, as page forks are an open and shut case - they should be deleted/redirected. -- Chuq 12:18, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Yep, It's a POV fork. Redirect, end of debate. Hesperian 12:50, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Australian history

A new WP has been started to develop Australian history pages. I know many of you are active in this area already, and the WP will only assist in providing some direction into article development.SauliH 06:12, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Ta bu shi da yu getting married!

Hello all, just a short note to let everyone know I will be getting married on the 2nd December! Email me through the email this user toolbar URL for details if you want to come to watch the big event and I vaguely know you :-) Ta bu shi da yu 08:40, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know you, but congratulations anyway! Lankiveil 09:08, 17 November 2006 (UTC).
I'm trying to think of some wiki/marriage jokes but none of them are funny.. congrats anyway! -- Chuq 00:00, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks folks :-) Ta bu shi da yu 07:19, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Football in Australia - naming conventions

I would like to invite all interested editors to have a read of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Football in Australia) and offer improvements or suggestions on the talk page. Please do not comment about it on this page - I am hoping to centralise discussion in one place! -- Chuq 10:33, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

William Goldwyer

Can I get some wider input on a dispute at Talk:William Goldwyer please?

Goldwyer was an explorer who was speared to death by Indigenous Australians in northern Western Australia. This was characterised as "treacherous murder" by the colonists, but Indigenous Australians repudiate this, invoking "the right of Aboriginal people to defend their land" and "the history of provocation which led to the explorers' deaths". For an indication of the depth of feeling involved in this see Explorers' Monument.

Recently someone added this article into Category:Australian murder victims and Category:Murdered police officers. I reverted with edit summary

remove murder cats - cultural bias - most noongars would consider him "killed in action" rather than "murdered".

Today SauliH has reverted my revert, i.e. reinserted the murder categories, and explained his actions on the talk page. Discussion continues there.

Hesperian 04:59, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

A hasty unilateral revert was made by bainer, and this issue remains unresolved. I and Hesperian would like still like some input. I am still of the mind to revert back, and may yet do so pending discussion.SauliH 16:14, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Australian biota

Please join this new WikiProject. We already have a few members, but I know there are very many more people on Wiki who are interested in our native biota. Thanks. --liquidGhoul 14:21, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

ADF project and Australian military history task force

A discussion is taking place at Australian military history task force talk page about what to do with the two seperate 'projects'. WP:ADF has shown some reluctance on it's talk page to acknowledge or work with the greatly overlapping projects. A solution should be reached, and WP:AUS should have some oversight into the new structure... even though neither group currently is a child of WP:AUS***. Input please!?SauliH 16:12, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

***clarification - I did add related project link to Australian history just last week on the Australian military history task force page.SauliH 23:18, 25 November 2006 (UTC)


HMAS Stirling/Garden Is

The facilities are open today 26 Nov, If any one can get there with a digital camera, theres a well at the northern end of the Island which was dug by the first settlers to arrive in WA. It would be wonderful to be able to include it in the Swan River Colony article and other historical WA articles as it the first structure made by them. Gnangarra 03:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject on Islam in Australia

How many people would be interested in a wikiproject on Islam in Australia? I'd envisage it covering not only preachers but also Australian Muslim individuals and groups in general.

As a side note, the article for Keysar Trad has been changed in response to an email to wikipedia. At least it doesn't look like the old version had any inaccuracies as such. Andjam 08:01, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

That seems like a very narrow topic. What about broadening it to Religion in Australia? There is a WikiProject Religion with quite a few subprojects including WikiProject Islam, and WikiProject Australia with quite a few subprojects based on either geography or topic area. I think Religion in Australia is the right level to cross them at this stage, unless there is evidence that we could not end up with Australian infoboxes etc that work in all religions. --Scott Davis Talk 10:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
My thought is that with either poject "Islam in Australia" or "religion in Australia" the scope should be narrow and only directly cover the religion, preachers, buildings and notiable events. To have a broader base of individuals who happen to practise a religion could be seen as being POV especially with living people. That it may attract vandalism here or real world attacks to those individuals. Gnangarra 15:52, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion in Australia would be beneficial. There are a number of articles being written about christianity in Australia, and a broad project which oversees an Islam Taskforce/project as well as Christianity would be beneficial for consistency reasons, POV discussions (which are bound to surface), and balanced development of religious subject areas. Scope would need to be confined to Australia specific subjects.SauliH 18:49, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

How about WikiProject Australian society, to take in a broader range of demographic topics.--cj | talk 00:42, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Australian society would be VERY broad. but for starters that might be a start. Society would be a logical parent for the sports WP too. SauliH 04:08, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

ACOTF is now the ABC

United States-Australia relations has had two weeks as Australian collaboration. It's heaps better than it was, but still needs some work.

The new collaboration is Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Please help if you can. --Scott Davis Talk 13:24, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Be honest, you were looking forward to using that header title. Confusing Manifestation 03:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Until your remark, it hadn't even occurred to me as having too many acronyms - sorry. --Scott Davis Talk 08:41, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

John Cornforth

This article on the Australian Nobel Prize winner has been moved to John Cornforth (scientist) to allow it to become a disambiguation page between John Cornforth (scientist) and John Cornforth (footballer). I think it should have stayed as John Cornforth, with that article saying

This article is about the Australian Nobel Prize winning chemist. For the footballer see John Cornforth (footballer).

There are a large number of links to John Cornforth that now need to be altered unless we can reverse this. What do people think? How can we get back to the earlier situation? --Bduke 03:57, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

We don't use disambiguation pages when there's only two pages to be disambiguated. Fixed. Hesperian 04:11, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, we do if there are two people of equal prominence. This isn't one of those situations though! -- Chuq 04:37, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, guys. --Bduke 06:10, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Poverty

I was having a look through the "economy of..." article, which have the number of people below poverty lines. Australia has 14.3% of the population below the poverty line, while the US has 12%, Canada 15.5% and France 7%! According to the source for Australia, we are ranked second to the United States (which has 17%). However, the US article obviously uses a different source, and has a lower poverty rate. Also, according to the source for the Australian article, the top five 1st world countries with high poverty rates do not include Canada, even though it is higher according to Wikipedia. I didn't really know where to bring this up, as there seems to be no economy wikiproject, but I thought it would be important to let people know. There really needs to be a single source for this type of statistic, or countries will use the best stat to make themselves sound good.

Also, just out of curiosity. How does Australia have a 14% poverty rate with <5% unemployment, and France have >9% unemployment and 7% poverty? --liquidGhoul 14:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. Of course, the statistics are meaningless without defining "poverty line". Perhaps you should start a discussion at Template talk:Infobox Economy to come to a common source (though perhaps not many people will see that). Failing that, I feel that the statistic should be deleted from the table.
Some observations. The source for the Australian article is the Economic Policy Institute. From that article, it does not surprise me that they highlight the fact that the US has the highest poverty rate. I'd advocate using a clearly international organization. For instance, the United Nations Development Program published the Human Development Report 2006, which says for Australia that 14.3% are below half the median income [7] and 17.6% are below $11 a day (1994 PPP US$) [8]. The corresponding numbers for other countries are US: 17.0% / 13.6%; Canada 11.4% / 7.4%; France 8.0% / 9.9%. But you really need an economist to make sense of the numbers, in my opinion.
The reason that France has low poverty notwithstanding high unemployment is probably generous unemployment benefits and more generally that the French are more egalitarian than Australians, Americans, and Canadians. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 00:07, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

SMH comments on wikipedia in context of Amazon review and blogs

A piece on Amazon book reviews has attracted comments from readers about wikipedia contributions too. [9]--Golden Wattle talk 18:37, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Stylidium

Greetings, all. In my attempts to locate fair use, public domain, or GFDL images of living specimens of Stylidium species, someone suggested I locate some Wikipedians living in Western Australia--the hotbed of Stylidium species richness--that would be kind enough to locate and photograph a few species, if possible. If you know of anyone that might be willing, drop me a line. If you know of any resources that you think I haven't located yet, please also let me know. Your help is most appreciated! Cheers, Rkitko 10:12, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Mooroolbark, Victoria

Hi, can a few of you please whack this onto your watchlists? There's a rather determined IP editor adding duplicate information across myriad small edits, modifying grammar and breaking the infobox (eg uppercasing all the fields, then after reversion, changing "state" to "ctate"). I've attempted to start a conversation with them in the talk page in good faith. Orderinchaos78 00:48, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

David Flint

I didn't realise that

Flint is half-Indonesian on his mother's side. He is openly gay and lives with his partner of more than 30 years at Bondi Beach, Sydney

The paragraph does have a cite which claims to be a copy of a Good Weekend article claiming that he used to be quite openly gay. All the same, I've deleted the mention and I've removed him from Category:LGBT people from Australia. It just seems a bit of a stretch, relying on a blog that has an almost certainly copyvio copy of one journo's claim that he used to be open about it. Can anyone add more light? Regards, Ben Aveling 11:20, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd remove the line until a better cite is provided; while there's nothing wrong with being gay or half-Indonesian, it could possibly still be interpreted as defamatory. Lankiveil 02:31, 3 December 2006 (UTC).
Philip Adams states that Flint is openly gay in The Australian: [10]. Miranda Devine in the Sydney Morning Herald states his father is Tasmanian and his mother is Indonesian: [http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/12/1084289755341.html?from=
It's a well-known fact that Flint is gay. I'm trying to think of a print source - from memory, Jonestown mentioned it. Slac speak up! 23:02, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

People after dubious claims may also wish to check Special:Contributions/Aussie_Jim, which is a fairly similar username to User:AussieBoy, who added the info on Flint. AussieJim claimed that Bob Carr and David Hicks are in the LGBT category. Carr is a possibility, but someone associated with the Taliban being gay is a little surprising. Andjam 09:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Australian medical history article dispute

There is an extremely pissed off anti-American IP editor trying to slant the Telectronics article. Please take a look at the history of the article (edits mirror the edit summaries with a dash of blanking thrown into the pot). The talk page has been the scene of a failed RFC and much bickering between an earlier contributor/cofounder of the company and the son of the (co)founder of the company. The main dispute is over whether they were cofounders or not. This needs the immediate attention of an Australian editor as one of the parties involved won't work with American editors. It also needs someone locally who can check hard copy sources or more easily make contact with libraries holding them. This dispute has been going on for over a year and desperately needs attention.—WAvegetarian•(talk) 17:14, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

  • I have had my two cents about the sources of the article. WP:V applies in particular: The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source. Also applicable is WP:COI#Defending interests : the removal of reliably sourced critical material is not permitted.
There is some enformcement of WP:Civil required in relation to one eidtor of this article though preferably by an univolved admin. Foul language and personal attacks are unacceptable in my view and need to be dealt with firmly and promptly - the project otherwise becomes a hostile environment. The policies governing behaviour are quite clear. As the editor has been rude about Americans, it might be best if an Australian admin (not known to be a student or teenager) enforced them - the anon seems to object to people on the basis of their nationality[11] and age[12]. --Golden Wattle talk 22:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Lake Pedder

For good ole Tasmanian controversies the Franklin Dam article is of reasonable quality so far - but it seems that Lake Pedder article is sadly in need of a re-working. As I have placed a suggestion on the talk page of that article for a reasonable resolution (perhaps) I am wondering if anyone has any particular Australian environmental controversy article that is exemplary in its format and at FA or GA that a Lake Pedder article might follow? IS there a category that I have missed that might even clutch together in trembling POV fear a range of environmental issues that are older than most of the newly arriving editors? SatuSuro 13:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

There's not really a good example that comes to mind - I wrote the Franklin Dam article, but I've never been very happy with it, and it's been asking for a rewrite for ages. It'd be good to get Lake Pedder up to scratch though, and some of the other incidents from around the same time, such as the Wesley Vale Mill controversy that launched Christine Milne into state parliament. Rebecca 04:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
If there ever was a reasonable response to this - it really should start with the Pedder saga ( much longer than anyone might understand) - and its legacy - then the possible ramifications on the Franklin issue. Sorry Wesley Vale came a lot later than the Pedder issue - perhaps a chronology is needed for the Pedder-Franklin sagas ! 06:09, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Huh? You asked for an article you might follow in terms of format with an article on Lake Pedder, and I just pointed out that the Franklin article was the best example we had in the area. I'm not sure what you thought I was trying to say. Rebecca 08:57, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Point of clarification. In my opinion they both need re-working, and if sufficient input is put into Lake Pedder - then in line with that we will then find that we will need to re-write the Franklin article - no offence to your hard work Rebecca.! I am hoping that somehow there can evolve from some of this a way of creating a structure for good articles on really heavily contentious issues (that split tasmania in two twice) so as tyo be good articles. If I have explained myself poorly what I am saying is that the Franklin Dam article as it stands alone (compared to a useless Pedder article IMHO) is a good article - and if its an example of how to go I think we have to do better with the Pedder article as it has a longer duration background- we will have to re-do the Franklin as a result. No offence intended - perhaps the Perth hot weather has induced my wooly thinking today! SatuSuro 12:08, 6 December 2006 (UTC)


An interesting piece of serendipity: Today's Australian Literary Review contains a review of William Lines' Patriots: Defending Australian Natural Heritage, containing the text "Lines anoints as patriots people who fought to save wilderness from... flooding (Pedder and the Gordon below Franklin).... Lines cites Dunphy's 1971 call in the fight against the damming of Tasmania's Lake Pedder: 'These are honourable and patriotic tasks without which Tasmania will be ruined.'" Might be worth a look. -Hesperian 06:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian maritime history

Quite different from the Lake Pedder item is the starting of this new project - please check it out if interested!! SatuSuro 14:34, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

State and territory government departments

Do we have a naming convention for these? I have noticed that most New South Wales ones start with "New South Wales", but this appears to be part of the official name. I found Department of Education and Training, which refers to the Victorian department, but is at a name which would most likely require disambiguation at some stage. The Tasmanian one is at Department of Education, Tasmania (using a comma). I notice a lot of the federal ones at List of Australian Government Departments appear to use brackets "(Australia)" as a disambiguator, as do the few Western Australian ones that exist at Category:Government departments of Western Australia . -- Chuq 00:53, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd go with " (Australia)" or " (Western Australia)" as a disambiguator. Using a comma looks funny if they're not placenames. Rebecca 09:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
For reference, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (government departments and ministers) applies here.--cj | talk 19:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

ACOTF

I quick glance at WP:ACOTF shows that tonight, one candidate will be selected to replace Australian Broadcasting Corporation as Australian Collaboration of the Fortnight (ABC has had nearly 100 edits in the fortnight), and all other candidates are overdue for removal due to not enough votes to stay there. Looks like an opportunity for these new WikiProjects to nominate their most important articles, or pick something from Category:Australia articles needing attention or Category:Australia articles without a WikiProject. --Scott Davis Talk 22:03, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

In the WP:AH area, I have been sorting a ton of exploration topics and so forth. One of the articles that could do with some work is Burke and Wills expedition. It is quite long, has a good number of references, and probably be brought to FA status sometime in the future. A number of expedtions sought the expedition, and had luck gone a different way, B&W may have survived. It could do with some expansion in this area. I have not really been involed in ACOTF until this last collab, so am not familiar with the process. That would be my Nomination. SauliH 23:22, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
From WP:ACOTF the subject should be "a specific topic which either has no article or a basic stub page". On that basis Burke and Wills expedition is too long. --Steve (Slf67) talk 00:28, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
The rest of that sentence is "...the aim being to have a featured-standard article by the end of the period, from widespread cooperative editing." It looks like time that paragraph was updated - we have had a number of successful collaborations starting with longer articles recently, and there is no way that a stub can be advanced to FA status in only two weeks any more - the FA standards have risen quite a lot since that paragraph was written. I've started a thread at talk:Australian Collaboration of the Fortnight to see how people feel. All are welcome to respond. --Scott Davis Talk 02:48, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Australian Broadcasting Corporation was WP:ACOTF from 26 November 2006 to 10 December 2006

  • 16 contributors made 98 edits
  • The article increased from 3064 words (19287 characters) to 4363 words (27623 characters) -about 43% longer
  • See how it changed

Torres Strait Islanders is now the selected collaboration - please help to improve it however you can. --Scott Davis Talk 13:09, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Anon edits to Jessica Rowe, Melissa Doyle, and so on

It looks as if some of 58.165.15.240's edits about Australian television personalities are close to being libellous at worst, uncited at best. Should we be wary of WP:BLP and revert all on sight? -- Chuq 12:35, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Some of the individual stuff might possibly be accurate, but as a pattern it's all nonsense. See this for example, or this. Better just to remove it all. --bainer (talk) 13:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Perth Photo Wish List

Over the next 6 weeks(school holiday day care program) I'll be running around Perth going daily to many varied locations. So I've created User:Gnangarra/Photo wish list if there is anything that you would like to obtain a photo from or of add it to the page. As the program covers an extremely wide range of places and activities anything is possible. I'm also not bound to the group as such I can wander to places nearby as well. Over the last week I've been rock climbing, pincic lunch by the river, Perth Mint gold pour, and the Perth zoo. Future activities include Museums, Ice/Rollerskating, a wildlife park, a farm, no matter how abstract the request anything could happen. Additionally you may already have a photo that fulfills someones else wish just upload and link to the page. Gnangarra 13:40, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Image talk:Pitch drop experiment.jpg

This has just come up on the Physics project. Could someone in Brisbane, preferably at U of Q, check whether a new photo taken now would be as good as this one? Note the drop is quite large on this one. It seems a pity to lose this image unless we can get a replacement. The image of course is on Pitch drop experiment. I recall that the experiment is not hidden away but in the entrance hall of the Physics department. I could be wrong. --Bduke 03:12, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Why doesn't WIkipedia care about accuracy

Hi, I am trying to correct the List of cities in Australia by population, because it incorrectly lists Thuringowa and Townsville as sepparate urban centres when according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics which is the only official source on the matter, they are one entity! However every time I try to fix the article to match the source document from the ABS a Wikipedian is undoing it and saying that some Queensland government figure for the Local Government Area is a better source. It is inconsistent to just use those figures for one entry, and wroung anyway because it is a list of Urban Centres, not Local Government Areas! Wikipedia should be about accurately reflecting the source, not picking and choosing statistics from all over the place. - Aucitypops —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aucitypops (talk • contribs)

Not a simple answer to this one. The 'Greater' Townsville area consists of two seperate local government areas - the City of Thuringowa and the City of Townsville. As such each LGA has their own population. The List of cities in Australia by population treats them in this manner. I think you will find that not everybody is in agreement with your assertion that the ABS is the only authority of what defines an urban centre. Your assertion is that 'Townsville' should be understood as the greater Townsville area, and you will have some convincing to do to treat it in this manner. You have a disconnect with the definition of 'city'. Cheers. SauliH 05:27, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi SaulH, no my assertion is that Townsville-Thuringowa should be considered a single Urban Centre in the list of Urban Centres because that is how the ABS considers it on their list of Urban Centres, and the ABS is the organisation that defines Urban Centres and calculates their populations. Wikipedia should use the most authorative source, and it is indeed listed as the source on the page, but the figures here need to match the source! Not just have them added in from anywhere. Wikipedia is meant to be reliable. Of course the Local Governments are separate, if they are to be included they should be incluided in the list of LGAs, not the list of Urban Centres, which are different things. But the list of LGAs only goes up to number 25, Thuringowa would be a lot lower than that with only 59,000 or so people. Wikipedia will have to extend the list to include Thuringowa. - Aucitypops

Yeah, I had an edit conflict just now with your entry. I realised I jumped too soon. here is my comment...

Oops my misunderstanding. The stats for each table are Statistical District Townsville - 148 767 (this includes Thuringowa as well as a bunch of other towns). Townsville-Thuringowa (Qld) Urban Center - 117 990. Townsville LGA - 100 772, Thuringowa LGA - 59 231. These are directly from the citations Web access and Web access. I suspect you already know this. Anything else is incorrect (until the next pop projections are released. SauliH 06:06, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
The most authoritative source of data on Australian city populations is the Australian Bureau of Statistics, therefore we use the data they provide. They show Burnie-Devonport in their list of urban areas, yes they are separate cities, but they are counted as one urban area due to their proximity. The page you refer to has separate lists for separate definitions of "city" so everyone should be happy. -- Chuq 06:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

The stats for each table are Statistical District Townsville - 148 767 (this includes Thuringowa as well as a bunch of other towns) Thuringowa is the city there are no other little towns as you say, plus both Townsville and Thuringowa have done surveys etc to find out the pop of the cities and this is how i know that the pops are not correct. but i guess i no nothing so i will leave it alone for now but trust me as soon as i can list the ref's for this information i will do so and make the changes thank you Thuringowacityrep 06:46, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

The Townsville Statistical district has these Statistical Local Area SLA's - 

  7001 Aitkenvale  
  7003 City  
  7007 Cranbrook  
  7012 Currajong  
  7014 Douglas  
  7015 Garbutt  
  7018 Gulliver  
  7023 Heatley  
  7026 Hermit Park  
  7027 Hyde Park-Mysterton  
  7031 Magnetic Island  
  7033 Mt Louisa-Mt St John-Bohle  
  7034 Mundingburra  
  7038 Murray  
  7041 North Ward-Castle Hill  
  7044 Oonoonba-Idalia-Cluden  
  7047 Pallarenda-Shelley Beach  
  7051 Pimlico  
  7054 Railway Estate  
  7058 Rosslea  
  7062 Rowes Bay-Belgian Gardens  
  7065 South Townsville  
  7068 Stuart-Roseneath  
  7071 Vincent  
  7074 West End  
  7078 Wulguru  
 10  Thuringowa City Part A  
  6801 Kelso  
  6804 Kirwan  
  6807 Thuringowa (C) - Pt A Bal

If they are not towns then I am mistaken. Source SauliH 07:04, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

hi mate sorry but yes you are mistaken the first lot are most not all suburbs of Townsville except for Magnetic Island this is part of Townsville but it is a island off the coast of Townsville, the next lot Thuringowa city part A, Kelso and Kirwan are suburbs of Thuringowa city again a lot are missing and Pt A Bal is the Northern Beachers area of Thuringowa city. there is only to cities here one is Townsville and the other is Thuringowa Townsville used to be a very small area but the government gave almost all of Thuringowa's land to Townsville (both Townsville and Thuringowa pages have this info on it) Thuringowa has it's own CBD (Thuringowa central) as does Townsville (the mall or Townsville CBD) I'm not sure who started this LGA stuff but it has a lot to do with Townsville (I can't say any more than that) Thuringowa built the first roads in what is now Townsville, Thuringowa was also the one to get the water on (via wells and pumps in Ross River) please if you need any more official info please let me know ..im more than willing to help get the facts correct thank you Thuringowacityrep 07:32, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

This image (while intended for entirely another purpose, not showing LGA boundaries and drawn over 6 months ago) may give more clarity to non-Townsville people as to where the places we're discussing. The bottom right map is the Greater Townsville area, and Kirwan and Kelso as indicated above are part of Thuringowa. Orderinchaos78 12:01, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

this map may also give some info ..it shows the location of the Townsville CBD and the Thuringowa CBD click here[13] Thuringowacityrep 12:58, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Australian continent

In case any one interested was not aware, a proposal to move Australia (continent) to, most probably, Australia-New Guinea is being discussed at Talk:Australia (continent). It seems to be coming to a close, so those who may like to comment should do so promptly.--cj | talk 19:31, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Western Australia

User:Fred.e has just created Wikipedia:WikiProject Western Australia. This will of course be aimed at coordinating and improving articles related to Western Australia, and fostering collaboration between Category:Wikipedians in Western Australia. The project is so brand spanking new that we haven't yet defined our goals or scope, let alone how we're going to achieve them. So this is your chance to be involved right from the start. Hesperian 10:29, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

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