Talk:Australian history wars/Archive 1

THIS WAS THE TALK PAGE FOR Black armband view of history BEFORE THE ARTICLE WAS MERGED INTO History wars

A hard read
to the editors beavering away on this page: It is clear as mud and hard to read. These articles should be accessible to all readers, not just academics. mangonorth

Revert without an explanation
I made a small edit to this page that was reverted without an explanation of why. I don't think that the revert was justified, but would like to discuss it before I take any action on it. Thanks, Apyule 10:15, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Name change
I think that this page would be better at Black arm band theory of Australian history, as it deals exclusively with Australian history. What do other people think? --Apyule 06:10, 2 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Nope. The name used should be the one commonly used. &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fifelfoo (talk &bull; contribs) 22:41, 2 November 2005.

Yes the name should be changed as 'it deals exclusively...'Lentisco 01:57, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


 * No one is claiming otherwise. There is no other black arm band theory of history, to my knowledge, making the disambiguator moot. Ambi 05:19, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Do not rename Changing the title to "Black arm band view of Australian history" is unnecessary. It is now in Australian usage and no one else uses the term which came from Geoffrey Blainey. -- Paul foord 12:17, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment - renamed after reference to Blainey speech showed "view" was the term he used Paul foord 14:22, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Overhaul
I think this article needs a major overhaul. Most of it presents simplistic representations of each side of the argument that very much sounds like they are written by an editor on the other side. I think we need to state getting sources and direct quotes, to keep such a highly charged topic based on facts. I'm going to make a number of organisational changes. I ask people to please 'Assume Good Faith' and discuss any changes (or errors) that I make. Thanks, Ashmoo 06:57, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Are you intending to source these descriptions, or provide some justification for suggesting that they might be incorrect? Otherwise, I'll proceed to remove all the gratitious fact tags. Rebecca 08:58, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Rebecca. I think we may have differing ideas about what the Fact tag means. I went and re-read the article and as far as I can tell it is simply used to note that the article would be improved by providing a source for the material. I'm not adding it in an adversarial way and don't necessarily dispute the sentences that I believe require it. Although I do believe having a source will stop later editors who do dispute sentences from removing them (which WP:Verifiability allows them to do).


 * Also I'm not sure what you mean by 'source these descriptions', could you perhaps rephrase that sentence.
 * Take care, Ashmoo 06:50, 29 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Adding it to an article when the material isn't disputed is unnecessary and downright inflammatory. Casting doubt over the articles contents in this way when you're a) not disputing anything about them, and b) don't intend to source the article yourself is not on, and is going to be reverted. That is, unless you can suggest something you actually dispute, or proceed to actually move towards sourcing them. Rebecca 08:20, 29 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Adding Fact tags isn't inflammatory. The article says nothing about the tag being hostile, it is simply an attempt to improve the article by adding verifiable sources. Would you prefer it if I added a { { unsourced } } tag to the top?
 * Sentences refer to 'social scientists, politicians, historians' but the actual people are only tangentially mentioned. John Howard's quote is the only view directly attributed to a person.
 * I am endevouring to dig up sources, but as I didn't write the sentences in question, I can only guess at what the original author was refering to, so it would be good to get some assistance to get it adequately sourced. Regards, Ashmoo 23:21, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

i reckon this article needs a clean-up: it spends as much (if not more) time talking about opponents of this view and their beliefs. it needs to be clear that people such as JH and GB are opposed to the black armband view. i found it a little confusing as a first time reader.


 * Clarification in the article may be needed, but the term was coined as a derogatory epithet to attack the range of histories and their historical approach. It is a creation of Blainey. Paul foord 14:27, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

The only problem I see is that it's not very... Clear. I had to read it over a couple times just to clarify the details. Overhaul: No. Additional description is advisable. Cless 21:28, 8 December 2006 (UTC)