Talk:Barassi Line

Puzzled by two things.
Firstly, how an Edit summary of 22 words, close the maximum number one would ever sensibly use, can be described as "No explanation," and that it triggered someone to suggest it was not written in a civil manner.

Secondly, and more seriously, when Ian Turner first described the line, he could have simply run it along the border between NSW and Victoria, but he didn't. He very explicitly placed the entirety of the Riverina on the Aussie Rules side of the line. Anyone who knows anything about that region knows he was correct. Being closer to Melbourne than Sydney, Victorian broad gauge train lines ran into that area. Produce and people travelled to Melbourne, rather than Sydney. Socially and culturally the region was much more influenced by Victoria than by the rest of NSW. If you travel there, you will see OLD Aussie Rules grounds in every town. Many old VFL and AFL stars have come from the region, for over a century. Yet now we have a new addition to the article, telling us "that Australian rules had successfully moved the Barassi Line northward into the border-straddling region of Murray in NSW, and was advancing it in the adjacent Riverina". This addition to our article is telling us that the Aussie Rules side of the line has only recently expanded to include an area that it has ALWAYS included. Sorry, folks, but there's a logic problem there.

Interestingly, the study the cited news article draws on is from the Wikidata Fellowship.

I find the claim in this addition unhelpful. (Hope that's civil enough.) HiLo48 (talk) 02:16, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Someone has added content and providsd a source. That is what we do here. Perhaps you could gain consensus before unilaterally removing sourced material without any reason beyond your own opinion? I'm all ears. --Pete (talk) 03:05, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * We are now at the D (Discuss) phase of WP:BRD. There is no problem. Please discuss my second point above. HiLo48 (talk) 03:17, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * You aren't kistening. Merely restating your own opinion doesn't address the problem. We use WP:NPOV to present different views. Maybe you feel that there is only one valid viewpoint - your own - and that contrary views must be somehow wrong because they are expressed by another human being. That's not how Wikipedia works. This whole article is pretty bloody thin on sourcing and now you wnat to throw away a useful addition??? --Pete (talk) 05:08, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I am not the topic. I have suggested there is a problem with the addition. If you don't want to discuss that, just skip this thread. HiLo48 (talk) 05:40, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * You aren't the topic but your behaviour is problematic. Let's get a few more editorsa looking at this and see what the consensus is. I feel that the article needs more sources. Ones that actually mention this so-called Barassi line, I mean, instead of just republishing team stats and stuff in a confected manner. --Pete (talk) 05:47, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Please start your own section to discuss that. Can you see the problem I described with the recent addition? HiLo48 (talk) 05:51, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I care nothing for sports. I care about Wikipedia. How about you discuss the problem I identified re WP:NPOV and WP:NOR? If consensus for your actions is a problem for you, surely that just underscores my concern? --Pete (talk) 06:09, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * My concern was about the logic of the article, because I too care about Wikipedia. HiLo48 (talk) 06:28, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, if you won't address the concerns I raised, why bother entering into discussion at all? Point me to wikipolicy instead of trying to convince me by waving your hands around. Why don't you simply do that? --Pete (talk) 06:33, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I began this section to discuss a logic problem with the article. Can you see the problem I described with the recent addition? HiLo48 (talk) 06:51, 26 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Well, if you won't address the concerns I raised, why bother entering into discussion at all? ..., HiLo48 started the discussion and you've mostly brushed off their concern as an opinion/the issue as being down to a lack of sources (I don't think going down the "No, you tell me what I want to know first" path is fair, and per WP:BRD and WP:ONUS, it shouldn't be up to them to achieve consensus). There appears to be conflicting information with the new source, so while the article might be in need of more/better sources, that might not mean that this is it, at least when it comes to this issue; I agree with Chipmunkdavis' point below that other bits of information could be pulled from the source, but probably not this contested part. 4TheWynne   (talk  •  contribs)  15:53, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Jeez, just put the line in the Torres Strait, thus fulfilling the purpose of the concept and article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Local Potentate (talk • contribs) 05:06, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Not a useful contribution. HiLo48 (talk) 05:40, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Do you think if the "line" bisected/trisected/quartered the country, would anyone have noticed? Or instead of a geographical metric, it was a population one and came out close to even, would anyone have bothered to codify it?. The purpose of this concept is merely so one "team" can lord it over the others, pure peacockery. Pointless article, the scope of each sport belongs on their respective pages. Local Potentate (talk) 08:02, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Off topic. Can you see the problem I described with the recent addition? HiLo48 (talk) 10:13, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

For reference. The author of the article cited is Dr Hunter Fujak, author of Code Wars, and probably the foremost expert on this topic. --Pete (talk) 06:40, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Can you see the problem I described with the recent addition? HiLo48 (talk) 06:52, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm unsure why this article seems to be generating such heat. The sentence in dispute seems illogical; the repeated pasting of responses instead of improving the sourcing I don't understand. I will note that the whole article seems to have a significant problem with original research, being that most of the sources have nothing to do with the subject, which seems part of the cause of this specific dispute. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 12:41, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I suspect the problem is mainly due to the name. There is a real topic here, the boundary between areas where Rugby League is the dominant code and that where Australian football is the dominant code. It's something worth attempting to describe. Ian Tuner chose to name it after an Aussie Rules player, and that seems to provoke negative reactions from Rugby League fans (Or anti Aussie Rules fans?). I kinda wish he hadn't given it the name he did. We also have sourcing issues overall. But neither of those is the issue I raised here. Why is it so hard to get people to concentrate on one issue? Discuss the overall sourcing issue somewhere else please. Discuss the recent addition here. And do it without attacking one of the codes of football. HiLo48 (talk) 13:37, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * You might consider opening up an RFC on this at WP:SPORTS or another WikiProject of your choosing. Having more editors' input, can help break possible log-jams. GoodDay (talk) 14:05, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I've had a look at the source, it does seem to describe a shift. However, it does this without describing a past situation and reads as assuming the NSW-VIC border is the expected border that the situation it found is compared against. I think there may be useful info to pull from that source, but not the current inclusion. CMD (talk) 15:27, 26 July 2022 (UTC)


 * It seems strange to me that the article would include the mapping and show the original line but not really go into detail, simply saying that it's advancing in the Riverina region. The information as it was added to this article also reads that the region produces a very high number of elite athletes per capita, but it only says this about Wagga Wagga. I think that the information should be removed until we decide which parts to keep, if at all. 4TheWynne   (talk  •  contribs)  16:07, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Looking at the discussion above, thanks for the input. My concern is that this source that HiLo want gone and tossed in the incinerator is by a noted authority on this exact issue - we could probably replace the whole sorry article with excerpts from his authoritative "Code Wars" - and yet HiLo doesn't address the sourcing, just his own particular interpretation. How is one editor a better authority than someone who dominates the field? If Dr Fujak is wrong, find a reliable source saying so. If he is right, where's the problem? --Pete (talk) 21:19, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I also recommend exclusion of the sentence in question. While the reference itself looks mostly good, the sentence in question is dubious for reasons already stated - I.e. the original definition of the line from 1978 (as stated in the same reference) puts the Murray and Riverina on the Australian rules side of the line, and the assertion that Australian football is 'advancing north into the Murray/Riverina' is vague at best, wrong at worst, and definitely self-contradictory. The rest of the reference has some rather good insights which would help to improve this article (which, as others have said, is of quite poor standard); but the specific statement in question should be excluded based on a critical review of the reference. Aspirex (talk) 21:20, 26 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I agree with Aspirex's approach, for what it's worth. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 10:37, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I think that's as good a consensus as we're going to get for such a fringe topic. --Pete (talk) 23:21, 27 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I have now included the source in question near the beginning of the article to at least justify the fact of the existence of the "line". As Aspirex suggests, perhaps other useful content can also now be drawn from it, so long as we avoid its confusing description of what's happening in the Murray River/Riverina region. HiLo48 (talk) 00:14, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Downplaying the importance of Canberra
The fact that the line moved to include Canberra in the 1980s is a source of bitterness for many and it keeps getting removed from the lead despite its importance as the national capital. The ACT and NT may be classed as territories but that doesn't mean that they aren't within the scope of this article. @HappyWaldo please ackowledge this! Rulesfan (talk) 00:24, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Not why I reverted. I did so because your version of the lead showed a serious disregard for WP:SUMMARY and read terribly. - HappyWaldo (talk) 00:39, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

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