Talk:Palm Island, Queensland/GA1

GA Reassessment
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.''

Starts GA Reassessment Page; the review will follow the same sections of the Article. --Whiteguru (talk) 06:08, 14 April 2021 (UTC) 

Discussion
Hi and. I have, I think, addressed all of the issues mentioned above save the overlap with Great Palm Island. It was I who greatly expanded the latter article and shuffled bits out of this article, as the histories overlapped and it was somewhat muddled, what related to governance, what related to the physical island, and what related to the inhabitants (who are all on Great Palm apart from a few resort workers on Orpheus). One of the problems is that in this article we have two overlapping entities, the locality (and Kerry is the expert on that designation - I only know what I have read in the article about this kind of entity) and the physical/geographical group of islands, called the Palm Island group or Greater Palm group, which in this case coincide. The usual convention for geographic entities is to put the state in parentheses afterwards, whereas with localities it follows a comma, and I assume the comma convention was deliberately chosen in this case. To complicate things (as you both no doubt know), governance of the island group is split between two governing bodies, the Aboriginal Shire of Palm Island, and the Shire of Hinchinbrook, which is mostly on mainland Queensland but does include Orpheus, with the tourist resort. It doesn't surprise me that this article gets more hits, firstly because it's the common name for Great Palm Island and so that's what people look for, and secondly because most sources are at best fuzzy about what they're referring to, when in fact the whole article is almost without exception devoted to the one island. I think that it would be somewhat misleading, and take a lot of work to merge the two articles, but I'm not sure what the best solution is. I tinkered with Palm Island (disambiguation) in an attempt to improve that, although not sure if what I've saved is the best arrangement. What about creating a DAB page for Palm Island, Queensland, and renaming this one to Palm Island, Queensland (locality)? That would also entail a fair bit of work, but I suspect that most of the links in to Palm Island currently should probably be transferred to Great Palm. As an aside, I'm just wondering whether this article belongs in the Archipelagoes of Australia category as well? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 05:59, 19 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Groan, Queensland local government areas, towns, localities, islands and island groups have complex inter-relationships as you have observed. If I sit in front of Queensland Globe, I can generally work out what's what and, if not, I have a contact in the relevant Qld Govt department who can usually set me straight. But it is a little hard to explain without Qld Globe in front of us. But I will try:

Let's start at the beginning. There is an island group officially known as Palm Islands (plural) for which we don't appear to have a Wikipedia article, but if we did, it would be called Palm Islands (Queensland).

https://www.resources.qld.gov.au/qld/environment/land/place-names/search#/search=palm&types=0&place=Palm_Islands25880

Looking in Qld Globe, this appears to be 12 named islands with Pelorus Island at the north and Havannah Island at the south and in the middle is the biggest island called

Great Palm Island

https://www.resources.qld.gov.au/qld/environment/land/place-names/search#/search=*palm&types=0&place=Great_Palm_Island14716

which is commonly known as Palm Island, which is not ambiguous as there is no other *island* in Queensland called Palm Island, so you could have Palm Island (Queensland) as a redirect to Great Palm Island or vice versa without any angst, as the locality is called Palm Island, Queensland given our usual way to distinguish between natural and man-made places with parens or comma.

On the island called Great Palm Island, there is a town on the western coast called "Palm Islands" (plural).

https://www.resources.qld.gov.au/qld/environment/land/place-names/search#/search=palm%20islands&types=0&place=Palm_Islands25881

Again we have no Wikipedia naming issue as this should be called Palm Islands, Queensland and this currently redirects to Palm Island, Queensland, where no mention is made of the town at all and I think it should be mentioned.

Now all of the islands in the group were once in Shire of Hinchinbrook and the locality of Palm Island which included all 12 islands and sea immediately around them and between them. When a Deed of Grant in Trust (DOGIT) was established, the normal practice was to excise the land in the DOGIT from the original local government and establish a new local government area for the DOGIT. Now a lot of these are a straightforward single chunk of land "cut out" of another local government area which surrounds them. However, islands pose a challenge as local government areas and localities can include sea as well as land. And for reasons I don't fully understand the DOGITs appear to be only for "land" and not include "sea", so 10 of the 12 *islands* (including Great Palm Island) were excised from Shire of Hinchinbrook and placed in the Aboriginal Shire of Palm Island but the other two islands and the sea immediately around and between all of the islands remains in the Shire of Hinchinbrook. Since localities can be split between local government areas in Queensland normally, this is exactly what happened here, just in a more messy way.

So looking at the lede para in Palm Island, Queensland, I think it is correct as stated. While Great Palm Island does explain it is in the Aboriginal Shire of Palm Island, it makes no mention of being part of the locality of Palm Island, Queensland. Nor does it make any mention of the town and I think it should be mentioned. It's an interesting question as to whether the town Palms Islands, Queensland should redirect to the locality Palm Island, Queensland or Great Palm Island. When we don't have a separate article for a town, it is normal to redirect it to the locality article where a brief discussion of the town can be made. But normally we don't have a finer granularity article available, but in this case Great Palm Island is a more fine-grained article than Palm Island, Queensland. I would be inclined to redirect the town Palms Islands, Queensland to the island article Great Palm Island and discuss the town there, and mention in the locality article Palm Island, Queensland that there is a town called Palm Islands on Great Palm Island and link across to it there. Speaking from experience there is always *something* to say about a town ... a quick look at the "usual sources" shows me that the town of Palm Islands has two schools, a post office, a supermarket, a jetty, a boat ramp, council buildings, a library (known as the Bwgcolman Indigenous Knowledge Centre), police station, ambulance station, wastewater treatment plant -- heaps of things to say about this town!

Finally to come back to where I started. The island group article Palm Islands (Queensland) doesn't exist but I think it can be trivially redirected to the locality article Palm Island, Queensland as the two encompass the same set of islands and the sea around and between them. Just for completeness.

I appreciate the interrelationships between these things are tricky to explain but there is no rule that it has to be explained in a single sentence. If it takes some paras, a list, a diagram, a map (you can use Open Street Map as a base -- it is CC-BY licenced) or whatever to explain it, then do it that way. If we locals can find it confusing, I am sure the rest of the world will be even more confused. My tip is to add in the necessary feature type whenever you have to talk about the things with the same/similar names. E.g. the town of Palm Islands is on the island Great Palm Island which is one of the however-many islands in the locality of Palm Island which is an administrative boundary that corresponds with the island group Palm Islands. And always link tht first use of locality. It may not make people less confused but at least it highlights that the term "locality" has an extremely precise meaning in Australia and people should disable their normal meaning for that term.

Finally if you get the Palm Islands figured out, feel free to go on and tackle the Torres Stait. Exactly the same problems of island groups, islands, towns, localities, with multiple local government areas between land and sea etc. It does my head in! Kerry (talk) 08:25, 19 April 2021 (UTC)


 * , thanks for your long explanation (and double groan!). I will come back to this when I have time and the fortitude to do so. I'll start with the easy bit - adding something about that town. What do you think of the idea of an additional DAB page? And yes, I have wandered into Torres Strait Islands a few times and backed out again quietly after adding my little bits... Laterthanyouthink (talk) 10:55, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
 * given the number of things with similar-ish names, it might be a useful navigation add for the reader. But I would put all the Qld articles together, including the riot etc Kerry (talk) 11:54, 19 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Hello and . You have outlined a significant amount of work and matters that require clarification in addition to disabiguation and consideration of what can be merged or not. The name of the Island, as you clarify, does cause reader confusion; however there is material on both pages that warrant a merge and material that is missing, along with the confusion about the Shire of Hinchinbrook and the locality of Palm Island. I am going to delist the article as GA and watch. I hope I can be of some help. When you are ready, the page (or newly merged page) can be resubmitted. Go well. --Whiteguru (talk) 03:11, 21 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks, . I'm not sure when I'll get back to attempting to sort out the whole mess, but I just started to have a look at various maps and locations in the main town on Great Palm Island., I can see that link Queensland Place Names Search calls the population centre Palm Islands (plural), but I have yet to see another source that does the same. Google Maps and all addresses seem to label the town Palm Island, and this Shire Council web page just refers to "the main town". Mind you all of the addresses just have Palm Island as the place, and although there are various clusters of houses and buildings, the tiny Reservoir Ridge (mentioned on that web page) seems to be only one with a name. I will create that redirect for Palm Islands (Queensland), just for completeness as you suggest, and write up something about the town, but I'm still not convinced about the naming as the plural form. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 06:27, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The Queensland Places Names database is authoritative (because the Qld Govt has the legislative authority to name Queensland places and nobody else does); the town is officially called "Palm Islands" until they say otherwise. This is not to say nobody ever made a mistake updating their database, and if you genuinely think there is a mistake, contact them and they will look into it and update it if they have it wrong. I note that Queensland Globe also calls it "Palm Islands". Google Maps is not authoritative. But there is not a problem to point out that it might be commonly called something else. The postcode will be for the locality. Kerry (talk) 04:31, 29 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi . I was actually just about to come and add some info that I got back from the Queensland Places Names people, having emailed them on Tuesday. This is their reply:
 * "I have investigated where the name Palm Islands came from and what the name refers to.


 * Apparently, the name Palm Islands refers to the Palm Islands Settlement which was a reserve (R.216, Res.925) gazetted in 1938 and then again in 1973 as a "Reserve for The Benefit of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of the State". The Reserve covers parts of Curacoa, Esk, Falcon, Eclipse, Brisk, Havannah and Great Palm Islands. Therefore, the name appears to relate to the whole settlement area which covers several islands within the Palm Islands Group of islands and not just a single isolated town.


 * I have added this information to our Place Names data as you suggested."


 * – In other words, what Palm Island Aboriginal Settlement refers to (and this article will need a bit of work to clarify this, I think), although the email doesn't mention the 1914 gazetting, so I'll follow up on this. However, although they say the info has been added and it's dated 28 April, I cannnot see any new data in the description for Palm Islands even after clearing my cache. Let me know what it looks like to you. There's also this citation, which I have used in my recent editing: "In fact the main town on Palm Island doesn't actually have a name. Some locals still refer to it as the Mission.", according to that journalist. I'll chip away at it until we get it reliably sourced with the true version... Laterthanyouthink (talk) 05:16, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * They reload the database at midnight, so you generally have to look the next day to see the change. But it is now the next day and I agree with you that what I see is "Last updated:28 April 2021", but nothing else seems to have changed. But what they have said isn't changing the name nor changing what they deem to the centre of the populated area (i.e. the coords), they are just saying it extends further than you might have expected. Normally I'd have expected to see some commentary to that effect in the comments though. By the way, this 1974 map shows what they are talking about (look at the text in the sea below Great Palm Island). So we can cite the map and, as it is CC-BY, we could upload it to Commons and include it. Kerry (talk) 05:30, 29 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Oh, that's a useful map, . I will get it uploaded and use it for both articles, when time permits. The Qld Archive record for the agency says: "Palm Island Aboriginal Settlement was gazetted as an Aboriginal reserve on 20 Jun 1914. ... The reserve was re-gazetted twice, in 1938 and in 1941, each time with the addition of a few surrounding smaller islands." - which goes some way to explaining perhaps why it was singular to start with and later became pluralised. I have written back to Place Names, so let's give it a day or two and see if anything further materialises there. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 05:52, 29 April 2021 (UTC)