User:GarrieIrons/All Westfields are the same

Hey, it's why we go there and why they are successful. It's called the cookie-cutter approach: find something that works, and do it. Again. And again....

Currently there are BIG lists of Westfields articles, all in Australia. All of these articles, state facts which when inserted into the article, seem to be true. Such as: Westfields Bourke has a floor area of 20,128 m2 and 256 stores. This includes several McDonalds and a Woolworths.

But what about six months later when there is a law suite between Westfields and McDonalds resulting in every McDonalds located inside a Westfields to sell their space to Burger King? EVERY article is wrong overnight and it is a long time before they are fixed. And every one of them will cover in a varying degree, the same lawsuit.

All we need is ONE article. If you want to list some facts about your local, go ahead. If you want to put a section for your local, in the suburb page it is located in, go ahead. But we don't really need one article for each Westfield in Australia do we?


 * Garrie, I agree with your merge suggestion but don't like the article title Westfields in Australia. It really should be Westfield shopping centres in Australia.  -- I@n 05:48, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Good call I@n, and that is actually constructive! Garrie 02:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Garrie, I disagree with your merge suggestion. I quite like having seperate Westfields for added detail. If there is only one article on all the Westfields, it would be huge. It is much better having them seperate. --- Whats new? 06:19, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * have you looked at my proposed article *Westfields in Australia? I don't think it would be much bigger than say Sydney. And if Australia is too big a scope - why not hive off the information that makes it too big into sub articles which don't repeat each other, they simply provide the unique information for smaller regions (New South Wales, Sydney, etc).
 * The one which deserves an article is the first Westfields, at Blacktown, New South Wales. Fair enough they sold it and it became Westpoint Blacktown - but it was the one that got them started in malls / shopping centres.Garrie


 * I think this article might be duplicating existing information. There's already an article at The Westfield Group that lists all their locations in Australia. Also worth noting is that Westfields don't have a monopoly on cookie cutter shopping centres. Practically every shopping centre in Australia follows the same template. Maybe a more generic Shopping centres in Australia article, describing the basic details of these shopping centres would be more appropriate? Of course the hard part for a generic article would be avoiding original research. As for specific shopping centres, my opinion is that specific details on individual shopping centres are best included within the suburb's article (for example Chatswood, New South Wales) rather than anywhere else. --Mako 06:22, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Personally I agree with you. But when the articles go up for AFD they get knocked back because "there are a lot of other ones like it" (see Articles for deletion/Macarthur Square, that place is a LOT less notable than Westfield Chatswood! ) I think there would be more opportunity to merge them, taking into consideration the opinions of editors like User:Whats new?.
 * Additionally, The Westfield Group is simply a list. I would like to provide an article to show that Westfield does in fact do a very thorough job of providing shopping centres in Australia - based on the retail experience (ie facilities such as accessability, parenting facilities, range of outlets, one-stop experience etc). The scale of this approach is rare if not unique in the Australian eastern seaboard environment.

At some point there will be a straw poll - merge-multiple template has been added to all articles pointing to Talk:Westfields in Australia. Name can easily be changed if that is a consensus opinion. It has been suggested that something similar may be done for Wagga Marketplace which in itself is also NN but in conjunction with other "xxx Marketplaces" locations (at least 3 listed on company website) it becomes worth writing an article about. And the Marketplace approach is different to the Westfields approach. There are a number of franchises that have exclusive deals with Westfields. For other reasons, Westfields is a notable chain of shopping centres compared to the sloppy standards set by a lot of their competitors (hence their continued expansion I guess).

--Garrie 00:57, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * After some thought about my listing of some Sydney bus route articles for deletion, I've reaslied that one thing that an article such as this would need is insight into Westfield centres. Knowledge such as the history of how they've developed (eg many were originally built in the 80s and then entirely requilt in the 90s or 00s), their importance to their local community, their importance to retail trade in Australia, concerns about their size (and dependance on cars) and similar topics. In short, what makes them notable. This would of course need to be referenced, and not original research. Simply making a directory of all the individual Westfield shopping centres offers no more insight than can be gained from the existing articles, it's just relisting the same stuff that is available at www.westfield.com.--Mako 22:40, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Support concept of one article - I think one generic article rather than lots of separate ones is much more interesting and encyclopaedic.--A Y Arktos\talk 22:11, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep Seperate - I like the extended detail on each Westfield, and if all Westfields are merged into one article, this detail will be lost. Even if some details about each unique Westfield are kept in one article, it will be really, really, really long. I like the information on what bus services, carparking and where the major shops are located in each indiviual article, which can't be kept in a combined article. Do not delete. -- Whats new? 09:27, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Crime Against Humanity
I personally have no problems to regard listing each individual Westfield as a Crime Against Humanity. braindeadness'' is also a term that comes to mind. Nobody in possession of their full set of faculties would consider individual entries worthwhile.

Mind you, a complete sortable table indicating sq.metres, shop numbers and a fes other basic data plus footnote capeabilities for extraordinaruies, such as "does not have a sussan" might be fun.

Else, I hope the whole exercise is carried out by the marketing dept. of Westfield on their expense. If not, anybody with sufficient brains to tell a teh from a the and fiddling with individual Westfield entries is wasting his time here.

Proper suburban Trainspotting should be an alternative pastime for them. Oh, that's too sporting! Outdoors, too boot! Try playing the "I spy" game with yourself. It's not half as braindead.

Oalexander-En 18:04, 6 April 2007 (UTC)