Wikipedia:Australian Collaboration of the Fortnight/History/Archive 2004

Australian article collaborations in 2004.

Children overboard affair
Are we politically savvy enough to tackle this. Or tackle this NPOV?--ZayZayEM 14:12, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC) - Votes:
 * 1) ZayZayEM 14:12, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 2) Ta bu shi da yu 14:13, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 3) Ambi 07:27, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 4) Stormie 09:33, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)
 * 5) Shermozle 14:23, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)
 * 6) The bellman 02:25, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 7) Mark Hurd 06:03, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Comments:
 * Well, let's find out and put it to the test. - Ta bu shi da yu 14:13, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Our handling of Family First in the election article is testament to this. There's enough on this to be featureworthy, and it'd be considerably easier to find than information on Victor Chang. Ambi 07:27, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Happy to give it a go! &mdash;Stormie 09:33, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

ACOTW

ACOTW from October 17 to October 26 2004
 * 11 contributors made [22 edits]
 * The article increased from 320 words (2,292 bytes) to 495 words (3508 bytes) - 1.5 times longer
 * See how much it changed

Australian Council of Trade Unions
Barely a stub, and not one union in its membership is a blue link. A very important body in terms of aussie history. The bellman 12:51, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Votes
 * 1) The bellman 12:51, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 2) ZayZayEM 06:41, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 3) ShaneKing 06:55, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 4) Alphax 14:02, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)
 * 5) Ambi 05:37, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 6) clarkk 14:16, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

ACOTW

ACOTW from October 26 to November 3 2004
 * 4 contributors made 8 edits
 * The article increased from 480 words (3272 bytes) to 542 words (3683)
 * ACTU was a slightly different ACOTW, more work was put towards creating the necessary daughter articles. At the beginning, not one Australian trade union had an article; at the end of the ACTU's time in ACOTW – 9 articles had been created by the efforts of 7 editors
 * Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers Australia
 * Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union
 * Australian Education Union
 * Australian Institute of Marine and Power Engineers
 * Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association
 * Australian Manufacturing Workers Union
 * Australian Maritime Officers Union
 * National Tertiary Education Union
 * Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association
 * These 9 articles amounted to a total creation of 3543 words or 23855 bytes
 * Which is an average 440 words per article, almost 3000 bytes per article

Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia
A very important, and noble, part of Australia's historic and present healthcare service. Considering that the bush gets nowhere near the attention of the cities, I think we could really do something with this. T.P.K. 13:53, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Votes:
 * 1) Ambi 13:55, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 2) Ta bu shi da yu 00:05, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 3) ZZ 07:59, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 4) Aaron Hill 11:40, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)
 * 5) Mark 06:57, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 6) Alphax 14:02, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)
 * 7) Borofkin 00:06, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 8) NeoJustin 04:15, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Comments:
 * I strongly agree. And it'd be good if we could do John Flynn (and work out how to name the blasted article) in the same hit. Ambi 13:55, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * The current disambig is John Flynn (aviator). That seems an OK name to me. Note: there was an existing stub at Royal Flying Doctor Service, but I created the article at its proper name and redirected the existing, which didn't have anything special anyway. T.P.K. 14:19, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * It could be done really easily to featured, a really important part of Australian culture. - Aaron Hill 11:40, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)
 * This topic would make for a great featured article. - Mark 06:57, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

ACOTW

ACOTW from November 3 to November 15 2004
 * 5 contributors made 18 edits
 * The article increased from 364 words (2,422 bytes) to 1,457 words (9,217 bytes) &mdash; almost 4 times longer
 * See how much it changed

Port Arthur, Tasmania
It's a pretty cruddy article - just a brief overview. There's a lot more history needed, there's very little on the tourist side of things, and not a lot on the specific landmarks of the place. There's been so many books on this - I think it'd make for quite an interesting one. It could also work fairly well if converted to summary style, with the existing Port Arthur Massacre article forming one of them. Ambi 08:09, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Votes
 * 1) Ambi 08:09, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 2) ZayZayEM 02:54, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 3) T.P.K. 05:29, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 4) Alphax (talk) 02:10, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
 * 5) NeoJustin 04:16, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 6) Mark 07:07, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * 7) Chuq 03:09, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC) I'll try to get some photos of anything ZayZayEM doesn't have.

ACOTW ACOTW from November 15 to November 22 2004
 * 5 contributors made 25 edits
 * The article increased from 253 words (1,573 bytes) to 1,196 words (7,285 bytes) - 4.5 times longer
 * See how much it changed

Federal Government of Australia
This certainly needs to be A) created B) Feature article standard. (and lookee I spelled it right first go)--ZayZayEM 04:27, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Votes
 * 1) Alphax 14:02, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)
 * 2) T.P.K. 05:29, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 3) Ambi 05:37, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 4) NeoJustin 02:30, Oct 22, 2004
 * 5) Aaron Hill 02:41, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)
 * 6) Yu Ninjie 07:39, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * 7) ZayZayEM 04:53, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * 8) Martyman 05:00, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * 9) Borofkin 05:05, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Comments
 * Good work guys. This article no longer qualifies as it is no longer non-existent or even slightly stubb-ish.--ZayZayEM 05:49, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * I think it does still qualify. It may not be stubbish, but it's nowhere near feature-worthy, and still can't make up its mind if its about politics or government. Really, this does need a lot of work. Ambi 08:19, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Still I'd prefer to keep this for true stubs as per the intro segments. This would be a greater job for pages needing attention, as articles on all nations governments should be an interest of the greater wikipedian community. (I did add a notice first to see if anyone had a problem)--ZayZayEM 23:57, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * It is larger than several of our previous ACOTWs post-ACOTW. The aim of this project is to expand articles that are severely lacking of any content.--ZayZayEM 08:28, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * This article this redirects to is about the politics of Australia not the Government. There is mention of the public service which employs a majority of the people within the Australian Government. An article about the Australian Government still needs to be created. Martyman 00:05, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Restoring vote, I thought a new article had been created. It turns out they've just been moving back and forth. We need TWO separate ARTICLES.--ZayZayEM 04:53, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

ACOTW ACOTW from November 22 to November 29
 * 8 contributors made 26 edits]
 * The article increased from 900 words (6,090 bytes) to 1,782 words (11,783 bytes) - 1.9 times longer
 * See how much it changed

Australian Aboriginal art
Currently a non-existent section within art of australia. This is absolutly shocking, NEEDS to be fixed up, infact the whole art of Australia article could do with a bit of care as well, but that we have NOTHING on aboriginal art is just plain wrong. The bellman 03:20, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * 1) The bellman 03:23, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 2) ZZ 03:38, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC) I have no idea what Ambi means.
 * 3) Absolutely! (this is a vote) - Ta bu shi da yu 07:54, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 4) T.P.K. 05:29, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 5) [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (hopefully!)]] 18:10, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)
 * 6) clarkk 08:26, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Comments:
 * While our coverage of Aboriginal art is clearly awful, it isn't the easiest topic to write about. Ambi 03:31, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * I still think there is a wide variety from dot-paintings to cave/wall-art. As well as carvings. Could try and find some good photos. But I'm guessing our Indigenous Oz Wikipedian population is kind of low, which means research might have to be done before any article gets fleshed out.--ZZ 07:35, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Note to anyone who contributes to the article: can we make sure that we respect any Aboriginal customs if we do this. In particular I would be very careful over copyright in articles about art. If we upload an image, then we must get permission from the original artist or that artist's estate. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:23, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Note: there is also an article Australian Aboriginal art, though it is similarly lacking in content -- Chuq 08:01, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we should fixup the article Australian Aboriginal art and use wikipedia summary form in Art of Australia? - Ta bu shi da yu 08:18, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a good idea. The bellman 12:25, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well given the majority of the work on Australian art so far is mine (we basically didn't have *any* material on Australian art before I started work), a few comments:
 * I completely agree that this topic deserves proper coverage, it's really bad that it doesn't have any given that it's surely the oldest continuous art tradition in the world. It's just that I knew absolutely nothing about it so I simply didn't know where to start.  I'm glad some people want to work on it.
 * Have you guys noticed that the coverage of Australian art in general is still quite weak, and is not only white-centric, but male-centric, and oil-on-canvas-centric?
 * At the risk of starting a flame war. I'm a little bit ambivalent about the idea that we should treat indigenous art any differently as far as ownership of intellectual property rights goes.      In fact I'm distinctly unenthused about the idea.  To me it seems like a soft-pedal version of the idea that we should censor Wikipedia to satisfy specific cultural sensitivities.  When cultural sensitivity gets in the way of providing accurate and comprehensive information (and in the case of articles about art pictures of such art are surely an essential piece of information), bugger cultural sensitivity.  --Robert Merkel 14:48, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC) (putting a serious point in a rather trollish fashion...)
 * I agree. I think the idea may stem from the recent (5+ years ago) introduction of no pictures of Uluru laws. As far as I can see if they are selling such art to galleries, they obviously have no problem with its display.--ZayZayEM 05:36, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

ACOTW ACOTW from November 29 to December 6
 * 3 contributors made 14 edits
 * The article increased from 86 words (701 bytes) to 804 words (5,247 bytes) - 7.5 times longer
 * See how much it changed

Murray River
Just asking for ACOTW - there's *so* much to add. Exploration, the river trade and the paddle steamers, the ecological importance, the decline of the river, associated concerns, irrigation, the current tourism trade, etc. Ambi 08:09, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Votes
 * 1) Ambi 08:09, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 2) Alphax 14:02, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)
 * 3) T.P.K. 05:29, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 4) Oska 01:03, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC) (See note below)
 * 5) NeoJustin 04:18, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 6) clarkk 08:26, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * 7) The bellman 00:45, 2004 Nov 30 (UTC)

Comments
 * Yep, needs work. Be careful of the the Murrays in America though. Alphax 14:02, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)
 * A month or two ago Late Night Live ran a series of programs featuring the Murray River. Phillip Adams made a point of asking everyone he interviewed if they knew who the river was named after. Nearly no-one knew. I thought to look on Wikipedia and besides not finding the answer there I found the article to be shorter than I expected for Australia's major river. So I'm glad to see this article being nominated. BTW, I have already gone in and added the (boring) answer to who the river was named after. The interesting thing is that it was the river's second European name after Hume had earlier named it after himself. Oska 01:03, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)
 * Removed my vote. This article is not a stub--ZayZayEM 05:48, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * So? It's an article that needs a lot of work, is easily expandable, and would make a good featured article. We need projects that everyone can easily work on, and there's so many different angles with this one that it's perfect. Ambi 08:19, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * I agree with Ambi. I think the directive to only nominate stubs is a bit useless. I think it should be something more like: Nominate articles of significant Australian importance which could be much more complete. I think this article certainly qualifies. Oska 04:21, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)
 * I'm more flexible here than with Government. But the stub directive does slightly ensure that articles are being created through collaboration rather than moderately edited. You are supposed to edit articles in Wikipedia, don't wait for it to become ACOTW, just do it.--ZayZayEM 23:57, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Sure - and now I'm on holidays, I will. If this becomes ACOTW, you have my word that I'll lead the work on it. I've also outlined a potential article layout on the talk page. This topic is large enough that I don't think it's entirely unfeasible to not only get this featured, but to get some of it's (will-be) summary style subpages featured. Ambi 08:47, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * I've cancelled my vote as I have a busy month ahead and if this gets up I won't have time to collaborate and I don't feel comfortable voting for something I can't work on. I still strongly support it as a worthwhile collaboration though. Oska 09:04, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)