Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Oceania

Bot requests
I think it might be possible to call for having a bot replace the various Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia banners with the Oceania banner at the above page. It might take a while, particularly for articles relevant to more than one of those groups, but it would also probably help draw attention to this group and to maybe get a few more people involved. John Carter (talk) 19:19, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Why would you do that? Melanesia/Micronesia/Polynesia projects still exist. Replacement with this banner is effectively declaring war on those wikiprojects. You're immediately orphaning their articles. And they're the more specific project, so they should be the ones tagged for most articles. Adding Oceania banner is fine, replacing their banners requires their consent. (It's been discussed at WP:COUNCIL multiple times about various wikiprojects warring with others) -- 65.92.182.123 (talk) 04:05, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * For a start - nothing to do with a war between projects. It is for a start about understanding about project tagging, and category architecture.

If, the actual projects are still sufficientlyactive, there is one way of reading the problem of where in the past - before the Oceania project existed - considerable number of topics/templates/categories - because they were oceania wide - had been incorporated into the various stages of the melanesia and other 'esia' projects as there had been unevenly spread over the oceania region.

As it now stands there is the 'umbrella' project for the whole region - in the same way that the WP:Asia project works - where there are topics/templates/categories/articles that deal with the whole region - they by default can be now attiributed to the wp oceania project. Where items relate to smaller parts of the region such as Australia or other sub components of the larger project - they default to that wikiproject...

My 'reading' of John Carters proposal for the earlier projects that had covered parts of oceania, or the various 'esias' I see as an honest attempt for uniformity. Nothing to do with anything to do with 'war' between the sub projects. A careful examination of what topics the various projects and some earlier forms might have taken may well have covered the islands of the pacific in various ways, I see the proposal as a way of trying to provide a uniform 'umbrella approach'. If in fact current active participants in the various 'esia' projects are able to be careful to re-appraise scope and the various component parts of the oceania region - there may well be reason to re-examine what constitutes each separate sub project - rather than assume there is any intention for 'war'. That is an unfortunate reading. Oceania project was created to create a uniform approach to larger regions similar to what WP:Asia and larger projects - to have a project management capacity for the larger region and the component projects that fit into the larger region. It makes sense for assessment, for tagging of templates and categories, and ultimately with sufficient work - will make sure that orphaned and 'miscellaneous' topics, templates and categories have a 'place' within one or other of the larger projects that encompass their grosser larger regions - in other words the 'capture' makes it a much more manageable approach to smaller regions and subjects that otherwise 'dont seem to belong anywhere'. sats 08:36, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, there was not ever any intention of "declaring war" as the IP put it. It would also be noted that the Oceania banner specifically incorporates assessment criteria for the other projects, and subprojects, like WikiProject Tuvalu, so that all the assessment data would still be available. And, yeah, like SatuSuro says above, a lot of content relating to Oceania falls within the scope of more than one of the three "regional" projects, and lord knows how many national projects, so if nothing else it might reduce the banner clutter on the article talk pages, which itself might be beneficial if by those doing we might be able to remove the banner box and allow the comparatively few extant banners to be seen more clearly. John Carter (talk) 14:46, 8 September 2013 (UTC)


 * The description given is to replace their banners. This created "wars" at various other wikiprojects that tried this before (if you look at the talk archives of the Council or WPUSA, you'll see what I mean) Replacing a wikiproject's banners with another one's typically causes friction between wikiprojects, if they aren't asked (which I note, did not occur, as I visited the various wikiprojects involved). While the categories and assessments will be carried on, the discussions I have observed in the past resulted in large arguments about the act and consultation process. As for the analogous WPASIA, that doesn't actually sign on the various other projects, it just serves as an umbrella, and signs on to multiregional topics. The various country projects are either signed on individually, or as part of the regional wikiproject (ie. WPSouthEastAsia). I've seen the flamewars that happened at WPUSA when the various US banners were merged together into the WPUSA banner, and it wasn't all that pleasant. This is what I mean by "declaring war". People will get vexed by not having been consulted. Even when consulted, other people will be vexed at being subsumed into someone else's banner. It's better just to plaster an unmissable message at all the subprojects involved, than to forge ahead without asking them for input. -- 70.24.244.158 (talk) 12:46, 11 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Incidentally, just to say this specifically, I support the existence of a WPOCEANIA. I like coordination and umbrella projects, such as WPASIA.
 * Also, an automated transfer of templates from the existing 3-nesia ones to Oceania would not work, as they would all sign up for Micronesia, Polynesia, Melanesia, because of the current bannering situation, but I rather think that many subjects for which they are bannered may just fall within the local/country project, and not need the regional one as well. -- 70.24.244.158 (talk) 12:57, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

FYI, you may be interested in this discussion, about a merged banner and coverage area. -- 70.24.244.158 (talk) 12:46, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Countries and territories bordering the Indian Ocean
has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 11:08, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

oceanic topic
The usage of is under discussion, see template talk:oceanic topic -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 14:43, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

"Draft" rating
I suggest that this wikiproject implement the new "Draft"-class and categorize into Category: Draft-Class Oceania articles‎, for pages in the WP:Drafts namespace that was recently initiated. This would allow tracking of articles related to this wikiproject that are in draft form, which members of this wikiproject may wish to improve and move into the mainspace. -- 76.65.128.112 (talk) 23:50, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

New Pitcairn mayor - BLP issues
Shawn Christian was elected mayor of Pitcairn in November. Can anyone confirm whether this the same Shawn Christian from the Pitcairn sexual assault trial of 2004, as I don't want to expand the biography to cover that unless I'm sure it's him. There is almost no media coverage of the election - the only thing I can find that suggests it is the same person (apart from the fact that there aren't many people on the island likely to have the same name when the population is <50) is a tweet from the losing candidate claiming the result could be a "media nightmare" for the island. Number  5  7  23:34, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
 * According to, the mayor's full name is Shawn Brent Christian. This is the same name as in the trial.- gadfium 03:38, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * So are we ok to assume it's the same person? Number   5  7  18:07, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I think we can be sure it is the same person, but what we actually say in the article will need impeccable sourcing.- gadfium 19:23, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * should be a suitable source.- gadfium 19:37, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * See what you think of what I've added. Thanks for your help too. Number   5  7  20:50, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Looks good.- gadfium 22:16, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Pride 2014
You are invited to participate in Wiki Loves Pride 2014, a campaign to create and improve LGBT-related content at Wikipedia and its sister projects. The campaign will take place throughout the month of June, culminating with a multinational edit-a-thon on June 21. Meetups are being held in some cities, or you can participate remotely. All constructive edits are welcome in order to contribute to Wikipedia's mission of providing quality, accurate information. Articles within Category:LGBT in Oceania may be of particular interest. You can also upload LGBT-related images by participating in Wikimedia Commons' LGBT-related photo challenge. You are encouraged to share the results of your work here. Happy editing! -- Another Believer ( Talk ) 20:24, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Which picture should be used for the lead image of Kamehameha I?
Please feel free to comment on an active dispute on Talk:Kamehameha I/Archive 1.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 06:52, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

3,500+ AusAID photos now available for usage on content
Hi all, after my request the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade have kindly relicenced their Flickr stream to CC-BY. There are now over 3,500 images on Commons available and these are available at C:Category:Photographs from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Flickr stream. Please make full use of these images in content. Cheers, 222.155.158.114 (talk) 09:53, 27 June 2014 (UTC) (User:Russavia)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal
Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!


Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

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Harej (talk) 16:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Melanesia
has been nominated for deletion -- 70.51.200.101 (talk) 06:14, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Federated States of Micronesia listed at Requested moves
A requested move discussion has been initiated for Federated States of Micronesia to be moved to Micronesia. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 01:44, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
 * To opt out of RM notifications on this page, transclude, or set up Article alerts for this WikiProject.

Samoa listed at Requested moves
A requested move discussion has been initiated for Samoa to be moved to Independent State of Samoa. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 21:29, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * To opt out of RM notifications on this page, transclude, or set up Article alerts for this WikiProject.

Missing topics list
I have created (or to be exact, separated from other page) list of missing topics related to Oceania - Skysmith (talk) 20:23, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Popular pages report
We – Community Tech – are happy to announce that the Popular pages bot is back up-and-running (after a one year hiatus)! You're receiving this message because your WikiProject or task force is signed up to receive the popular pages report. Every month, will post at /Popular pages with a list of the most-viewed pages over the previous month that are within the scope of. We've made some enhancements to the original report. Here's what's new:
 * The pageview data includes both desktop and mobile data.
 * The report will include a link to the pageviews tool for each article, to dig deeper into any surprises or anomalies.
 * The report will include the total pageviews for the entire project (including redirects).

We're grateful to for his original, and we wish his bot a happy robot retirement. Just as before, we hope the popular pages reports will aid you in understanding the reach of, and what articles may be deserving of more attention. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at m:User talk:Community Tech bot.

Warm regards, the Community Tech Team 17:16, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Input needed
Please weigh in here. Thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 11:49, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Expert attention
This is a notice about Category:Oceania articles needing expert attention, which might be of interest to your WikiProject. It will take a while before the category is populated. There might be as few as one page in the category, or zero if someone has removed the expert request tag from the page. &thinsp;&mdash; Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)&thinsp; 03:14, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject
The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.

Portals are being redesigned.

The new design features are being applied to existing portals.

At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template Transclude lead excerpt.

The discussion about this can be found here.

Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.

Background
On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.

There's an article in the current edition of the Signpost interviewing project members about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals.

So far, 84 editors have joined.

If you would like to keep abreast of what is happening with portals, see the newsletter archive.

If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page.

Thank you. &mdash; The Transhumanist  07:50, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Australo-Melanesian
I've just come across Australo-Melanesian which has been moved from Australoid race unilaterally and has seen a significant rewrite. I don't pretend to have strong views on the subject, but it feels wrong to be moving such a major article without consensus, and I can imagine that there's probably an article to be had on the historical aspects of "Australoid" regardless of modern terminology. Le Deluge (talk) 18:12, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!
A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.
 * – Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:New Caledonia for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:New Caledonia is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:New Caledonia until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 06:39, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

MfD nomination of Portal:Kiribati
Portal:Kiribati, a page which you created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Kiribati and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes ( ~ ). You are free to edit the content of Portal:Kiribati during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:27, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool
Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

50,000 Destubbing Challenge Focus of the Week
Hello there. This is an invitation to join the 50,000 Destubbing Challenge Focus of the Week. £250 (c. $310) is being given away in May, June and July with £20 worth of prizes to give away every week for most articles destubbed. Each week there is a different region of focus, including the last week dedicated to Oceania, though half the prize will still be rewarded for articles on any subject. There's a potential £120 to be won in total for destubbing on any subject or region of your choice. Sign up if you want to contribute at least one of the weeks or support the idea! † Encyclopædius  12:04, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

WP:Articles for Creation has a new sort tool, you can see all pending relevant drafts here: AfC sorting/Geography/Regions/Oceania
Just in case there are folks here who might be interested in reviewing drafts awaiting article status that are particular to this WikiProject. MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:21, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Category:Oceania articles needing expert attention has been nominated for discussion
Category:Oceania articles needing expert attention has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Peaceray (talk) 21:21, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (New Zealand) has an RFC
Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (New Zealand) has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 09:32, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Discussion regarding GEONet Names Server (GNS) at RSN
See here. Site is used as a source in about 43,000 articles related to various geographical locations world-wide, including in Oceania. FOARP (talk) 09:45, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Australia (continent)
There is a discussion at Talk:Australia (continent) which may be of interest to members. BilCat (talk) 01:04, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

User script to detect unreliable sources
I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. Some of you may already be familiar with it, given it is currently the 39th most imported script on Wikipedia. The idea is that it takes something like and turns it into something like
 * John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.
 * John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.

It will work on a variety of links, including those from cite web, cite journal and doi.

The script is mostly based on WP:RSPSOURCES, WP:NPPSG and WP:CITEWATCH and a good dose of common sense. I'm always expanding coverage and tweaking the script's logic, so general feedback and suggestions to expand coverage to other unreliable sources are always welcomed.

Do note that this is not a script to be mindlessly used, and several caveats apply. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.

- &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b}

This is a one time notice and can't be unsubscribed from. Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:02, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Hyphens or slashes for LLG names in PNG?
Should we change all hyphens to slashes for names for Papua New Guinean LLGs, such as Bewani/Wutung Onei Rural LLG instead of Bewani-Wutung Onei Rural LLG? Slashes are more commonly used by the PNG government, but sometimes hyphens are also used. — Sago tree spirit  (talk) 15:29, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I have just changed the hyphens to slashes. — Sago tree spirit  (talk) 11:00, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Japanese government-issued Philippine peso
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Japanese government-issued Philippine peso that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. — hueman1 ( talk •  contributions ) 01:01, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Project-independent quality assessments
Quality assessments by Wikipedia editors rate articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a class parameter to WikiProject banner shell, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to WikiProject banner shell, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project has decided to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass WPBannerMeta a new custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 19:29, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Hannah Kihalani Springer
A deletion discussion is taking place that might be of interest to members of this project. (talk) 17:02, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Women in Green's 5th Edit-a-thon
 Hello WikiProject Oceania:

WikiProject Women in Green is holding a  month-long Good Article Edit-a-thon event in October 2023!

Running from October 1 to 31, 2023, WikiProject Women in Green (WiG) is hosting a Good Article (GA) edit-a-thon event with the theme Around the World in 31 Days! All experience levels welcome. Never worked on a GA project before? We'll teach you how to get started. Or maybe you're an old hand at GAs – we'd love to have you involved! Participants are invited to work on nominating and/or reviewing GA submissions related to women and women's works (e.g., books, films) during the event period. We hope to collectively cover article subjects from at least 31 countries (or broader international articles) by month's end. GA resources and one-on-one support will be provided by experienced GA editors, and participants will have the opportunity to earn a special WiG barnstar for their efforts.

We hope to see you there! Grnrchst (talk) 14:05, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Draft article for the Climate of Oceania
Hi there. I recently worked on some of Wikipedia's articles for "Climate of..." various continents. I was surprised there isn't an article for Climate of Oceania, but rather one for a lot of the various islands. I think it's a worthy article, and I hope you do too, since it would be a lot to do on my own. I have posted about this on the talk page for the weather WikiProject as well. See Draft:Climate of Oceania. Thanks. ♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 00:34, 26 February 2024 (UTC)