Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sydney/Archive 3

Possible source for CityRail information
I recently did a quick search on Google for possible sources and came across a few references to A Compendium of CityRail Travel Statistics published by RailCorp. If someone could get a copy, then it could be a valuable source. Harryboyles 06:51, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Peer review of Attack on Sydney Harbour
I've just started a peer review for the Attack on Sydney Harbour article, at WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Attack on Sydney Harbour. As this falls under the grounds of WikiProject Sydney, I'm requesting that members of this group come forward and find the flaws in the article before it makes a run for A-class review, and hopefully Featured article candidates. -- saberwyn 06:30, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Attack on Sydney Harbour FAC
Attack on Sydney Harbour is currently up for Featured Article Candidature. I would appreciate it if memners of WikiProject Sydney could come forward and make their thoughts known in this discussion. -- saberwyn 01:23, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

CityRail
Apologies if this is in the wrong place. A discussion has opened at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains over the formatting and presentation of succession templates on CityRail articles. Best, Mackensen (talk) 01:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Remember that giant hailstorm in 1999?
The one which caused $1.7 billion damage? If anyone has any photos they could upload, that'd be great. Government agencies can't give me much, unfortunately. If you could upload any form of photo of this event or the aftermath, I'd be extremely grateful. Cheers,  Daniel  11:49, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Today's Featured Article (Main Page - October 2)
Eastern Suburbs & Illawarra railway line, Sydney is the featured main page article today. The first Sydney article I believe to be featured there. Well done everyone. JRG 03:40, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Anyone live in the Inner West?
Sardaka, J Bar and some others have been compiling some heritage photos of suburbs around Sydney. Can someone take a photo of Llangollen House in Summer Hill? It's at 52 Grosvenor Crescent near Summer Hill station (the hospital site). I believe it's going to get demolished soon, and while it's in a bit of a dilapidated state at present, it's better that we get a photo now than not at all. While someone is at it, a photo of Grosvenor Hospital (the former mansion Carleton which is mentioned in teh Summer Hill article) and some of the mansions on Victoria St, Ashfield, opposite Trinity Grammar School, would be helpful too. There's a heritage page at Ashfield Council with some helpful files on different houses in the area. Any help would be much appreciated. JRG 08:43, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

How soon is it being demolished? For me the problem in getting a photo is not geographical proximity, but access to a camera. If it's urgent, I could try to arrange something. Bruiseviolet (talk) 05:59, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Fairly soon, I gather - they have been assembling construction buildings in the old driveway. JRG (talk) 05:39, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Peer review of Presbyterian Ladies' College, Sydney
I've started a peer review for the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Sydney article (it can be found here). The article was promoted to GA in November and I feel it could potentially be a FA, but im not sure what else needs to be done to it before I take it to FAC. I would appreciate any suggestions. Loopla (talk) 06:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

List
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Government_schools_in_New_South_Wales has been noticed and is being discussed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Australian_Wikipedians%27_notice_board - cheers SatuSuro 00:53, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme
As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.
 * The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
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Tourism Sydney
I think this one is better than a C class. You might want to have it upgraded. Also, why is this 'Tourism' which I thought would be better suited to the tourism industry - hotels, govt support, marketing etc. Shouldn't it be Travel or Visitor information? Mdw0 (talk) 08:13, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Sydney
Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Release Version Nominations.

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 * It's a pity that two rugby league teams (Sydney Roosters, South Sydney Rabbitohs) are included but no other football codes. Is it possible to tweak the numbers so that Sydney Swans is included; they are just below the present cutoff . WWGB (talk) 06:37, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Drains, Bunkers and Tunnels
There have been a number of photos loaded into Sydney suburb articles recently by and editor who has an interest in drains bunkers and tunnels. I think that there is sometimes a good reason to have these sorts of photos if the structure really is a well-known feature of the suburb but I am concerened that we will end up with a lot of photos of items which are not really landmark structures in those suburbs. The Macquarie Park, New South Wales is the latest article which has had 2 large photos of drains loaded in the article. I am keen to hear from other Sydney project contributors because I don't want to get caught up in an edit war with one editor who insists on including these photos in a prominent position. J Bar (talk) 08:53, 5 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The site referenced on that page is essentially a blog for urban explorers in Canada who happened to do a trip inside the drain. It is not a notable source that can verify the notability of the drain. You are well within your rights to delete it; it's also not mentioned in the article so it's not directly relevant to anything in the text. At best it should be in a gallery and much more preferably not at all (put it in Commons for people to have a look at there). JRG (talk) 04:34, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Introduction to suburbs
I have recently made some additions to the page Wallacia, New South Wales. Here is the history of some recent changes to the intro:


 * Wallacia is a satellite suburb former village of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Wallacia is located 68 kilometres (36 miles) west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government areas of the City of Penrith and Wollondilly Shire Council. It is part of the Greater Western Sydney region. (not my edit)


 * Wallacia is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Wallacia is located 68 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government areas of the City of Penrith and Wollondilly Shire Council. It is part of the Greater Western Sydney region. (Note that its character as a village, its location on the Nepean, and the distance in miles have been removed, as per standardisation by the Sydney Project Team or so I have been informed)


 * Wallacia is a village on the Western perimeter of Sydney region, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Wallacia is located on the Nepean River, 68 kilometres (36 miles) west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government areas of the City of Penrith and Wollondilly Shire Council. It is part of the Greater Western Sydney region. (my edit.)


 * Wallacia is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Wallacia is located 68 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government areas of the City of Penrith and Wollondilly Shire Council. It is part of the Greater Western Sydney region. (edit by user:J Bar) (Note that Wallacia's character as a village, its location on the Nepean, and the distance in miles have been removed, as per standardisation by the Sydney Project Team or so I have been informed)

User:J Bar has informed me:


 * that Walllacia is now a officially a suburb of Sydney.
 * that as a suburb of Sydney, the article now comes under the jurisdiction of the Sydney Project Team
 * That the team have standardised the intro to all Sydney suburbs.
 * and in practice, rather than by explanation, J Bar has removed anything that might define the suburb in any way, such as its location on the river, out of the intro and into the body of the article.

If this is the intention of your team, as policed by J:Bar, then as a long-time Sydneysider, I have a few comments to make.


 * It is a fine thing to make a decision as to the essential and absolute minimum information that an introduction should contain.
 * It is fine to police articles about Sydney suburbs in order to make sure that they state that they are a Sydney suburb, that they are located a certain distance from the CBD and that they are in a particular region.
 * It is not fine, not in the spirit of Wikipedia, and certainly not in the best interests of creating and encyclopedia to remove all the distinguishing characterists of the place from its introduction.
 * While we are contributing to an international encyclopedia in a world in which many English-speakers still use miles, and many elderly Australians (of whom I am one) are still more comfortable with miles, then the repeated deletion of the bracketted distance in miles shows an extraordinary insularity. How dare you be so rude in an encyclopedia where every English and US town gives its location in both miles and kilometres? This is the sort of behaviour that makes the world think of Sydneysiders as ignorant and provincial!

You have volunteered as "decision makers" on this subject of Sydney suburbs. However, if there appears to be a considerable feeling that the enforced decisions are wrong (as there is in the case of Wallacia) then you need to review what you are seeking to enforce. Enforcement might seem to be an unpleasant word, but this is what is happening.

Let me explain the nature of a Wikipedia article introduction to you, because, if J Bar's actions demonstrate your policies, then you, the team, have misunderstood.
 * The intro should give those details which are essential knowledge: what the thing is, and in the case of a place where it is. You are seeking to do this.
 * An intro also introduces. It summarises the important information that is contained in the body of the text. A fact that has been of great importance in the founding and sustaining of a town, eg its location on a river (Wallacia), or its function as a port (Newcastle), or its stategic nature (Gibraltar), or its great specific significance (the Arts in the case of Florence) is also something that needs to go into the first or second sentence.
 * Some other historical information might also be highly relevant to the first paragraph, eg Windsor was proclaimed a town in 1810 by Governor Macquarie or Chester was founded as a fortified town by the Romans or Agra is the location of the Taj Mahal.
 * Many articles about towns and villages are mere stubs. In such a case, it's better to have an intro that properly introduces the place than a series of little points under great big headings. In such a case, the intro serves to lead other editors to think about the directions in which the article might well be expanded.

I hope that this is useful to you in developing an improved strategy for the introduction of Sydney's suburbs.

Amandajm (talk) 01:15, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

What constitutes the history of a suburb?
...and who decides? I refer to a recent edit and deletion at Wallacia, New South Wales, but in the presumption that the same "rules" are being applied elsewhere.


 * User:Mifren added information about the weir, Grove Farm and the Post Office, and the families associated with these places, the Baines, the Coxes and the Fowlers.
 * This information was deleted by User:Yeti Hunter as being inappropriate, and as representing purely "family history".
 * I must comment here that the Baines, the Coxes and the Fowlers are three discrete families. While they could all be part of this person's family history, I don't know of any familial association between these three families in the last 100 years, but perhaps I have missed out on some gossip.
 * It is overbearing in the extreme to remove from an article about a small village, the names of those people who made the village what is was and is today. The contribution of "Billie" Baines and various members of the Fowler family cannot be underestimated in the history of the village.

The point here is that the history of any place is the history of its people. You can't write a history of Florence and leave out the Medici. Likewise, you can't write a history of Wallacia and leave out the family who were at the hub of all communication within the village and with the world outside for about 80 years, who sent Wallacia's only soldier to WWI, who had the church brought to Wallacia and whose riding school was for about fifty years one of the major tourist attractions, and one of whose members became the mayor of Penrith and his son, the mayor of South Sydney.

In case you are wondering, I'm not a Fowler, nor a Baines etc etc etc. I was a mere "incomer".

Amandajm (talk) 02:48, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Milestone Announcements
I thought this WikiProject might be interested. Ping me with any specific queries or leave them on the page linked to above. Thanks! - Jarry1250 (t, c) 22:22, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group
Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. &mdash; Delievered by §hepBot  ( Disable )  on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 06:41, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Assessment needed for Davidson High School (New South Wales)
Is currently marked as unknown and assesments from other projects could help attain a more fitting rating for this article. Thanks Stravin (talk) 11:57, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Photo request
Hi! I posted a photo request for the Qantas headquarters in Mascot, NSW. WhisperToMe (talk) 07:01, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * As a note, here are map images of two of the buildings so one knows which ones are needed:
 * Qantas Building A
 * Qantas Building C
 * Building A is definitely needed. One may get other buildings if he or she wants to. There's another Qantas building indicated in this photo here, but I don't know which one it is.
 * WhisperToMe (talk) 18:43, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Dictionary of Sydney
Hi all. As you may or may not know, I've been working on a project for the last couple of years called the Dictionary of Sydney. Effectively, it's the official encyclopedia of Sydney's history (not just the city, but the whole basin). I'm no longer working there but I've obviously got a big CoI - nevertheless, I want to tell you about it since it has just launched a few weeks ago. Unlike Wikipedia, it differentiates between the "record" page (which gives stats, photo gallery, dates...) and the article page. For suburb pages there are also demongraphic statistics. The essays are all original research by noted scholars of that particular topic and - I worked hard to get this bit - the vast majority of essays are cc-by-sa! Here is a list of all of the "entries" (their term for "articles"). http://www.dictionaryofsydney.org/browse/entries Also, here is my effort at including an external link to our article Surry Hills, New South Wales: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Surry_Hills%2C_New_South_Wales&action=historysubmit&diff=330874971&oldid=330765573

So, as the Dictionary of Sydney grows I would hope that we can incorporate some of its text into WP, but for the moment, what do you think about adding external links to many of the articles? I would say that especially the Suburb articles are worth it as this is the official history of the area and a perfect verifiable source. As you can see in the above diff, I propose the link be in the format: Reference, demographics and (cc-by-sa) essay at the Dictionary of Sydney (where the italic words are the external links). What do you think? Don't hesitate to ask me questions about the Dictionary or about this suggestion.

Best, Witty Lama 13:59, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I've now blogged about this here. Witty Lama 10:30, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement
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