Portal talk:Australia

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Contents 1 Index 2 Archives 3 On this day section 3.1 A different proposal 3.2 Big dates 3.3 Images 4 Links at the top: categories instead of portals 5 Selected article suggestions 6 Eek, redlinks 7 50,000 years

[edit] Index

• Portal:Australia/Index

[edit] Archives

• Archive 1

[edit] On this day section

I've started a set of subpages at Portal:Australia/Anniversaries, which has a subpage for every day of the year, so that notable events and anniversaries in Australian history can be considered. Hopefully, if approved by the community for inclusion on the portal page, it would not be hard to maintain, as a glance at the code of Portal:Germany, shows that there is an automated device so that the reference to the relevant day's subpage will automatically update itself at 0:00 every day. I've stuck a few random notable events in there just off the top of my head, etc. Regards, Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 02:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I suggest that the set of pages needs to be nearly complete before the portal starts displaying them. Otherwise we'll get unsightly red links on the portal page. It would be a lot of work to complete these pages, and I'm not sure the benefits would be worth while.-gadfium 02:58, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh, of course, but in time I think we could rummage together at least three or four anniversaries per day. It's just like the main page, and I think there could be more Australia content than German content on the English Wikipedia. Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 03:01, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• I think the proposal is good. I was thinking of it already, but not sure how to implement in the context of the years in Australia pages, which are of course an easy source of events. I would like to see the links back to those years too, eg for July 11 1916 being Gough's bithday, don't link to 1916 but instead 1916 in Australia, though piped to 1916, ie [[1916 in Australia|1916]]--A Y Arktos\^talk 03:12, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
  • • I think they (the German portal) just trawled through the data manually, unless someone creates June 8 in Australia, which would have the exact same effect anyway.
  • Could the update be UTC - 10 hours - ie midnight AEST? :-)--A Y Arktos\^talk 03:14, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
    • I think so, there is a template that works out the day, with an offset of days, I don't think it would be difficult for the people who write these templates to create one with a deliberate time offset and then convert to days and months. I don't know what the WP policy is w.r.t changing the clock for regional portals not on GMT however.Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 03:20, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I like the proposal, though it would need to be completed before inclusion on the portal as either a new feature or replacement for DYK.--cj | talk 03:34, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Im all for this proposal and would be glad to help with finding notable historical events. michael ^talk 04:59, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• three or four events per day is 1,000 events. I have made a bit of a start but there is a lot more to do! You can check what has been added by using the recent changes link at Portal:Australia/Anniversaries - ie [1] --A Y Arktos\^talk 22:31, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

• Do we want pictures? The German Portal does have them.--A Y Arktos\^talk 22:33, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

• Since we are drawing from a smaller pool of articles than Wikipedia, it might be a good idea to include notable births and/or deaths, and important cultural works - like the publication date for books etc. I've also got to say, I don't really see a great problem with having red links on a portal - red links often prompt people to write articles.--Peta 23:42, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

• • I also have no problem with red links. If using years in Australia for the date (which is my preference), there will be red links and these definitley deserve an article, 1916 in Australia, 1868 in Australia and [[1916 in Australia are all redlinked at the moment, they each have interesting events happening in them--A Y Arktos\^talk 00:18, 25 May 2006 (UTC).

• • • Is "19xx in Australia" too going too fine-grained for the article topics? I mean, there were those world factbooks for each year in my local library when I was growing up and I agree their content would be great on Wikipedia, but with its extremely broad frame of reference I worry that fine-grain summary articles like these will be hard for researchers to find. Imagine you are looking for information about the goldrush in Australia and associated economical change... You have an idea it happened in the goldrush happened in the mid 1800s, but not sure exactly what year the most important dates happened. You are going to want an article more like "1850s in Australia".... What do you think? This is going to be particularly relevant for the pre-1788 years in Australia and pre-Renaissance years for most countries — Donama 00:50, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

• Have a look at one of the non redlinked years in Australia, for example 1962 in Australia. It links to the Timeline of Australian history which has major events per decade. It also links back to 1962 which from there links to decades - not too many clicks to get to a broader timeframe. I agree with you about pre 1788, but are we putting in dates pre 1788 (other than 1770 which I am in two minds about), there weren't that many records or consistent calendars around for dates relevant to Australia. However, if it was something like the Batavia or similar event you had in mind, no I wouldn't link back to 1629 in Australia--A Y Arktos\^talk 01:11, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

If you're looking for events to add, try this ABC site--Peta 05:08, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Cool :) .Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 05:09, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Peta, per featured portal criteria, red links are limited to only contibution-encouraging aspects of portals (ie, to-do lists). This portal does not include a to-do list, but instead points to ACOTF. --cj | talk 05:25, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

It would be my preference to not include pictures amongst the anniversaries because they are too variable; not all subpages will be of sufficient size to balance the image. In other words, the image should be a secondary aspect - the text should outweigh it. If images are included, they should be limited to dates with 4 or more anniversaries. Moreover, they should not be thumbnailed. Also, please ensure in adding dates that a uniform format is followed; the first letter of the anniversary after the hyphen should be capitalised in all instances, and all anniversaries should have full stops.--cj | talk 08:52, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

The issue is, it is much easier to include pictures as we are building the items now rather than go back and add them later. I would like to add now and discuss later, rather than the other way around, if pictures are an agreed option. I think we should be able to find pictures for one in four events. The model I had in mind is Portal:Germany/Anniversaries/May where there is a picture for each day. I note they are not thumbnailed or captioned - the lack of captioning a consequence of not thumbnailing rather than editor's intention though looking at the code, but probably a Good Thing.--A Y Arktos\^talk 23:35, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

That seems reasonable. There are a few reasons to not thumbnail images on portals; firstly, they conflict with set backgrounds; secondly, they are not always aesthetically appealing (the box in a box issue); and finally, for this portal, they would be inconsistent. Capitions should always be included for images though, as they are still shown on mouse over.--cj | talk 07:23, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

mouseover does not seem to work for me in mozila at present - but if it does for some, no probs--A Y Arktos\^talk 11:31, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Every day in Portal:Australia/Anniversaries/June is now blue linked. Plenty of opportunities still for additions or replacements. Can we start from 1 June?--A Y Arktos\^talk 23:37, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

As soon as all red links within those days are taken care of.--cj | talk 07:48, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I see the red links as "contribution-encouraging aspects". The German portal seems to have achieved its blue links through the domination of births and deaths - few events per se doing a quick scan. I am not interested in merely a list of births and deaths - a light scattering only should be sufficient. I also see little point to linking to the common year for an Australian portal. Given the lack of interest from other editors to even add events, I can't see this going anywhere with the constraint put on it by Cyberjunkie's interpretation of "Red links must be restricted to only contribution-encouraging aspects, and limited at that." at Wikipedia:What is a featured portal?--A Y Arktos\^talk 11:31, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm actually quite happy with the response to this proposal – it has been the most concerted group effort this portal has seen. The catalogue will continue to grow over time, so I don't see any particular need to rush – the portal certainly isn't going anywhere. Peta's suggestion below to run it on AWNB may trigger further participation. The "contibution-encouraging aspects" comment refers to self-referential sections on portals, namely things to do, WikiProjects etc. Red links are confined to these sections. You can trust my interpretation of what is a featured portal?, because I wrote it. The reasoning behind the red link criterion, imported from Wikipédia française, which was more advanced vis-à-vis portals at that stage, is that because portals are meant to display quality snippets of the encyclopædia, red links serve only as a distraction.--cj | talk 05:52, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A different proposal

Here's another proposal, why don't we have a dummy run on the notice board? I think the collaboration of the fortnight could be moved - (cj would it be possible to make the candidates box half as high and make a skinnier box for the collabortion of the fortnight? Or we could rename the box community and just have the collabotation and candidates in there.) and the box could go beneath in the news. Red links would be ok, and it would draw attention to the "project" since more people (probably) visit that page than look at the portal. Then when we have some more polished material it can appear on both the portal and the noticeboard.--Peta 02:29, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I like this proposal, though I'm not exactly clear on what it is you want me to do?--cj | talk 05:52, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

We need to free up a box, so I though we could have two boxes where the candidates box is now, one for the cotf and one for candidates - or we can just combine those things in one box.--Peta 05:59, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea. I think Peta means merge the contents of Collaboration of the Fortnight and Other Candidates boxes at the AWNB to free up a box for the new Australian Anniversary content. -- Longhair 02:39, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

• I support this proposal--A Y Arktos\^talk 02:40, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I made a change and think it looks ok. What do you think? Alignment in the middle right box could do with an expert tweak though. -- Longhair 11:05, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Another (minor) problem being, the edit link actually edits the box contents, and not anniversary dates. -- Longhair 11:12, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

• looks good except for the edit link problem, not sure how to fix other than to remove the editing link--A Y Arktos\^talk 11:29, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I suspect a page or two also needs to be renamed, plus the edit link problem. Other than that, I quite like it. I stole your userpage idea too AYArktos :) Thanks. -- Longhair 11:35, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

There seems to be a problem with the images being used. Compare the results on WP:AWNB with my user page and User:AYArktos for an example of the problem. -- Longhair 00:56, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I can't spot it.--cj | talk 06:26, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Appears to be fixed. What was happening was the image tags where being presented as such, and not an image. -- Longhair 06:27, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Big dates

What happens on dates where there are lots of events (Jan 1, Nov 11 and Dec 10 spring to mind, but there will be more)? Does someone need to manually modify a template, or will the whole list appear?--Peta 21:50, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

If they are excessive, and distort the portal proper, then that may have to be done. But they are only temporary and none have yet struck me as too large. Still, maybe we should place a cap on the number of events per anniversary?--cj | talk 07:30, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

• I think we will have to review to reduce to no more than five per day, but it is easier to review later and take out than provide guidelines up front. The criteria for removal might not be significance of the event but interest of the unusual - directing to an article that would not have come otherwise to the attention of the casual browser. It really comes down to refining the purpose of the Anniversaries list. Some events/articles have more than one date associated with them and are easier to move than others - eg a significant Australian was born, died and might have done something on particular days; they need only be mentioned once in the year's 365 days. I suggest review when a month is about to go live - we still have lots of blanks in July but it seems a bit early to be working on the clean up when so much is still being added generally throughout the year. Need to start the clean up in the last week of June.--A Y Arktos\^talk 22:59, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Images

• I have been adding captions to images. In at least one case the caption had been removed. The mouseover does work if pop-ups is not enabled and is important information thus for general readers that they would not see otherwise.--A Y Arktos\^talk 22:59, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Links at the top: categories instead of portals

Why does the faux-browsebar at the top link to categories instead of portals?--ragesoss 04:22, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Selected article suggestions

There was talk somewhere of a list of Featured Australian articles but I can't seem to find it. If we're running short of Australian content, there's always the Good article pool to chose from. -- Longhair 02:46, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

• I created it at Portal:Australia/List a while ago. It needs to be updated.--cj | talk 06:28, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Eek, redlinks

See this and this. I couldn't bear to see redlinks, so I quickly copied them from around Weeks 40/41, 2006. If I've stuffed this up, my apologies, but I figured these were better than nothing for a featured portal. Daniel Bryant 07:35, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much Daniel. Eek, indeed! I've put fresh entries in.--cj | talk 07:45, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 50,000 years

The portal says that Australia has been inhabited by Aboriginals for 50,000 years, whereas the Australia article says that it has been inhabited by Aboriginals for only 42,000 years. Please explain, --Spebi 22:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)