Talk:Australia and the Indonesian occupation of East Timor

Australians fighting with Fretilin against Indonesian Troops??

I remember at the time, a TV show interviewing a guy, in East Timor, that was actually fighting with Fretilin. Can't find any sources, but it would be interesting to refer to it if a suitable good source could be found. Considering how close we are to East Timor, and how sympathetic a lot of Australians were, I'm sort of not suprised Deathlibrarian (talk) 05:21, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Lead re-write

Yep, needs a better one! I'm working on itDeathlibrarian (talk) 00:30, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Paul Keating bias

Some users have said there may be a percieved against Paul Keating in this article. I certainly agree the other sections could be bigger, however I was doing research on the Paul Keating and looking at East Timor there, so I had quite a few references. If people have material for the other sections, please feel free to add.Deathlibrarian (talk) 03:59, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

The Australian public's involvement involvement in East Timor freedom movements

Article needs covereage of thisDeathlibrarian (talk) 03:59, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Article title

G'day, having a quick read through, I'm not sure that the article title is quite right. Potentially, something like "Australian political responses to the Indonesian occupation of East Timor" might be more appropriate, I think. Anyway, I will ping a few of the usual suspects who tend to have better ideas than me in these areas. @Nick-D and Anotherclown: Gents, have you got any suggestions / are you able to help with this article? Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:05, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

I agree the current title is less than ideal for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it is inexact. Firstly, which invasion of East Timor does it cover (for instance the Portuguese, the Japanese or the Indonesian)? It is of course clear from reading it that it is the Indonesian invasion in 1975 but the title doesn't make that clear at all. Secondly, the current title might unintentionally seem to suggest to the casual reader some kind of direct military involvement, when of course that would be inaccurate. The suggested title above seems as good as anything I could come up with, although I'd imagine that there would be a range of variations along those lines that would also be workable. Anotherclown (talk) 10:30, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

The whole article is a POV pushing mess. Nick-D (talk) 10:35, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

How about Australia and the Indonesian occupation of East Timor? Covers the whole period of time and doesn't get too wordy about it. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:16, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

I'd be happy with that. It would mean that the article could focus on non government responses also. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:43, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm not happy with the original title either..clumsy. I thought it was ok at the time, but unhappy with it now in retrospect. [[The Drover's Wife 's suggestion of Australia and the Indonesian occupation of East Timor is a lot better (and I agree, it also allows for non government responses to East Timor by the public). Deathlibrarian (talk) 03:28, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

" in order to minimise misunderstanding about the toe"

Gday. The article currently states: "Before the invasion, there is some possible evidence that Australia was feeding intelligence to Indonesia about Portugal, in order to minimise misunderstanding about the toe." What does "the toe" refer to? Is this possibly a typo? Does it possibly mean "about the two" or possibly "between the two"? Thanks. Anotherclown (talk) 10:39, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

I changed it to "situation", but "the two" also makes sense. I wasn't actually sure when I was copy editing. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:01, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Apologies, it should be "in order to minimise misunderstanding between the two"... but AustralianRupert's change works Deathlibrarian (talk) 03:30, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Suggestions for development

G'day, I have a few suggestions, which might hopefully help you develop the article further: AustralianRupert (talk) 11:01, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

• per the above, the article should be re-titled, but I'd suggest holding off on that to see what the outcome is of the AFD;
• I think the article needs a Background section which briefly outlines the strategic situation (i.e. post Vietnam politics, Cold War, etc.), and recounts the invasion in a summary style.
• the Introduction, is more of an Overview, I think potentially it should just be moved into the lead, so long as you work all the points into the body, or you could work it into a Background section (per the above comment);
• there is a lot of opinion in the article: it needs to be properly sourced, and clearly attributed in text, e.g. "According to Smith, XYZ..." I also think it needs to be balanced. The situation was very complex, with the political situation being highly nuanced. (I actually wrote a 40,000 word university thesis on the topic many years ago on the subject, but I won't be dragging that out any time soon...)
• "assisting the Indonesian military": this should be clarified as to what is meant by this as it could be perceived to mean many things;
• references: you will need a bare minimum of one ref at the end of each paragraph, if you want to take this to GA (I suggest holding off on the GA for a while, though. It would probably be better to take it through peer review first and see how that goes, before nominating for GA as it currently isn't ready, IMO)
• you will need a couple of images and/or some sort of supporting media if possible;
• the bare urls should be formatted and embedded, potentially using {{cite web}} but that is not mandatory to use a template, manual formatting can also be used;
• the duplicate refs should probably just be consolidated as per WP:NAMEDREFS;
• I think some of the categories should be rationalised, as potentially not all of them are relevant;
• anyway, good luck with improving the article. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:01, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks so much for the feedback, I'll get on it, all helpful points. Deathlibrarian (talk) 03:36, 3 May 2016 (UTC)