Talk:List of heritage houses in Sydney

Rose Seidler House

It is debatable whether the Rose Seidler house should be in an article on heritage homes. Personally, I can't see how it reflects any heritage. If it were up to me, I'd sell it to the developers.

Sardaka (talk) 08:44, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

It measures up admirably against criteria of heritage significance, and is officially recognised as doing so. Indeed, it is one of the few houses here kept as a museum in its original state. It was a very important house in Australia - arguably more so than most buildings here. That it is not built of sandstone, has gables, frilly fretwork, or was built before the war, doesn't mean it's of the highest architectural and historic importance for Australia - which is what this article is surely about? --Merbabu (talk) 09:05, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Further, and purely out of interest, under what criteria of heritage notability was The Manor listed here? --Merbabu (talk) 09:18, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I've removed The Manor. It meets no apparent heritage criteria - if there is local criteria, then that is not sufficient for this page (it would be for the MOsman page though).

As we're writing an encyclopedia, one should be careful about including things because one likes them or because one thinks they have interesting stories or because they are big. And conversely, not excluding things because they don't fit with one's own (potentially questionable) personal taste and opinions. --Merbabu (talk) 02:33, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

References etc

At Wiki, we have to accept that articles will be changed by other editors. That's how Wiki works. However, when I put this article up, it had no less than 37 footnotes. When I looked at it again tonight, the footnotes had dwindled to 26. Eleven footnotes had disappeared. Going through the edit page, I found that the reason was that the footnotes were still there in the text, but someone had removed a lot of the </ref> notations, with the result that a lot of the footnotes weren't showing up in the text. I've fixed them now.

Regarding the shots, it's debatable whether we prefer the original way they were done (in galleries of 4 each) or the present way, but personally I think it looks more cluttered the way it is now.

Sardaka (talk) 08:20, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Some points...

• There is nothing wrong with the references. Rather, the formatting was improved to a more professional standard - not one bit of info was removed from the reflist - two footnotes were simply combined into one. This is how it is done in academic books, there is no reason why this should be the case here. U2, John Howard, Indonesian National Revolution, Le Père Goriot and Australia are all high quality articles (all but one are GA's or FA's) and use the ref format in question. It has nothing to with the number of footnotes, but the number and quality of references. I only changed the double footnote.[1]
• I agree with JRG on the pics - the format is difficult to use previously having to find the pic for or five sections later. Also, the reason it looks more cluttered is because the pic sizes were increased.[2]
• Please do not remove the "attribution needed" tag.[3] Other wise these are weasel words with no place in wikipedia. Further, the answer is not to simply put a reference in there. One needs to say who said it, and this should still only go there if someone of established notability and authority on the topic says it.
• There is no need to say "as can be seen in Paddington". Why not just say "as in Paddington" - the former might be good if one is trying to fill in space in a glossy fluffy magazine or coffee table book, but this is wikipedia and requires its own style of fact only, no-frilss encyclopedic writing style. regards --Merbabu (talk) 12:39, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I could see that you merged two refs into one, but what is the point? They were two separate references from two separate books, often touching on completely different points. One ref would be for one point and the other ref was for another point, so what is the point of merging them into one as if they're one and the same thing?

As regards my deleting the "attribution needed" tag, I did this because most of these points are actually covered by the refs provided in the text, but obviously I can't put a footnote on every sentence. You can rest assured that refs were provided when needed.

As for Paddington, I changed that one because your version was incorrect prose. Eg, the way it is now, it says:"it also includes wrought iron balconies similar to houses in Paddington." Grammatically, this says that the wrought iron balconies are similar to houses in Paddington, which is incorrect; they are not similar to the houses in Paddington, they are similar to the wrought iron balconies in Paddington. See the difference?

Like I said before, you can't write.

Have just had a closer look at the way you joined the refs together. It looks ok on the surface, but you have obviously assumed that because two refs were side by side, they must be about the same point. This isn't necessarily the case; as I said before, sometimes two refs were about two different points, so there's no point joining them together.

In future I'll keep the refs separate so no-one will be tempted to join them up.

This ends my participation in this discussion. From now on, you have it all to yourself.

Sardaka (talk) 07:47, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Notability

All homes on this list should have some sort of official heritage classification. Otherwise, inclusion on the list is purely arbitrary and based on personal whims - and hence contrary to the immutable policy of WP:NPOV. regards --Merbabu (talk) 11:40, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm - I made this over a year ago? It really think it's important to have an objective measure of heritage value that extends beyond size, age, and (inherently biased) notions of aesthetic merit. Good to see that heritage listings are being added. If a building does not have some kind of listing, but are written about, then the source should be very notable/authoritative. Personal opinions should be put aside. regards --Merbabu (talk) 09:38, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Would it be possible to transfer the information on each of the houses into their own separate articles and then convert this article, possibly into a navigation box and then place the navigation box into each article. The navigation box could have its own sections for each suburb or local government area. ***Adam*** 03:23, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Last night and this morning, i created all the articles that weren't already created using the info here - check my contributions. You will note that I credited Sardaka each time as the main creator. I am planning to thus clear this article out and make it into a simple list. Ie, it's not an article, but a list of really quite disparate topics. Perhaps the list could show what heritage accreditation each house has. Ie, national, state or other - not local as there are too many. --Merbabu (talk) 03:42, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

That sounds good. If no one objects I or another could create a separate navigation box for all the articles at a later date as well. The nav box could be divided in sections according to the type of accreditation the house has. If that makes sense. ***Adam*** 03:47, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Actual Age

Some of the houses listed were ctually built long after the quoted date. For example, the Experimantal Cottage bungalow was built in 1835, not in the 1790s when the farm was established. Notably absent is John Oxleys stables at Kirkham which were built in 1816. This would appear to be the oldest surviving building I can find. Vaucluse house was completed circa 1850, not 1800.203.220.76.66 (talk) 23:15, 9 November 2017 (UTC)