Template talk:Infobox Australian place/Archive 5

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Migration to the new preprocessor

I have tested this template and it is fine with the new preprocessor --TheJosh (talk) 12:54, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Cool. What's the new preprocessor? Orderinchaos 16:36, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

The preprocessor is the code that does the template substitution and stuff like that. Also does headings I think (for the TOC). There were some changes to ParserFunctions. I found out about a notice on the watchlist page. --TheJosh (talk) 12:13, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Photographic image for infobox

I'm probably covering old ground here (though I scanned through the discussion archives and couldn't find a confirmation), but why does the Australian Place infobox not have space for an image of the town / city in question in addition to the locator map? If it's good enough for New York City, London and Paris, how about Brisbane, Canberra and Sydney? The locator map is all very useful but it is a little dry to the outside observer! BrisbanePom (talk) 08:33, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean? The image= and imagesize= variables allow placement of an image (see Hamersley, Western Australia for an example) unless you mean something completely different to what I'm thinking (which is entirely possible. :)) On thinking more carefully I think you mean that for whatever reason someone's decided to use that field for a locator image. That'd be something that needs to be taken up on the pages concerned. Orderinchaos 08:37, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The OP refers to the use of a photo image and a map image, as is done for most location infoboxes, such as {{Infobox Settlement}} (eg. NYC, London, Paris as mentioned above), {{Infobox German Location}} (eg. Cologne, Frankfurt) or {{Infobox Indian Jurisdiction}} (eg. New Delhi, Mumbai). I proposed something similar a while ago but it didn't take off here - see User:52 Pickup/Drafts/Sydney for discussion - maybe it's worth going over this again? 52 Pickup ^(deal) 09:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

This has already been proposed, and I think it was rejected. --TheJosh (talk) 02:40, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah I think it would make the vertical height of the infobox too big personally. Orderinchaos 03:26, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I see the issue having looked at 52 Pickup's example (a couple of posts above). Is there any way we can consider adapting the layout so that the map isn't so large (it needn't be full size to identify where the city is). Other pages manage - e.g. take a look at Berlin; we could use two maps side by side; one for the country, one at state level. BrisbanePom (talk) 08:12, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Berlin is not a good example. The box used there is for states of Germany (Berlin is one of 3 city-states in Germany). And the double image used in the Berlin box is the result of a particularly beligerent editor who made up that single image specifically for that article. The German state and town boxes are similar (since i made both of them), but the location map could be reduced for the town boxes (eg. Cologne, Frankfurt, Munich, etc.) since Germany is not as wide as it is tall and most locations have a coat of arms - but neither of these apply to Australia. What really makes the Australian infobox big is the font size and spacing, which could both be reduced. The test box that is on my Sydney page was just a rough adaptation of Infobox Settlement. - 52 Pickup ^(deal) 08:43, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Duplicate nearby suburbs

Is there any established guide on duplicate entries for nearby suburbs? For example, have a look at Netley, South Australia. Having some suburbs listed twice or more looks unprofessional in my opinion. I think the previous edit where the duplicates are left as blank looks far cleaner. Thoughts? --AtD (talk) 07:36, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Personally I agree with you, but others (note: no consensus has ever been obtained one way or another on this, just going from editing patterns) seem to disagree. I think for example if a small suburb has a large one to the west of it, it's only necessary to fill the west field and not northwest and southwest, as that's implied by the positioning. Orderinchaos 07:40, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the main objective should be to be as accurate as possible, even if it looks a little unprofessional. To me the older edit of Netley implies that both Adelaide Airport and North Plympton are to the southwest, Adelaide Airport and West Richmond are to the northwest and Marleston and North Plympton are to the southeast. According to my UBD maps this is not the case and the newer edit is more accurate, although it shows North Plympton also to the east of the bulk of Netley. Although I prefer to list the suburbs in every direction, I think a situation such as Netley and as suggested by Orderinchaos requires filling in at least the directions of the "start" and "end" of the suburb, which would give you the first box on this page for Netley.

Not filling in every direction or filling in just the central direction of an adjoining suburb, which is what I think Orderinchaos is suggesting, could easily lead you to something like second box on the page which is really confusing. The actual way in which Merewether Heights is surrounded is shown in the third box. --AussieLegend (talk) 10:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the argument of accuracy is a moot point considering there's only 8 possible points to show the surrounds. It's going to be in the minority of cases, such as grid areas like Adelaide, where it can be displayed in a way that reflects reality with the square set up we have now. --AtD (talk) 10:58, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Even with "only" 8 directions you can still make it fairly accurately reflect reality. My whole LGA consists of weirdly shaped suburbs and I've had no problems. Even really weirdly shaped suburbs like Newcastle, which is surrounded by 10 different suburbs and touches the ocean in two different directions either side of one of the suburbs, can be made to work without looking too cluttered. (see the fourth box on this page) --AussieLegend (talk) 11:17, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I disagree, that looks quite cluttered. For example, the bottom line reads "West, Cooks Hill Hill, Tasman Sea", and the left column has "Newcastle West" then "Newcastle West" again without any noticeable gap. The way the suburb names wrap around also makes it difficult to read at a glance. --AtD (talk) 11:45, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Your mistake is reading across the page. You should be reading what's at each compass point. It's no different to reading the captions under the images on your user page. It also makes it more clear if you position your mouse over each name. --AussieLegend (talk) 13:35, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

FTR I think you and I have much the same idea on this :) I tend to be a bit less disciplined with it though, although approach it with the same basic idea of representing what's actually there without too much clutter. Orderinchaos 14:05, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Exactly my point, it's not intuitive. --AtD (talk) 21:25, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how it's not intuitive. If you look north to see what's there, you don't look to the northwest and north east as well and say that whatever is at those locations is also north do you? Why would you do any different in a box that is showing what's in 8 different compass directions. --AussieLegend (talk) 22:48, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I guess we agree to disagree, then. I think someone with limited computer literacy may find it difficult to read. --AtD (talk) 07:54, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Computer literacy has nothing to do it but you're close. People who can't read a compass might have troubles. Until such times as compasses are redesigned I think we're stuck with the current method. --AussieLegend (talk) 08:14, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

That or they use radial pixels to display data on computers instead of square ones. Orderinchaos 14:06, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I used to work on a radar system that used to do something very similar to that. --AussieLegend (talk) 15:04, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the important part is the vibe of the box. Personally I prefer the current Netley, South Australia with large suburbs listed in multiple areas, although I think the 2 suburbs to one area is a bit over the top, and in situations like that I usually put in the biggest one (according to the map), except of course if there is a smaller suburb there and the big one is already listed somewhere else (for example Littlehampton, South Australia, where Mount Barker is in east, I would probably put Nairne there even though its smaller, because mount barker is already listed) I think that way gives a good happy median between showing all detail, and not showing enough detail. I think not showing a suburb because its already in 1 of the sections (aka the old Netly listed above) is a bit dumb because there are areas such as Mount Barker, South Australia where there in fact isn't a 'suburb' (town) there, just scrub. --TheJosh (talk) 05:00, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Incorrect area format in metric

The area format is correct in imperial measurements that of square miles, but incorrect in metric as it is shown as Km2. It should be square Km as per the format of the imperial measurement.

Here's why. 4 Km2 is 4 x 4 (ie squared) to give a total of 16 square Km. Where as 4 square Km is the total area without any modification. Square x is a total measurement of the area. Where as x2 is a measurement of one side (as if all sides were of equal length).

It seems that more and more people don't realise there is a difference. It is possible that the confusion is due to a square metre covering the same area as a metre square (1m2 = 1 x 1 = 1 = 1 sq m), but beyond 1 the difference gets greater and greater. If I ask for 4 m2 of carpet to carpet a room, I don't want four one metre squres (which is 4 square metres) but 16 one metre squares of carpet.

The reference in the template is not appropriate. First, it doesn't link to anything specifying the measurement unit. Second the abs is a statistics organisation not a standards organisation and they can get it wrong just as well as anyone else. If I can find a reliable reference from a standards organisation I will post it here.

While there is a certain logic to making the distinction between 4 square kilometres and 4 kilometres all squared in the way you suggest, the fact is that the usual convention is that "km²" means exactly the same thing as "square kilometre" and 4km all quared would have to be written something like (4km)², just as in algebra, where $(ab)^{2}=a^{2}b^{2}\neq ab^{2}$. You can see this for m² at the site of the site of the Bureau International des Poids et Measures, which is the International System of Units maintenance agency. JPD (talk) 02:52, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, km² is a unit. We're not saying 4 km x 4 km, we're saying 4 km² (as in 4 instances of 1km x 1km). Same as cubic area volume would be m³, etc. Orderinchaos 02:59, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

You mean volume? ;-) JPD (talk) 03:12, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Too right. This is what I get for making edits at 11am on a Sunday morning. :P Orderinchaos 03:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

It's 11 pm on Saturday in Detroit...good God I should be at the bar. But I degas...

The IP user is confused by the km² symbol itself. Maybe this user thinks it should be sq km instead. It was decided long ago in the MOS to use the most common forms of symbols/abbreviations for metric and imperial measurements. That is why the superscript symbols (km², m³) are used for metric measurements and the traditional abbreviation method (sq mi, cu ft) are used for imperial. In other words, the current "format" that you see—100 km² (39 sq mi)—is correct. —MJCdetroit ^(yak) 03:56, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I've edited the above to replace sqkm with km2. JIMp _talk·cont 00:59, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

dist# parameter, distances

I realise that this has been raised before, but I keep bumping into problems with the convention on distances between localities (of whatever size or name). The latest is Lismore. I don't know where or how the 860 km was sourced. Who would know? Great-circle distance is about 592 km. [1] Google Maps via roads is 737 km. Using road distances is problematic because:

1. Which road was taken? (must always be via Aunt Betty's house?)
2. They are not easily verifiable. (If it were, the 123km error above would probably not have occurred and persisted)

The Lismore article has the distance information in the geography section. Roads are not geographic features. Driving is not a geographic tool. It smacks of WP:OR. In the Geography section I would expect great circle distances to be given first. If relevant, road distance, with accompanying route can be given if his information is interesting, noteworthy and verifiable (preferably easily verifiable). Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not a touring guide or a road atlas. If you want road distances use those sources first, not Wikipedia. Great circle distances are easy to verify and don't require a route description and justification (because Aunt Betty makes lovely scones). I don't want to drive to most of the locations listed in Wikipedia, I just want to know roughly how far (shortest distance) something is from some relevant and notable locations, such as nearby towns or cities and state capitals. Not how far is to drive there (unless it is relevant). The first thing I think of when I see distances in an infobox is "Yes, but which route was used?" which is counter-intuitive. Please, can we move toward something more authoritative, verifiable and encyclopaedic? Bleakcomb (talk) 03:10, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I get 764km for the distance using whereis, measuring from point to point using Pacific and Bruxner Highways. The shortest distance I can obtain from a road atlas is 746, but I note its own tables say 762. Orderinchaos 06:44, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Orderinchaos, do you see what I am talking about when I say that it is not easy to verify road distances. And you haven't come within a bull's roar of Google Maps at 737 km. Not that I am promoting one over the other. What I will say is that their use requires great caution. I would question how any of these sources would be regarded as reliable and repeatable. How do you know that they are? How does a reader know? Another thing that puzzles me is that how does this confusion meet the requirements of the infobox design of KISS? Bleakcomb (talk) 08:54, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe Google Maps is accurate on this one - I have encountered errors with their service before for Canadian locations, and that's a bit closer to home for them than we are. Quite simply, they have no means of checking. The fact a reasonably reputable road atlas and two other services, one built by the company that makes our phone directories and our biggest street directory company, have all settled on the same figure - which has happened for other locations as well - is not problematic for me. One may argue NPOV, but the actual distances do exist on the road, they are capable of being measured, therefore there is no problems. I think throwing the baby out with the bathwater is the wrong way to go here - the system we have has worked for most locations, and worked for years. The same arguments you're making could also be applied to population, or to area, or to any number of other fields in the infobox, but we have them and they work. Orderinchaos 10:58, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Distances were discussed during the development of the infobox and consensus was that distance by road was the appropriate measure to use. See Template talk:Infobox Australian Place/Archive 2#How should distances be measured? for details

I agree this is a little harder to verify but the encyclopaedia is written for humans (not birds) and humans tend to judge distances between places such as towns based on the distance they would have to travel to get there. This is not normally (or even usually) the "great circle" distance. I would support sticking with distance by road at this stage. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 03:35, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I fully realise that Wikipedia will be normally read by humans (some exceptions, however). I was going to say "what do birds have to do with the discussion" until Hesperian pipes in with the As The Cocky Flies tool. Sheesh. Just because a consensus was reached, it doesn't mean that the issue can't be reconsidered. I suggest that many, many readers will want to use the distance information to compare (Location X is further from Sydney than location Y for example) and to form mental maps of where locations are, not, repeat not to drive there. Road distances and all the uncertainty involved with them just adds complexity and confusion. Bleakcomb (talk) 06:04, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone have a source for the distance by road from Penguin Island to Rottnest Island? But seriously, I can understand using road distances for towns, suburbs, localities and other infrastructural places, but for the distance between two geographic locations I strongly support the use of (geodetic) great circle distance. For that, you won't find a better source that the Geoscience Australia As The Cocky Flies tool. Hesperian 03:55, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

That makes total sense, although this infobox isn't used for features beyond towns, suburbs, cities and LGAs (although it does apply when those features are for example offshore, or in a very very remote location). If we were for instance to be looking at biodiversity or geology, the actual distance would be more important than distance by road. Orderinchaos 06:47, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, then this template is rather poorly named... but that doesn't excuse the ignorance of my comment; thankyou for breaking my stupidity to me so gently. Hesperian 11:12, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the obtuse name came out of being a product of the Australian Places wikiproject. I agree that it's a bit strange having a "places" template that doesn't cover natural features, islands, waterways and other things which could reasonably be scoped within it - but those things tend to be better covered by the generic templates we have for those which allow for much more detail. As far as I know the great majority of uses of this template are suburbs of cities, with towns coming a distant second. Orderinchaos 13:05, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, many readers will be concerned with scientific subjects such as biodiversity or geology. For these subjects you start in an encyclopaedia. They won't be interested in road distance. If you are concerned with road distance why are you looking in an encyclopaedia? Bleakcomb (talk) 08:54, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Bleakcomb, it is broadly accepted here that the information presented by an article should match the context of the topic. One wouldn't write about the geology of Perth, except to say that it is in the Perth Basin; one wouldn't write about the biogeography of Perth, except to say that it is within the Swan Coastal Plain; one wouldn't write about the floristics of Perth, except to say that it is within the Southwest Botanic Province. Once all these topics are hived off to more appropriate articles, we're left with an article that treats localities such as Perth as communities of people, together with the infrastructure that supports them. it is in this context that we must consider the question of how to represent distances. Hesperian 11:12, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

The template instructions recommend a number of sources for distances. The first of these is travelmate.com.au. That's the one I use because it's usually fairly accurate and it addresses the problem of knowing which route was used as travelmate details the route taken. I've changed the Lismore article accordingly because I agree that the 860km figure definitely seems way out. I'm surprised nobody has changed it previously. --AussieLegend (talk) 03:39, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

AussieLegend, what supports your claim that travelmate.com.au is accurate? Also (different issue) Google Maps goes a different way to Lismore (shorter route). Bleakcomb (talk) 06:04, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps I should have said 'seems' instead of 'usually'. Since becoming aware of travelmate I've made a number of trips and have compared the travelmate calculations against GPS calculated and GPS measured distances (using two different GPS systems), 1:100000 and 1:25000 maps as well as the odometer of my car. All are always fairly close to each other so I have confidence in them. I haven't found the same with Google. It can be a few km out compared to all those other references so I trust it less. --AussieLegend (talk) 19:57, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

We should consider whether we are carrying some biases and whether those biases are influencing this issue. If we are car drivers we should remember that many, many readers aren't and won't give toss about roads or driving between locations. It won't enter their minds. The other bias might relate to locality. If we are from Australia or, in the Lismore example, from NSW or the Northern Rivers or even Lismore we may know the locations and the roads connecting them and have travelled them. For declaration of interests, I fit into some those descriptors too. Many, many readers don't know the roads, haven't travelled them and will never travel them. I suspect the great majority of readers will be in this category. We should step outside our experience and biases WP:NPOV and consider what are the most important, relevant and easily verifiable things that should be included first in this ENCYCLOPEDIA for every reader, not just ourselves. Bleakcomb (talk) 06:04, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

The direct distance approach creates great problems though in linking places that have no mutual community of interest, such as to give one example Wagga Wagga and Canberra. That's not NPOV, that's just introducing error and false assumptions for our readers. That was the major reason for the earlier consensus, and why I believe it should continue to stand. The politics and sociology of communities revolves around separation and distance, and our articles on places predominantly focus on such aspects. There are cases for both approaches, but unless people are able to or intend to travel by air between locations, the great-circle distance between them is absolutely irrelevant. Orderinchaos 06:36, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Orderinchaos, I really don't understand what you mean by "no mutual community of interest". How does the shortest distance between two locations create "great problems"? How is it "introducing error and false assumptions for our readers"? I agree separation and distance are important demographic and sociological issues in understanding much of settlement in Australia. Yes, there should be more information written in articles on WP in general and in relation to specific communities and regions regarding the tyranny of distance. But is this what a KISS infobox is meant to address first? Firstly articles and the infobox should address a simple, comparable, easily verifiable, unbiased specification of location if it is to address location at all. By all means the article may then address any and all issues that are noteworthy and verifiable regarding its road distance from another location. (I am thinking that there won't be many topics where the specification of road distance is essential. I don't think there are any in the Lismore example). But there should also be balance. There is other information to be presented than "issues". There is just "what is the shortest distance between this location and that related or important location?". Really simple, straight-forward yet relevant stuff. Where do I find this information about most Australian location articles in WP? Bleakcomb (talk) 08:54, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

And the big question - why would anyone want to know? It's not exactly what one expects from an encyclopaedia - people with unusual and specific interests can easily go and look at a site such as ga.gov.au for that information. The ideological arguments about direct distance can be waged in the article text if people so desire, that's not the purpose of an infobox. The example TheJosh cites below is another perfect example where the distance would provide misleading information to readers - 50km could be a suburb, but because the entire distance is water the two have nothing to do with each other and the 300km+ distance is far more relevant. Orderinchaos 10:54, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

What about using 'by-road' distances for close distances, say to the closest major city, and as the crow flies for larger distances, such as from one major city to another. In some cases, you may want to list both. For example, Edithburgh, South Australia is 50 km west of Adelaide, but 300 km from Adelaide by road, so both are listed, one with a direction and the other without. --TheJosh (talk) 08:05, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Establishment category

Can it be made so that the article is put in [[Category:xxxx establishments]], instead of [[Category:Settlements established in xxxx]], if the type is "lga"? LGAs were created after the area they govern was already settled. --Ptcamn (talk) 07:15, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

 Done 52 Pickup (deal) 08:34, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Infobox map

So, I've been off for a bit, but I think I might have a desire to clean-up a few of our city articles. Before I attempt to do so, I notice standards seem to have changed (or in some case slipped) since the middle of last year. One thing I want to check on is whether we're all quite content for the maps to remain exiled from capital city infoboxes in place of skyline photography? I noticed the discussion above, but it doesn't seem like any consensus has been reached on the matter?--cj | talk 16:13, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

No real opinion on the subject, as long as they remain generally exiled from suburb articles :) Orderinchaos 17:24, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Maps may be alright for cities, but stick to photos for everything else. --TheJosh (talk) 12:17, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Prompted by a discussion at the Australian Wikipedians' notice board I looked at the template code and discovered functionality to provide an automatic locator map. Unfortunately it doesn't work, as this edit shows, forcing the locator dot to always go to the left, centred vertically. Is this fixable? I looked in the talk page archives but couldn't find anything. --AussieLegend (talk) 11:21, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

After getting User:HBC Archive Indexerbot to index the archives (quite a handy bot) I was able to find the information I was looking for but, for some reason, it isn't a documented function, even though it seems to work fine, as this test edit to Brisbane shows. I've now added appropriate instructions for using these fileds. --AussieLegend (talk) 20:57, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Demonym

Is it possible to include a demonym section in the Australian Place infobox? I'm not to experienced with infobox syntax but it makes sense to have this in the infobox. Any thoughts? Mvjs (talk) 05:42, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

What is a demonym? Orderinchaos 05:58, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Demonym i.e. a person who lives in Melbourne is a Melburnian or a person who lives in Sydney is a Sydneysider. Mvjs (talk) 06:27, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Virtually any field can be added but the infobox is used by thousands of articles and only a very small number of these would use the demonym field. There needs to be some justification for adding additional fields and I'd be surprised if a demonym field could be justified. --AussieLegend (talk) 07:39, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

All country articles have a demonym field and I think, at least for a lot of our cities, a demonym field would definitely be beneficial. Some articles simply mention it somewhere (mind you, in a different place every time) and a lot don't mention it at all. Melbourne for example, mentions it at the end of the first paragraph (with a citation). Sydney also mentions it at the end of the first paragraph but also mentions it at the end of the first paragraph of the demographics section (again with a citation). I think we could bring elegance to reader but locating it in a uniform space for all Australian cities. Mvjs (talk) 08:11, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

That still comes down to the field being useful for less than ~90 articles out of more than 5,900 (around 1.5%) that use the infobox. If demonym was added it would then be hard to refuse addition of the many other potential fields that are at least that useful. That would lead to additional complexity in an infobox that is already fairly complex. Given the relatively small number of articles that refer to demonyms, which can be fairly subjective and hard to verify, (what's a person from Clarence Town or Corryong called?) it would probably be more productive to edit the existing articles manually to set a consistent style. There are many articles that don't use the already provided fields (eg coordinates and locator maps) so this field probably wouldn't be used on many of the articles where it would prove useful. You would have to manually edit the article anyway. --AussieLegend (talk) 09:10, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Agreed re verifiability. I can't remember where or when the discussion occurred, but the spelling of people from Adelaide and what on earth to call people from Perth and Brisbane ran into some conflict. We have to be careful about adding fields just because they could be useful to a few articles - that's not the purpose of an infobox (and is closer to the purpose of a lead section). Orderinchaos 11:10, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how it can be nontrivial enough to include in country articles but too trivial to include in city articles - references are provided for the demonyms of both Sydney and Melbourne. Having a field in the infobox does not mean that every article must use it, but for the cities that have one clear verifiable demonym, this would make it a whole lot more elegant and consistent for the reader. I'm certain that once the field was there for all, it would provoke discussion in many of the Australian places to determine the correct demonym. It's just a matter of making the field available. Mvjs (talk) 11:16, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Nobody said it's too trivial to use in city articles. However, as I pointed out, city articles only represent a very tiny percentage of the articles where the infobox is used so, while it may be useful in 90 articles, it's of no use in 5,800. As for whether or not it would provoke discussion, based on the discussion that other fields have provoked, I very much doubt it. The discussion at Talk:Brisbane#Picture in infobox, and also the Locater diagram that I earlier linked to is a great demonstration of that. It wasn't until I, who had some interest in the infobox code, mentioned it that anyone even realised that we could have both a locator map and image in the box. Another example is the coordinates field, which is a field that has been available for a long time and yet is not used in a lot of articles, like Corryong, Victoria, which I also previously linked to. There's very little discussion on whether or not that field should be used. And, as for being a matter of "just a matter of making the field available", it's not that simple. It has to be coded, which admittedly isn't a huge task, but we have to look at applicability. "Watercourses nearby" has far more applicability and usefulness but that field isn't included because we just can't include every field that may be useful. Each field added increases the size of the infobox and there has to be some constraint to avoid the infobox code getting too large, which is an important point when you consider that in addition to the "demonym" field you also need a "demonym_footnotes" field for the citation. --AussieLegend (talk) 12:24, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Also the fact it adds unnecessary bulk (and loading time) to all pages that use the template, even those which do not use the field. Orderinchaos 23:26, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I see both of your points here but I don't feel the comparison to "Watercourses nearby" is a valid one. A demonym is an encyclopaedic term that belongs in an encyclopaedia - and that need has been verified for our country articles. It's not just cities that have demonyms, every place has a demonym and a lot of them would have a clear verifiable demonym. The comparison to the Brisbane discussion on the locator map is also one of little significance. The locator blip is much more a behind the scenes feature that is hard to distinguish from a standard image. A demonym field is clear and easy to add to an article by any editor, not just Infobox syntax aficionados. You can be absolutely certain that if Melbourne and Sydney suddenly have a demonym in the infobox those enthusiastic Brisbane editors will quickly add it to theirs, and when Perth editors see that Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne have it, you can bet your bottom dollar that Perth will have it too and so forth. Mvjs (talk) 23:46, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, such things can't be based on original research or what "seems" good to a bunch of people, which seems to be what is being proposed. Sydney and Melbourne have clear demonyms, as do Canberra, Newcastle, Launceston and Bendigo. People from almost anywhere else, including three of our five major cities (although Adelaide comes close to a consensus but disagrees on the spelling of it), are not known consistently by any one name and indeed the literature splits all over the place on which one to use. In general in Australia, they're not even used, and when they are, it's often treated as something of a joke - people here tend to refer to themselves as, say, "from Perth" or "a Perth person" rather than a "Perthian" or "Perthite". Orderinchaos 23:53, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Links to common units of measurement

wp:context says not to link to Plain English words, including common units of measurement. It gives some examples of what might be deemed a common unit such as a square kilometre and a square mile. I think this template would be better without these links so that other links on articles can stand out. Lightmouse (talk) 11:09, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. We provide conversions anyway, so it should be intelligible to anyone. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Orderinchaos 15:42, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Can I make a similar request for the removal of links to date fragments? Lightmouse (talk) 16:08, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean the link to years? If so, done. Orderinchaos 18:20, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Thank you again. Lightmouse (talk) 18:21, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

No worries. Orderinchaos 18:24, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

(For those observers uncertain as to why I'm actioning these requests, they reflect the consensus in a lot of the recent MOS debates which I read occasionally. Previously, those very same places mandated these links, and in at least one case that was the sole reason we had linked it. Getting rid of them makes good sense, improves the experience for readers and reduces unnecessary linkage to general articles.) Orderinchaos 18:24, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, there are still some links to common units (metres and feet) in elevation. See: Wodonga, Victoria and Albury, New South Wales. Not sure if it just needs time for the change to take effect. Lightmouse (talk) 18:26, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

It was one I had missed as it was template-embedded. Orderinchaos 18:40, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Accessibility

Please see discussion of accessibility problems with of this template at Wikipedia talk:Accessibility#Template: Geographic Location. Thank you. Andy Mabbett (aka Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy Mabbett; Andy Mabbett's contributions 21:52, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Relevant section was by Graham87:

{{GeoCompass}} reads OK linearly but it is still hard to figure out what direction everything is. {{Compass-table}} is the most accessible, but the table would be easier to use with row and column titles. When I navigate from east to southeast, I also hear the "southwest" part because JAWS thinks that's the title of the row. Speaking of directional templates, the {{Infobox Australian Place}} shows the suburbs or towns surrounding a certain place, but it's hard to tell the directions of the towns with a screen reader. An example is at Nollamara, Western Australia.

Orderinchaos 02:01, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Map

Sorry if I'm missing something obvious here, but I can't get the map = parameter to work. Is it dependent on another parameter or something? Also, is there a way to get the locator map function to use an image other than the ones hard-coded into the template (e.g. if you want a closer-up image)? Thanks, delldot ∇. 01:17, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

There is no "map =" parameter in this template. As for the locator map, the instructions for using loc-x and loc-y are at Template:Infobox Australian Place/doc#loc-x and loc-y. All you need do is download the appropriate map and open it in paint or someting similar. Then find the pixel coordinates with respect to the top left hand corner of the image. Palm Beach is somewhere around 190,98. Then enter those coordinates into the loc-x and loc-y fields. The maps are chosen automatically based on the state parameter and are limited to those shown in the instructions. If the state parameter is not used the Australia map is selected. If you want something else you'll have to make up a separate map. Now, all that said, I thought there was an agreement not to use the locator map on suburb articles. --AussieLegend (talk) 09:23, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Sweet, in that case I'm off the hook. Thanks much. delldot ∇. 02:59, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

City proper/metropolitan area population breakdown for cities

Why is there not the option to include the city proper population for cities alongside the metropolitan area population in this infobox? This breakdown is present in the templates of major cities of most other developed countries, so why not here? It would provide extra detail and is a standard sort of measure with respect to cities. I would edit the template myself to include this, though I have no knowledge of the scripting that is used here in Wikipedia and thus cannot.

All articles about the major Australian cities (i.e. state capitals and Canberra) should have this breakdown of city proper population and metropolitan area population.

What does everybody else think? Perhaps one of the main people working on this template could add such a feature? An example of such a breakdown may be found in the infobox in the New York City article, for example. —NobleTripTrip (talk) 05:19, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

We don't really have such a concept in Australia, so I don't see how it could be implemented. The entire concept of LGAs and suburbs in the way in which they exist here is almost unique to our country. Orderinchaos 06:08, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Tassie

Image:Tasmania location map.png, stretched

Image:Tasmania location map alt.png, OK

The first one appears stretched (see Commons:Category:Maps of Tasmania) and needs to removed or replaced. She's used in this template. Toolserver appears broken so I can't see where else its used. Will the infobox break if I upload a new version? Could someone fix please. –Moondyne 08:58, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

My experience has been that yes, it will break. The image needs to be the same size or the same ratio. I can't remember which off-hand but there is some discussion in the archives. --AussieLegend (talk) 09:31, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Is still broken.

• 
  pushpin map, stretched, bad
• good
  good
• 
  good
• 
  good

–Moondyne 13:34, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

See how this works - may need some tweaking. Orderinchaos 14:18, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Unnecessary wikilinks

Could the wikilinking of the headings Population and Area be removed please? These are just ordinary dictionary words so they shouldn't be linked, per WP:OVERLINK. Colonies Chris (talk) 13:46, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

 Done Orderinchaos 14:07, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Colonies Chris (talk) 23:11, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

re cadastrals

Roke actually introduced them to begin with, so I don't oppose his removal of them. Land district never ended up being used for the WA ones, I know I put county and parish in some of the NSW ones but it's not dreadfully useful. If any should stay it would be county, but there's no real argument for maintaining the other three. Orderinchaos 08:08, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

State and federal divisions are really just as useful as these in that they're useful to some people and not to others. Counties and parishes are probably more useful in NSW than state and federal divisions. In NSW parishes and counties are closely related (like LGAs and suburbs) and, as indicated in the earlier discussion ,they have different relevances to different areas so there's a case for keeping both. If you want to ditch landdistricts and hundreds I'm fine with that since they don't seem used much but counties are used in 930 articles. I haven't checked parishes yet. --AussieLegend (talk) 08:51, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah I'd be fine with that compromise approach (like I said a fair few of the county/parish ones are mine from when I did the Central Coast region). Orderinchaos 08:55, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

For the record, parishes are used in 387 NSW articles. --AussieLegend (talk) 08:58, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks (Out of curiosity, how do you get that figure? Interested because of other templates I work on/with) Orderinchaos 08:58, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Removal of "surveying units"

I'm opposing this change (and this one too) to the template because I think such a change requires some discussion, rather than a unilateral decision by one person that information used in at least 930 articles is too obscure to be useful. Regarding this edit summary, the vote was not overly convincing either way,[2] although it was 4 support, 3 oppose and 2 neutral. Even if Astrokey44/Roke wants to chnage his vote to oppose, I'm happy to add mine to support, ironically for all the reasons stated by Astrokey44. So, we're back to a 5 support, 4 oppose and 2 neutral result. In any case, the vote was not strictly about removing or retaining the fields, it was about making the template either/or so the vote doesn't really apply and the decision to remove needs to be properly discussed. I really don't see the issue with retaining the fields. They're not mandatory. If you don't want to fill them in, don't. Leave it up to individual editors to decide whether they're relevant to each article. --AussieLegend (talk) 08:17, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I've removed landdistrict because it was a WA thing that really was too obscure for an infobox. That way the discussion can proceed on the remaining ones. Orderinchaos 09:01, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I have changed my vote because while they are used on various formal/official documents and old maps, it doesn't appear to be the sort of information you would find today in an 'ordinary' article on an Australian town or place - say at [3] or in the television or print media today, which is what the articles should reflect, not units with a sole administrative use. Not every possible type of region needs to be noted for instance the Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia regions arent included in infoboxes. The information can be mentioned in the article's text if necessary. Orderinchaos, saying the land districts are obscure and shouldnt be used also backs up this argument - they have just as many references [4] [5] as the others but as you said they were too obscure. --Roke 09:44, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Daylight Savings

Is it possible to add Observes DLS? Just that an IP keeps adding timezone dst= to places that don't observe and maybe having something in the infobox showing that these places/locations don't observe DSL. Bidgee (talk) 09:08, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Interesting idea - so to clarify you mean if this is turned on, then DST items are disabled? (And if you spot any related to WA, let me know - I've spent part of tonight fixing all sorts of articles about that.) Orderinchaos 11:25, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Well not 100 percent on what it should say but have a value were you enter yes or no (say for a value Observes DLS or Daylight Savings [but shortened for the infobox]) as I'll think it's better then having something then a time zone or state since there is 2 time zones in NSW (and thats not including DSL) and the other issue with states is again the two timezone issues (Broken Hill I believe runs on CST/CDT). Anyway with the yes value it would enable timezone-dst (as well as utc-dst) and no would have a note in the infobox stating it doesn't observe daylight savings. I hope I've not been too confusing and technical but we do need something stop put an end to this issue of timezones and DSL. Bidgee (talk) 12:39, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

It sort of seems like an unnecessary negative to me - in the sense of, the default state is no DLS and we note it where it does occur. (Just my opinion of course, I wouldn't be opposed to the idea if others support it) Orderinchaos 12:47, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I can't see an "observes DLS" field stopping somebody adding daylight saving figures. It just means that they have to populate three fields instead of two. It would need to be hard coded into the template to have any effect and that seems too complicated. --AussieLegend (talk) 14:48, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Pushpin map

After an attempt to delete this template failed, it was informally decided by other editors to add a pushpin map feature to the template. This has now been done and appears to be working well. As a result, {{{loc-x}}} and {{{loc-y}}} are now deprecated and should not be used. I have updated the documentation accordingly, as well as making some other fixes while at it. For consistency with other fields in the template, I have listed the pushpin latitude and longitude fields vertically in the blank template example. The examples page has not yet been updated. Any articles that are still using loc-x and loc-y are, or should be, listed at Category:Australian places with old location maps. --AussieLegend (talk) 14:20, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

just looking at how it looks in the article Perth, Western Australia IMHO the map is way too large can it be scaled back, just noticed that it been change to a national map(lot better in scale) suggest that rather then needing to add the map every time why not just set in the parameters of the template. Gnangarra 14:39, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

It appears the problem is that 'latd, longd, latm, longm, ...' must be specified first. Without these, the template will issue a big red ugly error message. These, of course, cannot be hardcoded into the template. As for the size, there is pushpin_mapsize. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 15:10, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I suspect there is actually a way to do it. Using the principles used with loc-x and loc-y to get it to automatically select a map I've been able to get the infobox to automatically display the filename of the map. I just can't get it to display the actual image. Unfortunately, I'm almost at the limits of my experience with coding these things so I'm at an impasse. --AussieLegend (talk) 15:58, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Has anyone tried using just latd with decimal coords to see if that works? (I would try it but I am fighting a migraine right now.) Orderinchaos 00:14, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Last night I converted all the articles listed in Category:Australian places with old location maps and had to do just that. it appears that latd, latm, longd and longm are mandatory fields. An entry is still required in latm and longm if you enter decimal coords in latd and/or longd, even if that entry is a zero. --AussieLegend (talk) 02:28, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Can't get Poochera, South Australia to work, Maitland, South Australia works fine so it is not a general SA issue. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 05:04, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

It worked for me but I changed {{{state}}} from [[South Australia]] to "sa", as per the template instructions. Maitland correctly uses "sa". --AussieLegend (talk) 06:24, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, too obvious! I didn't think of checking that! -- Mattinbgn\^talk

Is it possible to get Brisbane (and the other capital cities) to use the national push pin map rather than the state one, similar to Perth? -- Mattinbgn\^talk 06:35, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

It is but, as it was for loc-x and loc-y, it requires not entering a state in the state field. That has other issues but I'm not aware of the extent of those issues at this time. --AussieLegend (talk) 02:28, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can see, the only issue seems to be the loss of one field. The state code automatically causes the addition of a city article to [[Category:Cities in <statename>|<city name]], where <statename> is chosen according to the 2 or 3 letter state code. Without the correct state code, cities have to be added to the category manually. --AussieLegend (talk) 03:11, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

The simple fix would be to have "force_national_map" (or some better named attribute) with a "yes" or "no" value. If no it behaves exactly as now, if not it uses Australia, but otherwise keeps things the same. Orderinchaos 03:13, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Images

File:Dubbo,Nlle Galles du Sud..png

While we are discussing the underlying images used in the push-pin maps can I suggest two things:

• Adding some features to the state maps such as highways, rivers, lakes etc. such as the Canadian map here. This would allow for some orientation around what may be known features to the reader.
• Superimposing a simple map of Australia showing the states and territories on each of the state maps, similar to, although not as garish as this French example shown here (and obviously without the town names etc.). This provides better detail for Australian readers than using a national map but still provides a national context for readers less familiar with Australian geography.

Just a suggestion and I have no idea if either idea is practical. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 03:51, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd love to do the first but don't have the mapping skills to make it a reality. With regard to the second I tried to do something similar for WA but it screwed up. Orderinchaos 04:05, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Automation

Surely we can auto-select the pushpin map image using the state field. There is already a switch statement used in the code, a simple copy-and-paste can fix this, combined with it not using the pushpin_map field, and instead showing if all of the lat and long fields are provided. --TheJosh (talk) 04:05, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

That is what I was thinking, with maybe an extra option to force the national map for some places (eg capitals). The changes I made to the template yesterday were only meant to get the basic functionality working so the need would be met, but many and various improvements are possible. Orderinchaos 04:07, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Already changed it, pushpin_map is not used any more, it uses the state field. --TheJosh (talk) 04:20, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

You're a legend. I knew it could be done. I just couldn't do it. --AussieLegend (talk) 05:12, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Can you make it so that you can put in "Aus" or similar if you want to show a national map - to me it makes more sense for the major internationally known places to appear on a national map than a state map. Suburbs also might be better shown on a city map - ie allow "Perth" or "Melb" or similar. Would make sense then to define a "map" parameter, rather than just use the state name - especially if you are requiring states to be defined in a certain way (wa instead of Western Australia for example?) - and what else is this field used for?The-Pope (talk) 12:15, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Pope. The pushpin map for Perth, Western Australia (for example) looks better and is more meaningful to readers with a basemap of Australia rather than WA. Perhaps the basemap could default to the state field, but can overridden with a pushpin_map field. –Moondyne 12:54, 10 September 2009 (UTC) BTW, hats off to Orderinchaos for coding this long overdue feature. –Moondyne 13:13, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

As the pushpin map image cannot be specified, I have removed the width field. --TheJosh (talk) 04:59, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Also made the map be 270 px instead of 250 so its the same width as the image, making it nice and centered in the box. --TheJosh (talk) 05:04, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I have added a section in the blank templates page for adding push-pin fields to an existing box. --TheJosh (talk) 05:14, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Tasmania

Please see above #Tassie –Moondyne 13:34, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Had a go at fixing it but it might need a "purge" to work. It was simply a matter of changing the pushpin locator map template which this template refers to to look at the other image. Orderinchaos 14:20, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Well done.–Moondyne 02:40, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

There is still an issue with the Tasmania map - see Currie, Tasmania which appears to be located offshore! Do we need some new maps drawn by the experts? -- Mattinbgn\^talk 02:57, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

The problem will be the min and max numbers in the {{Location map Tasmania}}. I'm not sure exactly how to get those, they are at present the same numbers as for the old map. Orderinchaos 03:04, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

The numbers were somewhat off - I fixed them - only to realise that Flinders Island is an inset map. Playing with the longitude in Currie's article itself fixed it. Orderinchaos 03:10, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

You mean King Island of course, You mustn't be feeling well! :-) -- Mattinbgn\^talk 04:08, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that one. :) Orderinchaos 11:11, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Eastern edge localities

Is there a way to force the labels of pushpin maps to the left to stop eastern edge locality labels running off the maps? Melburnian (talk) 07:44, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Do we even need labels at all? It is in an infobox, with the name of the place right above, is it really nessasary? --TheJosh (talk) 07:56, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd prefer to keep the labels. The maps would look quite stark without them. Template:Infobox Indian jurisdiction has |locator_position = <!-- left/right --> for label position relative to teh dot. –Moondyne 08:02, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Moondyne. Melburnian (talk) 08:10, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with TheJosh. The labels are pretty meaningless and the eastern edge problem is quite unsightly. It wouldn't look so bare if the location map looked a little like the Sask. map above, which shows some features such as rivers, roads, etc. That said, it isn't really a big deal either way. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 09:46, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

There is a way to fix it by use of an additional parameter. If someone can look at one of the exemplars (Quebec / French communes) and see how they did it, that'd be the way to fix it. Orderinchaos 11:07, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Template:Infobox mountain gives a full range of label options | pushpin_label_position = <!-- the position of the pushpin label: left, right, top, bottom, none --> --Melburnian (talk) 14:01, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Is there a way to automate this somehow, based on the co-ords? Perhaps the automation code needs to go into {{Location map}}, that would help other projects as well. --TheJosh (talk) 03:11, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

loc-x and loc-y now seem unnecessary

On Thursday night I converted all articles that appeared in Category:Australian places with old location maps to use the pushpin map. Since then, no more articles have appeared so it seems that these fields can now be deleted as they are no longer necessary. --AussieLegend (talk) 05:26, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Fine with me --TheJosh (talk) 03:12, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. And yes, after about 36 hours after the edit, no new ones are going to arrive. Orderinchaos 03:29, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Great. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 21:01, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposal for adding village and homestead categories

Looking around my immediate neighbourhood I can see a place for the following classifications for Australian human settlement in decreasing order of size and community resources:

 City: Category:Cities_in_New_South_Wales
   Suburb: Category:Suburbs_of_{city}
 Town: Category:Towns_in_New_South_Wales
 Village: (?) Category:Villages_in_New_South_Wales
          which has been deleted, but I am unable to ascertain from the log entry why this was done
 Locality: Category:Localities_in_New_South_Wales
 Homestead: (?) Category:Homesteads_in_New_South_Wales 

The concepts of city and town are pretty obvious although not consistently applied if you consider Bathurst(town) versus Orange(city) where both have an LGA described as a "city council", along with similar populations and communal infrastructure.

In my experience village was not widely used in Australia. This has changed in recent years and it is now often used as a descriptive term for local communities, e.g., Bathurst city and its villages.

For the smaller groupings locality seems to me to be the term used and I would encourage its continued use even though the Wikipedia definition is quite broad. The more accurate term is hamlet but I personally don't hear this used much in Australia.

Finally a substantial dwelling with outbuildings (esp.in remote parts of Australia) is usually referred to as a homestead. Some of these are famous. Famous or not, many are marked on the 1:1,000,000 map in the far west areas of NSW.

BTW Kunderang Homestead appears to be one of these. Kunderang is mentioned in several articles but does not have its own description. It seems to me that the homestead entry should be split into the definition of homestead while the description of Kunderang itself should appear in its own article. But I'm new to this sort of thing.

Suggestions:

1. reinstate Category:Villages_in_New_South_Wales, and I will happily add Rydal and Tarana to the category

2. create Category:Homesteads_in_New_South_Wales and the new [[Kunderang,_New_South_Wales}]] article could start the category

3. sort Template:Infobox Australian place | type = city/town/village/locality/homestead ... So these types are properly defined, e.g., get a banner colour other than grey.

Please let me know if this suggestion/discussion piece should have been placed elsewhere, and, as far as I can tell making these category and templates changes is way out of my league.

Regards -- gtsWiki ^talk 07:58, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Just has a brief read of your comment and apologise if I've miss read you. I would support the reinstatement of Village as Murrami, Uranquinty, Yanco, Wamoon ect are villages (some if not all of them are classified as village).

I oppose adding homesteads as they are large (and can be a size of a LGA) but I don't see them as a Town, Village, Locality or City but I wouldn't oppose the creation of a infobox to cover homesteads and stations (EG: Cattle stations) giving info on the size, establishment, location (LGA's [If any] and State/Territory) just for example. Bidgee (talk) 08:44, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Does "village" actually exist as a gazetted category, and if so, in any state outside NSW? I'd be opposed if it isn't a general category as the "town" profile for IAP is adequate to cover the category, and there would be no parent category to add the articles to. Homesteads as Bidgee said can be covered by their own template - although only a few would likely be notable enough to have articles so you'd want to make sure at least 60 or so were notable before creating an infobox for them. Orderinchaos 09:33, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I must have missed something about gazetted items along the way to here. As far as I know the only things that are gazetted are LGAs, Caudaustral Parishes and Counties. There is no gazetting of town, city or suburb, e.g., note my example below where we have to distinguish between Orange the city and its gazetted LGA (and in this case the city is only a small part of the LGA). Does this clarify the issue or have I missed your point? -- gtsWiki \^talk 10:25, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

First of all - this template is for all of Australia, if we accommodated the wide diversity of state government practices around Australia we would have a 100k template. (WA for example *does* gazette towns quite specifically, creates town lots within towns, and degazettes them when no longer needed. Also "counties" do not exist in WA, we have "land districts" instead with numbered "locations". New locations are generated each time land is subdivided or a reserve declared. Each state has their own peculiar system in this regard.) As such, the Gazetteer of Australia is generally used, with LOCB -> town, SUB -> suburb. Anything else starts wandering into the vast realms of WP:OR. Orderinchaos 10:34, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the Geoscience/Gazetteer reference very useful. Looking at examples I found plain Rydal and Rydal as village. Checking more generally I found many villages (318) across Australia were indeed on the register. On this indication I think it's almost unreasonable not to have "village" as a location category as proposed. On a side note I can see one source for my confusion. When talking of things "being gazetted" I thought that to mean publication in the Official Government Gazette which is a lot more formal a process than getting something added to a government register of names and places. -- gtsWiki \^talk 11:44, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Most of those 318 are not "villages" but more like a subdivision of a parish, in fact they are the exact equivalent of what we in WA have as "townsites" from which lots are formed (Anything recorded as "Village of" fits this category, it is used only for land title purposes - see eg [6]). Of the rest, the ones in Queensland are not villages but suburbs(!), one of the SA ones is a town as is at least one of the VIC ones ("Village" is simply part of the name), and the ones listed in WA don't even exist. (For example "Broomehill Village" is coincidental with the town of Broomehill, while the most are a theoretical centroid for a land district.) Additionally, every last one is under LOCU (which we generally don't document) or LOCB (which we generally document as towns). Orderinchaos 14:05, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with the existing definition of homestead, viz.,

A homestead is either a single building, or collection of buildings grouped together on a large agricultural holding - such as a ranch, station or a large agricultural operation of some other designation.

Specifically I see the homestead category as belonging to the building cluster in much the same way that the city of Orange is distinct from the City of Orange LGA. With this in mind the actual area of attached land is not all that relevant.

FWIW I have formed the impression that where the grazing properties are big the LGAs are even bigger. But saying this might constitute original research so I will stop this line of thought. :-) -- gtsWiki \^talk 09:58, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Pushpin label position

Is there option for left label position? See Wauchope, New South Wales. --Kikos (talk) 14:07, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

This was discussed above but AFAIK it has never been implemented. --AussieLegend (talk) 14:11, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I just added it. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 21:56, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Victoria

The infobox seems to have started generating incorrect links to Victoria again. It should be linking to Victoria (Australia). See Dingley Village, Victoria for an example. DuncanHill (talk) 15:23, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

The error was caused by this edit. --AussieLegend (talk) 15:41, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

OK thanks, I'd forgotten how that worked. Can't the box be made to fail gracefully with an error message instead of generating incorrect links when an invalid parameter is imput? DuncanHill (talk) 15:55, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

The only option I can think of is expanding the options it accepts to convert, but I think that would add inordinately to the code complexity. Orderinchaos 19:14, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

List of x suburbs linking

The infobox provides the capability to link to a "List of x suburbs" article if "|city=" is used. For example, in the Balmain infobox below, there is a link to List of Sydney suburbs provided as "Suburbs around Balmain". However, this appears to be limited functionality that is only useful for the capital cities, where piping is not used in the "city" field. In other areas, for example Lambton, where the contents of "|city=" is "[[Newcastle, New South Wales|Newcastle]]", there is no "Suburbs around Lambton" link. If "city" is not used (or the field is empty) the "List of x suburbs" article becomes a red link to Category:Suburbs of, as in the case of Duns Creek.

Balmain Sydney, New South Wales
Suburbs around Balmain: Drummoyne Birchgrove Rozelle Balmain Balmain East Rozelle Rozelle

Lambton Newcastle, New South Wales
Suburbs around Lambton: Jesmond North Lambton Waratah Wallsend Lambton Broadmeadow New Lambton Heights New Lambton Broadmeadow

Duns Creek New South Wales
Suburbs around Duns Creek: Martins Creek, Paterson Martins Creek Glen Oak Tocal Duns Creek Glen Oak Tocal Woodville Seaham

Duns Creek Port Stephens Council, New South Wales
Suburbs around Duns Creek: Martins Creek, Paterson Martins Creek Glen Oak Tocal Duns Creek Glen Oak Tocal Woodville Seaham

One work around for the Duns creek problem is to put the LGA name in the city field, whether or not the LGA is a city, but I don't see a work around for the Lambton problem. --AussieLegend (talk) 00:39, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, it looks like there was a bug in the code where the {{#ifexist check did not match the display value, so we were checking for the wrong thing. I fixed it to at least be consistent. As far as the other problem goes, I will have to think about it. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:27, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

How about an optional suburbs_link parameter, or something that can be used to override the default? Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:29, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

That seems sensible to me. Orderinchaos 00:04, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Mungindi

There is a current move request taking place at Talk:Mungindi, New South Wales. One commenter has raised the point about the state appearing in the infobox when Mungindi is a cross-border town. As far as I can tell this would be unique in Australia but nevertheless it would be nicr if the infobox could cater for this anomoly - even if as a one-off exception. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 07:46, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Former Names

I think a field for former names would be very useful, particularly for LGAs, many of which have undergone numerous name changes as different levels of status have been granted to them. Other cities have had several official names in the past. For example Bendigo = Sandhurst. While this can be mentioned in history and perhaps the redirect highlighted in bold, the reader has to dig to find imporant historical reference. A former names field would certainly help eliminate a lot of confusion. --Biatch (talk) 22:03, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

You could always use {{Infobox settlement}}, which has this feature. I would be happy to convert the infobox in question if that is desired. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 15:39, 31 October 2010 (UTC) Please disregard this suggestion. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 16:04, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Multiple size/population/density fields

Can we have multiple size/population/density fields to deal with cities like Melbourne which have multiple definitions which are commonly used for the various statistics? I'm not talking about the City of Melbourne, but frex the state government's administrative grouping of LGAs that constitute the Melbourne metropolitan area, the statistical division of Melbourne, and urban area of Melbourne. I don't really know Wiki syntax well enough to know what to do. —Felix the Cassowary 12:44, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

You could always use {{Infobox settlement}}, which supports this feature. I would be happy to convert the template if that is desired. This feature could be added here, but it would be easier to just use the other template. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 15:37, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Please do not spam the crappy and bloated template, we have already stated that we will stick with the Australian place template and it will stay that way. Bidgee (talk) 15:45, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that the plan is to use this template in most (if not all) cases. I was merely stating an alternative of adding "bloat" to this one. Please don't accuse me of "spamming". If you check the edit history, I am one of the editors who helps maintain this template.. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 15:53, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Whether you maintain this template or not, the community agreed that this template should be used over the settlement infobox. You did spam "You could always use {{Infobox settlement}}, which has this feature.", once is enough but twice is too much especially that both comments are on the bottom of the page. Bidgee (talk) 15:59, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I will refrain from speaking the name of taboo template. I had no idea people were so vehemently opposed to mentioning it around here. So, back to the topic at hand, are you in favor of adding either of these features? Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 16:02, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Former names would be good (Darwin was Port Darwin then Palmerston, South Wagga Wagga/Wagga which suburb of Wagga Wagga [sounds confusing I know but it is gazetted] was known as Newtown, Griffith was also known as Bagtown ect) since there would be many locations which have changed name(s) or spelling. Not too sure about the multiple size/population/density fields. I would be handy to have Urban Pop and Statical Pop field for town/city articles. Bidgee (talk) 16:09, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

At the risk of creating a new drama (and derailing this discussion), would it be possible to get a version of IAP that would use the back-end of IS but with a much simplified interface and a look and feel similar (preferably identical) to IAP as it exists now. I share Bidgee's concerns with using IS as it is in Australia (I have used it elsewhere and find it overly complex and unintuitive - that could be just me however) but I am becoming swayed by the need to have a template that has active maintaining editors. Editors willing to maintain IAP are getting thin on the ground IMO. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 03:50, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that the push is to use the cumbersome IS as is, rather than doing as you've suggested. IAP seems to work well in the 7,000 articles that use it. The only maintenance is really the addition of non-essential frills. --AussieLegend (talk) 06:23, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Additional field (parametre)

Would it be possible to add a field called "| native name = " (or "| aboriginal name = ") int this infobox as is done in infobox island (some data deleted here for the sake of space) e.g.

" indigenous name = " would be more elegant. Peter Horn User talk 01:17, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Brisk

I'm not opposed to this by any means but I do wonder how often it will be used. I don't think there are very many dual named populated localities in Australia - names tend to be Aboriginal or European with no Aboriginal alternate. No doubt there will be counter-examples but I wonder how many? -- Mattinbgn (talk) 03:44, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Right hand border

In Firefox at least, the right hand border of this infobox appears to have disappeared. See Rockhampton, Queensland for an example. Any ideas as to why and how it can be fixed? -- Mattinbgn (talk) 05:34, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Looks ok to me, (also using FireFox [3.6.13]) Bidgee (talk) 08:48, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

LGA location maps

It was suggested in an earlier discussion on location (pushpin) maps that perhaps suburbs could use a narrower context than state. I think this is also a valid concern for towns & townships; for instance, from the pushpin maps of the towns in the Shire of Mansfield, about all you can tell is where the Shire of Mansfield is.

Example location map of the Shire of Mansfield

I have modified the template to make use of location maps for LGAs if they're of the form {{Template:Location map Australia state {{{lga}}}}} e.g. {{Template:Location map Australia Victoria Shire of Mansfield}} using the "use_lga_map" parameter. (NB. This fails if {{{lga}}} is prelinked, so delink if you're adding locator maps.) You can also manually specify a map template using the "alternative_location_map" parameter.

I have data from which to generate maps for Victorian LGAs. (For metropolitan Melbourne, I have in mind using one that shows the whole area, otherwise it would be too precise, I think, to get any context.) It will take some time to get them all up, but largely only because I have to manually decide on the borders and the location of the locator map (plus convert to svg) manually for each one.

You can take a look at some examples at User:Cassowary/Places in Mansfield Shire if you want to see what how they compare, or Bonnie Doon, Victoria and Mansfield, Victoria for "in place" examples. I've modelled the appearance largely after the ones used in the UK, such as at St Asaph in Wales. I included national parks because we have so many more of them than urban areas and they probably provide a suitable context of sorts.

Unfortunately I have no data from which to generate LGA maps for any other state so once I reach the border, there's nothing but a sea of grey and the occasional waterway...

Finally, a suggestion was made to include highways in state maps. Again, I can only do this for Victoria, although I'd prefer to leave the state maps alone unless I can do highways for every state. I would be delighted to do them for every state, but I lack the data. If anyone knows where I can find it (for preference in KML format, but any text-based format should be fine), I'll probably do them before the rest of the LGA maps.

—Felix the Cassowary 00:37, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Good move. I personally have thought for a long time that we should have one for each metropolitan area in Australia, starting with the capital cities but also including larger centres like Newcastle, Townsville, Toowoomba, Bendigo etc. For rural areas in WA it wouldn't be too hard to generate a map of each of the nine regions (I think LGAs would be rather too specific in WA's case as we have a lot of small ones due to never having had a mass amalgamation). Orderinchaos 13:51, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

road map of Victoria

I've done the road map of Victoria, which you can preview to the side.

Javascript map switcher in the French Wikipédia

I just noticed in the French Wikipédia the niftiest feature. Take a look at frex fr:Wedderburn in the infobox there, it says under the map of Victoria “Voir sur la carte : Australie”. I think that would be a hugely nice feature, so you could switch between LGA maps (if available), state and national (primarily for non-Australians). I don't know Javascript but if anyone could incorporate that feature here I think it would be very nice. —Felix the Cassowary 17:04, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Property Value (propval) parameter update

Per recent update at WP:AUSTYLE#Currency, the propval parameter has changed to show A$ instead of AUD. Articles should be reviewed to make sure dollar signs are not unncessarily used in the propval parameter. Dl2000 (talk) 06:09, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Broken

This template seems to have gone bad around February, see Tralee, New South Wales and Environa, New South Wales. Something to do with the locater map. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:02, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Neither of these were problems with the infobox. The problem was that the infoboxes in both articles had "NSW" in the "|state=" field instead of "nsw". --AussieLegend (talk) 11:44, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the fix, but I can see this problem cropping up again! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:36, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

It's cropped up a number of times, so it's probably worth fixing. --AussieLegend (talk) 12:54, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I've modified the infobox to allow for upper-case state abbreviations and checked a few articles to see if has caused any problems. I didn't see any though, so it seems to be working fine. --AussieLegend (talk) 13:19, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that upgrade! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:32, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I simplified it a bit using {{lc: ... }}, which should do the same thing and also allow for all possible case variations. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 20:54, 12 March 2011 (UTC)