Template talk:Infobox Australian place/Archive 4

message: ===All manual (non-template) infoboxes===
: Safe to ignore these - I am working on all of these as part of a renewal project for Central Coast, Lake Macquarie and Newcastle articles and have actually produced the above infoboxes with a database I made last year, but just finding the time to get to them. If anyone wants to beat me to it and whack on a few infoboxes yourself, drop me an email and I can return-mail you the straight-text infoboxes/geocoords. Orderinchaos 14:39, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Infoboxes to be replaced by this template

message: : Safe to ignore these - I am working on all of these as part of a renewal project for Central Coast, Lake Macquarie and Newcastle articles and have actually produced the above infoboxes with a database I made last year, but just finding the time to get to them. If anyone wants to beat me to it and whack on a few infoboxes yourself, drop me an email and I can return-mail you the straight-text infoboxes/geocoords. Orderinchaos 14:39, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: All manual (non-template) infoboxes

message: Suburbs of Lake Macquarie, such as Buttaba, New South Wales have a different infobox.  Is this a concern?--Grahamec 01:39, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a concern and is an example of "manual" infoboxes being used in some Australian place articles. As per the to-do list, all manual infoboxes, such as the one you have found, should be converted to this template. There is a list of articles with manual infoboxes above on this talk page. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 02:09, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: *Having just spent some time cleaning up some incorrect attempts to replace manual templates with this one, I'd just like to point out that, in the case of suburbs of Lake Macquarie, city = Lake Macquarie, logo = Lake-logo.jpg and links to surrounding suburbs need to be in the Suburb format (otherwise we end up with adjacent suburbs such as Cardiff). Also, I'd strongly urge that the link to the template page be included in the edit summary. I reverted 2 edits where a user had relabelled Lake Macquarie suburbs as being in Sydney before going to that user's contributions wondering how many pages they had mis-edited. I only found this talk page because it was in their edit summary. If I hadn't found this talk page, I would quite likely have reverted about 7 conversions of manual templates to this one, thinking that someone had no idea what they were doing. --Athol Mullen 14:44, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *To be fair, I don't think many people understand the distinction outside NSW, which is probably how it came about. Orderinchaos 15:13, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Lake Macquarie infobox

message: When someone uses this template with "state=Victoria", the template links to the Victoria disambiguation page rather than Victoria (Australia).  I'm not a member of WikiProject Australia, so I don't feel it's my place to edit the template, since it might accidentally disrupt quite a few Australian articles — but I wanted to point it out.  --Wayne Miller 15:29, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It should be "state=vic", the template does actually convert that to the correct format. If they type in "Victoria" it treats it as an unrecognised piece of text and tries to automatically link it. Thanks for bringing it up. Orderinchaos 16:56, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ah, thanks for the info.  I'm fixing links to Victoria as part of WikiProject Disambiguation, and I expect I'll run into quite a few of these.  I'll fix any I see.  Thanks again.  --Wayne Miller 20:49, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  No worries :) Good luck with that - if you have any further questions don't hesitate to ask (there's a lot of non-standard stuff out there :|) Orderinchaos 00:33, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I've fixed the links at Bronte. These links should be just entered in full, rather than leaving it to the template to make them links. JPD (talk) 18:46, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thank you very much. CarolGray 19:13, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A problem with Victoria 

message: Hi all, I notice that Municipality of Strathfield used to have the percentage of Australian born residences in it's infobox. This is now missing. It's a useful metric, could we get this included into this infobox? - Ta bu shi da yu 07:51, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The austborn field was debated during the development of this box and the result was to remove it.  has some info on the discusion. --TheJosh 02:19, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is a useful metric but as with most, it probably belongs in the prose under a Demographics section (where significant minorities and other useful information can also be raised). Orderinchaos 05:40, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting, but why is that? I can't see any justification for this... - Ta bu shi da yu 09:08, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: One major concern was the size and readability of the infobox - the LGA version of it is already quite large (indeed, larger than a screen on 1280x960 with most implementations) and indeed larger than many of the articles that support it. Orderinchaos 09:15, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  % Australian born 

message: Could we have counties as an optional field with a link back to Cadastral divisions of Australia? Perhaps also the parish of the county, or hundred for SA. These were widely used in the nineteenth century and are still on land titles & geneology records  --Astrokey44 01:55, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Cadastral units such as counties are so rarely used or referred to these days I can't see much relevance to articles on existing place names.  They have some historical context which, when details are known, could just as easily be referred to in the text. —Moondyne 03:00, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

text: It's a bit of a weird one - in WA those counties were not used even in the 19th century. Instead we have (regions?) of some form like Swan, Cockburn Sound, Canning, Avon, Ninghan, Roe, Murray, Wellington, Sussex and Nelson to name a few - some do coincide with counties but most don't. Orderinchaos 03:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Its interesting that Peel County for example is way out in the eastern wheatbelt (:Image:Western Australia cadastral divisions.png).  PSL thanks for the excellent cartography work by User:Astrokey44.   —Moondyne 03:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yep and Marmion if you see it anywhere in GGs is not the coastal suburb but some place off in the desert somewhere. And agreed re Astrokey - very nice work on those! Orderinchaos 03:26, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: dont thank me, thank the National Library for putting thousands of old maps online :) I still think given that wikipedia includes history, that the counties would be important, probably not so much for WA where they dont cover the whole state, but in the eastern states for instance they are on all the towns for Vic, NSW and Tas at the 1911 Britannica, see "WAGGA-WAGGA, a town of Wynyard county".  --Astrokey44 13:00, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Well they are used on property titles --Astrokey44 02:34, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The usage of counties in property titles from 1933 hardly constitutes them being an important fact. By including such parameters we are adding bloat which was the main thing we tried to avoid when we initially put this template together. The same goes for parishes and hundreds. I am not suggesting that these points are not interesting, I just feel they should be included in prose only. I suggest the fields should be removed. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 10:46, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Parishes and counties are used on all property titles in NSW, Vic, Qld and Tas from 1788 up to today, I believe. The Geographical Names Board of New South Wales thinks they're important to include in their city/town information. --Astrokey44 11:25, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, they are still used, and it's great that Wikipedia has coverage on them. However, I do think that putting them in the infobox overstates their importance. JPD (talk) 11:27, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Their historic importance, and continued use  makes them at least as important as the state electoral divisions. They would be useful in, say real estate, if someone looked up a suburb in Sydney and wanted to know which parish it is included in. this is just one link I found: Auburn council's faq includes the parish and county --Astrokey44 08:24, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I've never heard of a county, parish or hundred being used in this way in Australia.  It is certainly trivial.  Maybe there should just be one section for subdivisions, and format it similar to the "Government" section of the box in Australia (in that the Queen, GG and PM are listed in separate rows, but its only a single section of the infobox? -- Chuq 07:01, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

text: If it's consistently done that way (and assuming it's agreed they're kept), then we only need one field which we can call "county" in the script, but would display as "Parish" for suburbs and "County" for all others. We already do this for LGA as the ACT does not have LGAs, but districts, and we found a way to accommodate them. Orderinchaos 10:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  counties 

message: * Can I ask that everyone have a quick look at Albury, New South Wales as it is a good example of where most of the possible items in an Info Box have been populated - including the county of Goulburn.  To my mind this does not bloat the article space or the box - and it does link quickly and systematically to important data that both reflects historical and current facts. The alternate is indiscriminate inclusion as prose somewhere in an article.  However that said, there is an inherent problem with Parishes because the fact is that many towns and cities can have one, two or more parishes within their boundary. I therefore propose a comprise - I suggest that Cities/Towns/Locations (other than suburbs) should be able to include only the County information in the info box whilst Suburbs should be able to include only the Parish information.  This will mean that there is only one extra line in each Info Box.  Could you please indicate your support or dissent to this suggestion please.  Whilst it may be obvious - so as to declare my hand I Support the inclusion of information in this way. --VS talk 10:08, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If it's consistently done that way (and assuming it's agreed they're kept), then we only need one field which we can call "county" in the script, but would display as "Parish" for suburbs and "County" for all others. We already do this for LGA as the ACT does not have LGAs, but districts, and we found a way to accommodate them. Orderinchaos 10:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Compromise proposal 

message: Is it possible to display a direction properly with the distance#/location# parameters? Using near-dd seems overkill for country towns, but putting distances without a direction doesn't provide the full info either. See for example the box on Gladstone, South Australia which currently renders as:
* 211 km from north of Adelaide
* 38 km from east of Port Pirie
by putting the distance as part of the location# --Scott Davis Talk 22:14, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea, I think (and yes, the only country thing we use near-dd for in country areas is LGAs which clearly border other LGAs). From a readability point of view, best way to do would be to have a dir# and if it is filled out it reads (dir# of), if it's not it reads (from). From other coding in the script that would be doable (I'd prefer to see it as a single letter so as not to spill it vertically) What do others think? Orderinchaos 05:49, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have coded the dir variable into the template. See the example in the infobox shown in this section above. For the Jamestown example no "dir3" value has been entered, and therefore direction shows as "from". The dir variable is free text so more precise directions such as NE or SSW can be entered as well. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 07:39, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  town - distance/direction 

message: Some recent changes to this template apparently are creating spurious links in the MediaWiki link database, which among other things are polluting WP:DPM.  For example, any use of the template with the parameter "city=Perth" is showing up as a link to the disambiguation page Perth, even though it appears that some effort has been made to avoid this and to route links to the correct page Perth, Western Australia.  See, for example, Hamersley, Western Australia—there is no visible link to Perth on this page, but it still ends up listed on Special:Whatlinkshere/Perth, along with dozens of other W.A. locality articles.  A similar problem seems to exist with articles about ACT localities, which all create links to the disambiguation page Act, even though there is no visible link to Act on the pages.  It would be appreciated if someone who is sufficiently familiar with the esoteric template techniques being used here could correct these problems. --Russ (talk) 12:58, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've replied on the user's talk page - I think this may be a MediaWiki bug, and have seen a specific instance of it elsewhere. Orderinchaos 13:12, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spurious links being created 

message: For the vast majority of cities, towns and suburbs, the time zone can be automatically calculated from the state variable.  Would it be possible to automatically display the timezone, but ONLY in cases where "timezone" and "timezone-dst" are left blank - to allow for places such as Broken Hill, New South Wales and Eucla, Western Australia to "override" these defaults if needed? -- Chuq 00:52, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Time zones 

message: Hi, a suggestion/question.
I have noticed that all federal electorate articles are titled "Division of .."" and state electorate articles are titled "Electoral district of ...", seemingly without exception.  When filling out the electorate sections of the info box, I add Indi to get Indi to appear. Would it be possible (or desirable) to code the box so that I could simply type Indi and have Indi appear in the box with a link to the article?  Cheers--Mattinbgn/ talk 08:02, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not a bad idea actually. The only problem is all the ones we already have with the other form. Some of the problems we have are essentially to do with legacy stuff which predated the script and could probably do with being smartened up. Orderinchaos 11:05, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Could it be set up so that infoboxes can be made on the state and federal electorate articles themselves? --Astrokey44 10:26, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: An infobox for electorates is a great idea. Not sure whether it could be included in this template as per town, suburb and LGA or would need a new template.  I would suggest a new one as the fields likely to be included in an electorate info box would not have a large overlap with the others.--Mattinbgn/ talk 08:44, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's an attempt: Template:Infobox Australian Electoral, which I have tried out with Electoral district of Albury. Feel free to change it if there are better fields or anything. --Astrokey44 01:02, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Followed this one up btw - NT is an exception as theirs are "Electoral division of...". Doesn't mean it can't be done, but is a consideration. Orderinchaos 02:08, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  State and Federal electorates 

message: I had to revert back to Scharks's last version as a number of key features had somehow gotten broken (most notably, suburb direction boxes had ceased to display). Please be careful to test any changes prior to making them "live" as this template appears on several thousand pages. Orderinchaos 14:02, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: sorry my fault, I was trying to make a new navigation box. It appeared to work, but I should have checked its effect on other suburbs etc. I have now made it separately cause i didnt want to cause any more disruption --Astrokey44 11:51, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New changes 

message: The NZeders are considering adopting a version of this template for their articles at Wikipedia:New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board#Infoboxes for NZ towns and cities etc. At present, Kiwi place articles use a convuluted table code far worse than that which we eradicated. Would the collaborators here be interested in helping develop a Kiwi version, if they decide it's the type they want?--cj | talk 02:06, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd be happy to help where required. ◄scharks► 10:22, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Same. :) They seem a pretty good bunch over there. Orderinchaos 10:39, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Kiwi version?

message: The automatic establishment date categorisation puts the establishment date first in the list of categories at the bottom of the page, which is not appropriate. The defining category should come first, ie :category:Towns in Western Australia or whatever. RegRCN 08:59, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as I know there isn't any specific order or priority in which categories are displayed, or in which they should be listed. -- Chuq (talk) 12:24, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The order comes from the order they appear in the code. Establishment date has now been moved to the bottom. - 52 Pickup 13:03, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Please remove the automatic establishment date categorisation

message: This may be nitpicking but we probably should get it right.  When placing the template on Northern Territory towns and adding the Territory electorate, it appears on the page with "State District" not "Territory District".  See Adelaide River, Northern Territory for an example.  Can this be fixed or do we need to live with it.  Of course, the Territory could get its act together and apply for statehood and save us the trouble. :-) --Mattinbgn/ talk 01:22, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's something we're going to need to address. Also, for some reason whoever created all the NT political articles named them "Electoral *division* of"... More fun. Orderinchaos 03:55, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That appears to be what they're called.  --Scott Davis Talk 07:15, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, that's fine then. Will just have to keep that in mind when doing NT articles. The other matter is a simple one I can fix when I have time - as the ACT doesn't use them at all, we can just do an if for NT. Orderinchaos 07:46, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think Tasmania also needs to be special-cased as they also use electoral divisions, not districts. See Template:Tasmanian electorates for links. Even worse - thay have electoral divisions for the house of assembly (which appear to be coincident with the federal electoral divisions, and have the same names), and different electoral divisions for the legislative council. --Scott Davis Talk 03:19, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for that. While we haven't hard coded it into the template, it may well happen in the future so it's good to have it here so that any developers know (also useful for the rest of us who might be doing Tasmanian articles at some point). Orderinchaos 03:30, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Northern Territory towns 

message: Could we have space for flags and coat of arms for the capital cities? similar to how it is done on Template:Australia state or territory --Astrokey44 10:58, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, because Australian city articles cover metropolitan areas which do not have flags or coats of arms (these belong to local government areas).--cj | talk 11:02, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Couldn't it be used there with a note that it technically belongs to the LGA. Its just that that would look great on Melbourne --Astrokey44 11:20, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It might do, but to do so would be being inaccurate for the sake of decoration, which would be a Bad Thing.--cj | talk 11:22, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But surely they are meant to represent the whole city, otherwise why dont any of the other LGA's have coats of arms? --Astrokey44 11:25, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

text: IMO this would be a great use of the Logo field in the City article. Is the Logo field enabled for that type of article? (This would mean not having to add a field.) Alternatively, just use it in the Image field for the LGA. Orderinchaos 11:35, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  They can have both a logo and a coat of arms such as with City of Mandurah . Perhaps the coat of arms/flag images could be half the size as on some other infoboxes. Heres an example using Template:Infobox Settlement --Astrokey44 14:00, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess we could allow for more than one in the infobox, but in general I don't see why we need to have anything more than whichever is most used out of the coat of arms and logo. Very few councils have flags that are widely used. Please note again that the City of Melbourne flag and arms definitely don't belong on the Melbourne page - as metropolises such as Sydney and Melbourne are not represented by any legal entities, the only flags designed for them are unofficial. JPD (talk) 15:41, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flag/Coat of arms 

message: Astrokey44 has expanded information (climate, LGAs, electorates, postcodes, etc) included in the infoboxes for the capital city articles which is indicated by the fields table to be valid only for towns and suburbs. Is the table incorrect or should the changes be reverted?--cj | talk 13:42, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems reasonable to include the climate information. The postcode ranges, however, are fairly pointless, especially as the ones used usually cover the whole of the state. I am undecided on the other fields, tending in general against inclusion, but would tend more towards inclusion in cases where a specific XXX in Capital city article/list exists. JPD (talk) 14:13, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Have removed the postcodes, but thought the capital city infoboxes could use expanding as they have less information than some of the boxes for towns and suburbs, and also compared with other major world cities. Maybe there are other fields which could be used? see also an anon comment.  --Astrokey44 01:49, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My personal feeling - we're trying to avoid creating new fields, but if we can find good uses for the existing ones in new ways, I'm not really concerned as long as we don't end up with 2-screen infoboxes. I agree the postcode ranges add little in this case, but the climate is actually useful (although noting that most of the cities have a climatic range - eg I live in Perth but use the Swanbourne metrics as they're closer to my area, while others might use Jandakot or Perth Airport depending on where they are). (Re the anon, one improvement IMO, and I know a couple of others agree, is shrinking the font to 90%. We couldn't get consensus on it last time, though.) Orderinchaos 05:15, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Information in capital infoboxes

message: There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Adelaide#Station Infoboxes that participants here may be interested in, with a suggestion to develop a standard infobox along the lines of this and  for railway stations.--cj | talk 15:08, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Infobox Australian Station?

message: It should be noted whether the distances used are road or air as they can be quite different.   says the road distance from Melbourne to Perth is 3456km, while  gives the air distance as 2733km --Astrokey44 02:01, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We've traditionally used road distances, although air distances can be noted in the article, or in cases of islands where there clearly is no road distance. I used the official estimates by Tourism Australia on the Perth article - it's really crazy that no two sites actually agree on the distances between our major cities, and there's actually quite a variance. We hit this problem with the Port Lincoln article a while ago. Orderinchaos 08:30, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  distances 

message: It seems to have become common practice to put each place in an Establishment Category eg. Category:1991 Establishments. Would it be possible for this to be done automatically or will it just be left manual? Todd661 10:36, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Never mind, I just realised it was already done Todd661 10:59, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah those categories didn't exist as far as Australian articles were concerned prior to the creation of this template. Nice bit of coding indeed :) Orderinchaos 05:41, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Done - tested on Beverley, Western Australia (which uses fixed year), Harvey, Western Australia (which uses a decade) and Hamilton Hill, Western Australia (where est has not been filled in). Orderinchaos 02:05, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Establishment Dates 

message: I think we need another type for region. Adelaide Hills would be a region, as would Yorke Peninsula.
* Support as per above.
* Temporary oppose - Nice idea, but a clear list of regions for the whole country is first needed - after that, it would then be possible to see if it is worth doing. Two SA regions is not enough reason to go ahead with this. - 52 Pickup 14:09, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, getting you now. I think I was having a blond moment. :| Orderinchaos 16:26, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ohhhh, so it is.  Ignore the above.  I am all for infoboxes in articles and would support one for regions but what fields would be included? -- Mattinbgn/ talk 10:19, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Dear me, I had my own blonde moment – the intent of the proposal went straight over my head. I'm fine with region type.--cj | talk 16:16, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Bit worrying that *three* of us managed to mis-comprehend the proposal as it stood :P Orderinchaos 01:41, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So for which states would this be used? It is fine insisting that the field only be used if official regions are already stated, but you can't stop users from placing their idea of a region where it officially isn't true (as would be the case for NSW, for example) - unless you set the template options to not enable this field for certain states. Therefore, as i said above, a clear list should be laid out for all acceptable values. - 52 Pickup 11:14, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Does this make 4 people who have misunderstood? We're not talking about a field (that already exists, and hasn't caused too many problems - even if people did misuse it, it would be no harder to deal with than vandalism), but a type. In other words, we're talking about using this template to put infoboxes on things like Yorke Peninsula. JPD (talk) 11:35, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No. I meant what is going to stop people using this for things like Southern Highlands, New South Wales? This is not an official region, its area is uncertain, has AFAIK no central administration, so what useful information would the infobox display? If used incorrectly, this could lead to unnecessary template creep. - 52 Pickup 11:44, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Is "template" creep a big problem?  Provided the template is well designed and contains useful, reliably sourced information, why is it a problem if it is used on Southern Highlands, New South Wales?  The Riverina is not an official region, its area is also uncertain, and has no central administration but surely enough information in that article can be found to fill a well designed infobox to succintly summarise some key facts and points. I'm not convinced this template can be stretched far enough to encompass regions but I support the idea of a regional template with the content to be included the same as any other article through citing reliable sources and consensus.-- Mattinbgn/ talk 11:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly. The fact that Southern Highlands is not an officially defined region does not mean it cannot have an infobox. It is possibly (probably) true that there will not be enough information to make an infobox worthwhile in at least some cases, but that is a stylistic decision to be made by the editors of that article, not something that needs a rule handed down here. The real question is, as Mattinbgn says, should a region box use this template. JPD (talk) 12:03, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

text: What states apart from WA have legislatively defined regions that the ABS generally respects? Orderinchaos 13:46, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In SA we have areas that when you enter there are great big signs with the name and a pretty picture. The areas I can think of are the metro area (counts as Adelaide), Adelaide Hills, Yorke Peninsula, Eyre Peninsula, Fleurieu Peninsula, the Riverland, the Barossa and the Outback (other states too). Seems clear enough to me. When i made this proposal, I thought of the variation looking a bit like the city one and a bit like the lga one. --TheJosh 12:06, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See Template:South_Australia --TheJosh 01:30, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are other areas considered regions also not listed there, eg Murrylands, Murray Mallee, Copper Coast etc. --cj | talk 02:50, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

text: In Queensland the State Government Office of Economic and Statistical Research recognises official Regions of Queensland, also recognised by the ABS. -- Mattinbgn/ talk 12:14, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: SA has ABS regions. Also, for testing (so we can get a feel of it) I have added a temp box to this article: Adelaide Hills --TheJosh 08:48, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The NSW DLG has this regions list where the regions are simply agglomerations of LGAs (hmm, how many TLAs can you fit into one sentence?). I'm not sure how official this is or if can be used here, though. - 52 Pickup 19:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I have added full support for the region type --TheJosh 03:02, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Region 

message: I was going to raise a comment about the text size in this Infobox and suggest a slight reduction, but noticed in the archives that this has already been proposed in December last year.  While the response appears to mostly be supportive, there obviously was no final consensus nor change as a consequence.  Therefore I guess I am re-raising this proposal with my support, for two reasons:
#It appears that most/all Infoboxes use a reduced font size (90%), and this would make Australian Place consistent; and
#Having a reduced text size (not forgetting line-height) would reduce the length of a 'healthy' Infobox which can sometimes be as long or even longer than the place's article!
Can we get a final consensus on this and have it implemented?   <B>S<SPAN STYLE="font-size:87%">EO75</SPAN></B> [talk] 05:06, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was thinking much the same. I've found a format that will work with the standard geography class (demonstrated at User_talk:Orderinchaos/IAP), but it's a matter of tweaking it to get it right. One thing that has come up is the logical ordering/related grouping of fields, anyone have any suggestions re this? Orderinchaos 04:49, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The following is an archived discussion from User talk:Orderinchaos/IAP.
Sorry Orderinchaos, I don't like it. I don't like the division halfway down, and the sub-boxes need tweaking. --TheJosh 05:06, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Not really a problem (the division was put in more to show it could be done, more than anything else). With the subboxes I'm assuming you mean the text size needs to be raised back to about what it was in the initial template? Orderinchaos 06:45, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I tend to usually dislike the "make the font smaller" brigade, but this looks good (compared to the one presently on Hamersley, Western Australia). The only thing I'd change is to remove the two horizontal lines in the surrounding suburbs box. I like the smaller overall size, especially since the [Edit] buttons often get bunched up around large infoboxes on articles with a short lead and first section. I like the horizontal rule before the government representations. --Scott Davis Talk 11:36, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

text: PS I also like that the property value field doesn't wrap to a second line on my screen, whihc looks really ugly in the original. --Scott Davis Talk 11:37, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I like it better now without the weird borders on the sub-boxes, except there is a border through the weather box. --TheJosh 01:39, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

text: I have made a few changed to padding around the sub-boxes and the photo, looks a bit tidier now. I still don't like the horiz line down the middle, I don't see the point and it is confusing. --TheJosh 09:46, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Has been fixed for the title/state, I don't see the problems for any other fields. --TheJosh 03:08, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's much better. I'm not sure if you've done anything else but whatvere it was or wasn't, the effect has been to fix the problems I saw including the issue with superscripted text. Thanks. --AussieLegend 06:33, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

text: This issue is also fixed. Now all we need to do is convince monitor manufacturers to produce 1024 x 768 monitors again but I don't think that's something Wikipedia can achieve.:( --AussieLegend 06:33, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reducing (standardising) text size 

message: Can you please put proposals like this on the Australian notice board or something? I had no idea what you were doing - and to be honest, the new box looks positively awful. The old text size was fine and there was nothing wrong with it, but yet again we have another example of people changing things that don't need changing. Please change it back. JRG 23:46, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You also might like to know that the neighbouring suburbs don't always display properly in the reduced text size, particularly where there is more than one suburb in a particular direction. You will need to fix this up. JRG 23:55, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There was plenty of consultation, look at all the discussion above. --TheJosh 02:59, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you link to an example of such a suburb box? (For the record, it did need changing, as some infoboxes - especially properly filled out ones for local government areas - were going well over one screen even on my monitor, and I'm well aware many still use 1024x768 or even 800x600 to view Wikipedia.) Orderinchaos 04:03, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

text: There's been consensus for months to change it, but the question is *how*. Ideally I'd have liked to see an intermediate size between the two, but this is the same size that is used at Infobox City (eg Alexandria, Virginia),  Infobox UK place (eg Aberdare) and a number of others. If someone can think of a way or find a CSS class which allows a compromise between the two sizes, I think we would all be willing to consider it. Orderinchaos 04:03, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I know there has been consensus, just not from me :-) (and I had my chance to speak up, so I am not complaining).  I don't know the first thing about infobox creation so I am not much help there either.  I don't mind the infobox on articles such as :Hammersley, Western Australia but when there is no image in the box, not so much.  Just my (lack of) aesthetic sense I guess. Cheers, Mattinbgn\ talk 04:18, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not really - I do somewhat agree with you. The ideal would be somewhere in between what we had and what we have, in my opinion - we're basically using what other countries have agreed to now, and are debating whether that can be improved upon (I think it can). One possibility is that we can move towards establishing CSS classes appropriate to our needs. I'm not an expert on making those, unfortunately. I have, however, increased the size of the distances in distance tables, and Josh fixed the problem I couldn't get around in the header where the two rows appeared to be running into each other. Orderinchaos 04:22, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And those changes have already made a big difference with the box at Sandstone looking much better.  Thanks, Mattinbgn\ talk 04:26, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

text: And for the record, I think the text size in an intermediate scale in Infobox city looks good. JRG 06:31, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Just for test's sake User:Orderinchaos/IAP shows what it would look like without bolding ... I personally think it looks better with bolding but that some fields don't need to be. What are others' thoughts? Orderinchaos 10:54, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it looks quite as cluttered without the bolding, especially where there is no image, climate information or neighbouring suburbs. Where those sections are included, I don't see a huge difference. -- Mattinbgn\ talk 11:48, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Yay! The line-height idea worked. If people think the amount of spacing is now too much, the number on the first line (1.5) is all that need be altered (1 is basically what it was before). Thanks to SEO75 for giving me the idea. Orderinchaos 01:15, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The aesthetic is much improved by that change.--cj | talk 01:43, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed - it was my biggest problem with the original Infobox Settlement, but anything I tried seemed to add lines between the fields. Orderinchaos 05:25, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good one. Much better now. JRG 02:09, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Lack of consultation with other users and general ugliness of new template

message: Could we please have a small footnote field in the box so that references can be provided for things like climate statistics? These cannot be put properly in line because of the unit conversion. :: maelgwn - talk 22:55, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Oppose The box is only meant to be a summary of info in the article, therefore everything in the box should be mirrored in the article as well. Therefore you should put the reference in the prose itself. --TheJosh 09:18, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Agreed with TheJosh on this one - normally when I do them I just put an external link at the bottom to the relevant BOM page. Orderinchaos 10:43, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah so do I but it would be easier with a footnote, cos it would slide in easily with other footnotes. :: maelgwn - talk 10:51, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A footnote in the box will make the box even bigger and more cluttered than it already is --TheJosh 11:54, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Footnotes 

message: Anyone opposed to me changing this so that when someone enters "Bradfield" for example it produces Bradfield? The only problem I can foresee is if a user enters it manually, but I think we have coding elsewhere to cope with that eventuality (basically an ifexist then do this else do this), which I'd test before incorporation if the proposal is accepted, and could AWB the existing ones across to just the division name.
State gov are more complex - many articles don't exist so an ifexist test would fail, furthermore there is the complication of electorates with state name in brackets afterwards, and the NT/TAS use of "Electoral division of". It's a case of, may complicate the code for little extra benefit. Orderinchaos 09:29, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If it improves the template I see no reason to oppose. --AussieLegend 09:49, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Do an IFEXIST on "Division of " and if that exists, use . If the IFEXIST  fails, use an autolink. Thus:  --TheJosh 11:59, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed change for fedgov

message: Special:Whatlinkshere/Nsw is being filled by our infobox. I can see what is going on - the link (but not one that is visible - see Ebor, New South Wales) is being transmitted as nsw which is from our state field - but why, and where? I've had a quick look and can't see it at all. Orderinchaos 03:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Confirmed problem with all states. I think its a MediaWiki bug, where the what-links-here determination code is not ParserFunctions aware. This means, its using the default and adding an autolink of "vic". Of course because its not ParserFunctions aware, the if is being ignored and that's becoming "vicvic", and thus the what-links-here for vic. I dunno, but just one possible reason. --TheJosh 22:29, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, that seems quite likely. It's very confusing as there is definitely not any point anywhere in that space which, if hovered over, links to "vic" or "nsw". Is there somewhere the Mediawiki people can be made aware of this (or are they already?) Orderinchaos 04:33, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Bugzilla --TheJosh 05:04, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

text: See the result of a subst: of the template in the Ebor, New South Wales article. I think that in the code {{ #switch: 
| sa  = South Australia
| vic = Victoria
| nsw = New South Wales
| qld = Queensland
| nt  = Northern Territory
| wa  = Western Australia
| act = Australian Capital Territory
| tas = Tasmania
| 
 at the beginning of the template, the {{AutoLink|{ should go away. Comte0 20:43, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No that's user error; you can't substitute conditional templates - and you shouldn't substitute IAP anyway. TheJosh 23:19, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bug report 

message: Some unilateral changes were made this morning which seem to have broken numerous instances of the template - a whole heap of fields were renamed, and I don't actually see the benefits of doing so. I have reverted the changes and hope those who wish to see them made can provide a rationale and reach consensus here. Orderinchaos 03:07, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was trying to provide more precise names for parameter names and to give some fields their own footnote fields.  The FORMATNUM: broke some infoboxes because they must have included additional information (like a refs) and not just numbers; hence the reason for the footnote fields.  Adding the footnote fields won't hurt anything and will help clean up pages like Brisbane.  —MJCdetroit 03:43, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: (The problem you describe is a known MediaWiki problem, essentially it can't manage ref tags too well - others know/understand that one better than I do though so if they want to clarify my explanation they can do so.) Footnote fields should be fine, but renaming existing fields should be avoided at all costs as literally thousands of infoboxes use the names. Also I'm concerned that we've been trying to keep the number of fields for new information down (see above discussion for instance re KISS). The situation re metro/city applies *only* to one city - all other cities in Australia see the metro as being the city, and it's always been my opinion that those sort of single-case situations should be managed in the text. Orderinchaos 03:48, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Funnily enough, not more than around a hour before these changes were made I suggested a footnote field for the climate data here.  I was thinking of something that looked a little like: "Source:BOM" sitting directly under the climate table in the same size font.  Is this do-able (or desirable)? -- Mattinbgn\talk 05:40, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think so - it would stop silliness like data from a station 25km away being used, so would be an improvement on what we have. Orderinchaos 05:45, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The reason for the category is to look for ref tags within the density and elevation fields AND figure out how many have the ref tags within the fields AND whether it is going to be worth placing those refs in their own independent fields as they should be. Therefore please don't revert this, I'll delete the category when done. —MJCdetroit 03:59, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That sounds like a job for TheJoshBot. Please remember that this template is used by ~ 4,500 articles...TheJosh 04:44, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 4,500 isn't a problem;  had over 6,600.  I am going to add reference fields for area, elevation, population, and population density.  I will also delete the category that I inserted. —MJCdetroit 02:54, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Cool - thanks for that. As long as the existing infoboxes continue to work with the existing fields, my main concerns are allayed :) Orderinchaos 05:59, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

text: OK, I've installed 'footnotes' fields for the parameters mentioned above.  I would have inserted a "climate footnotes", as suggested by Mattinbgn, but I was unsure about where to put it and have it look nice.  There are three values which all appear to come from the same source (BOM).  Therefore, I'll leave that up to Mattinbgn.  Now that there are separate ref fields, I will temporarily place the formatnum template back into the code. Then over the weekend, my bot will go through all transcluded pages and places the numeric values into a raw format (i.e. 1000 not 1,000).  When that is done, I will replace the formatnum: with either an #expr: or a conversion template to finish rendering imperial units.  I will update the info page to explain the footnote fields as well. —MJCdetroit 15:31, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It would probably better for "pop_density_footnotes" to be renamed "density_footnotes" since the related field is "density" rather than "pop_density". I've also noticed a veryical alignment issue with the field names if you try to put text, rather than a citation in either of the population related footnotes. See User:AussieLegend/Project 01. This doesn't happen in the other fields. I realise the purpose of these new fields are for citations but it was just something I thought I noticed after trying to use a short descriptor rather than add several citations. --AussieLegend 16:52, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think there are two problems in the population section: 1). Pop and density should have been placed in their own rows and not in one row with an #if: to provide a  where needed 2). the alignment should go to the top not the bottom. I placed a test infobox on your "project 01" page.  Play with that and let me know if that is cool. —MJCdetroit 17:44, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks good. --AussieLegend 08:48, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Recent changes

message: I'm not sure if this is just me or not, but I have noticed that in some Queensland LGA infoboxes, some of the links at the bottom of infobox are unable to be clicked on.  This applied to wikilinks and external links.  Two boxes where I have noticed the problem are Gatton Shire Council and Esk Shire Council.  Any ideas? -- Mattinbgn\talk 22:50, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not just you - I had noticed it with some northern SEQ council articles (Caboolture/Caloundra if I recall). Honestly beats me - I can't think what it would be. (For others - the links below a certain point are there but cannot be clicked on) Orderinchaos 03:48, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

text: I even tried recoding the Esk infobox from the blank, with the same result. So odd! BTW it works in IE6 (I normally use Mozilla) Orderinchaos 04:06, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I use IE7 and just tried Gatton Shire Council and Esk Shire Council and couldn't find anything wrong. Using Firefox, nothing below "Region: South East Queensland" would work on Esk Shire Council. Gatton Shire Council was far worse with nothing except "Queensland" working. --AussieLegend 04:15, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem turned out to be one with Template:LGAs SEQ. I saw some work AussieLegend was doing and he got the infobox to work with its original fields by itself. No idea what the exact problem was but I've standardised it to Navbox and all seems to work well. Orderinchaos 05:11, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Thank you all for the quick response and pleased to see it fixed. -- Mattinbgn\talk 23:22, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unclickable links in Queensland LGA boxes 

message: While trying to fix the above problem I noticed that an undocumented field existed in the template. The field is called "imagesize" and affects the width of the generic image of the locality. I've documented it now but I have to wonder how many other undocumented fields there are. --AussieLegend 05:27, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a related one, logosize. It was put in to give us some flexibility where the defaults make a particular implementation look ridiculous. Orderinchaos 06:17, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I've documented that one too. --AussieLegend 06:41, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Remembering of course that these fields should be used as rarely as possible of course. Also, there is one field that should not be documented, _noautocat. That's to prevent cats on example pages. --TheJosh 09:45, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, the imagesize and logosize are strictly optional as the template autosizes to what normally works out to a reasonable screen area. It's only in cases (~2%) where it gets it wrong where we have to intervene, and that's what the fields are for. Orderinchaos 09:51, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Undocumented fields in the template 

message: Hi all, 
I realise there's a worry about function creep on this template... Nevertheless I'd like to ask your opinion on placing a field dedicated to acknowledging the local Aboriginal place name/local people of any given article. Many might see this as being overly politically correct but it is standard practice in Australia to do so in some form or another (see first enumerated guideline), it counters systemic bias and provides useful and relevant information. 
Just a thought. Witty Lama 15:05, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd like to point out that when I originally wrote this I had NOT proposed it as something to vote on, as an official proposal, and I certainly did not write "support" to my own idea. I was re-formatted by TheJosh after the fact. I resent having my signature used for something I didn't write . Just thought I'd make that clear. Best wishes to all, Witty Lama 11:01, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aboriginal place name/local people 

message: Does the title really need to be shown? It's redundant, and just makes the infobox bigger and bloatier. See Point Lonsdale, Victoria - the title is already in big letters at the top of the page, and in the opening sentence. The bar with "Point Lonsdale Victoria" doesn't seem to add anything at all. Stevage 04:21, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It borrows heavily from other infoboxes such as Infobox Settlement and so on, see for example Newtownards or Astoria, Oregon where the same thing occurs. Admittedly I think ours looks nicer than theirs. Orderinchaos 08:50, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The title also sometimes contains an alternate or more common spelling. --TheJosh 20:34, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title? 

message: Updated it - the convert templates actually go through about 11 rounds of calculations each, which is fine for a single use but was slowing IAP quite a bit and was bulking up the code. I substed it multiple times, removing optional variables along the way, and have replaced most instances of convert with the end result. As the display is exactly the same, few will notice. Orderinchaos 05:56, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I also changed  to a hard coded line.  This should help if you were seeing a slowing.  The "PD" template is much bigger than .  —MJCdetroit (talk) 03:05, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for that :) Yeah, the two things that slow things up a lot on Wiki seem to be multiple calculations/nested substs (mainly because there does seem to be a statutory length of time such page accesses take), or very large substs (for bandwidth reasons). Orderinchaos 05:49, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Minor change