Talk:Lake Eyre

message: If anyone could add the pronunciation of "Eyre" to this article, I think it would be helpful.  Thanks. Ufwuct 01:59, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Pronunciation

message: I vaguelly recall an interesting fact (?) regarding the migration of birds to Lake Eyre during these occasional floods.  Of particular note was the question of how these birds would know that the lake contained water, when they would usually be living quite a distance away. --Drewnoakes 11:09, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That is how Wikipedia works. If you have knowledge of birds at Lake Eyre that has never been published, I suggest you publish it in an ornithological journal, then it can be cited in this article. If you are familiar with the already published sources, please add teh information and provide the references you have. It is very helpful to have experts who know what are good sources and how to find them. Further information on what might seem like an odd policy can be found at WP:NOR and WP:VERIFY. --Scott Davis Talk 11:23, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Birds

message: Does the lake contain salt water when it is full?  How salty is it? --Drewnoakes 11:09, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I'm not sure, but when it is empty it's a massive salt flat, so I would assume the water would be pretty salty. Xyzzyva 15:25, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Salinity

message: It is stated that Lake Eyre was named after Edward John Eyre, an early explorer of Australia, because he was the first to sight the lake. 
He could not have sighted Lake Eyre. In 1940 he led an expedition into the northern reaches of the Flinders Ranges in search of a route into inland Australia with the hope to discover the fabled inland sea. He got as far north as, what he called, Mount Hopeless when he abandoned the expedition in favour of moving on to Port Lincoln and then heading a futher expedition successfully from Port Lincoln to Albany in Western Australia.
Eyre, thought that Lake Torrens, which is located to the west of the Flinders Ranges swung around the top end of the ranges and down the eastern side in a horeshoe shape. What he did see was not one large lake but a mixure of different lakes, Lake Torrens to the West, Lake Frome to the East, Lake Blanche and Lake Callabonna to the north and northeast and refractive mirages. 
Mount Hopeless is 127 meters above sealevel and the nearest point of Lake Eyre to Mount Hopeless is well over 200 kilometres which is absolutely impossible to see as the horizon would be far far shorter than that.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.56.245.183 (talk) 07:13, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edward John Eyre 

message: I'm concerned that there's no reference at all in the article to the Indigenous people of the Lake Eyre region, such as the Kokata and Arabana [Arabunna], who have lived in the area for tens of thousands of years.  Is this an unconscious way to write Aboriginal people out of history?  Melba1 (talk) 12:37, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: No. It's a natural consequence of the way that Wikipedia articles are written. Wikipedia articles start out with little or no information about the article topic and people add what they know. If someone knows about the indigenous people of the area and sees that the article lacks information on them, that person should add information about them to the article. If a person has that knowledge and refuses to add it then it is that person who is writing aboriginal people out of history, not Wikipedia as a whole. The article is likely missing information about the Kokata and Arabana because no one who knows anything about them has contributed to it so far. Since you apparently do, please add what you know, however much, however little. -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:16, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Indigenous Peoples?

message: If the fish named here can survive only when the water is high and relatively unsalty, where do they come from?  I mean, presumably they die off when the lake dries up.  How do they return when it floods?  Uporządnicki (talk) 17:49, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Its a good question.  I think the article needs an Ecology section. - Shiftchange (talk) 14:37, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where do the fish come from? 

message: I was going to add "Evaporation rates from a filled lake are estimated to range between 1,800 mm and 2,000 mm." from  However the source doesn't explain over what time period this refers to.  If someone can elaborate on this it would be appreciated. - Shiftchange (talk) 14:37, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Evaporation rate

message: *Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME the article should be here, with redirects from Kati Thanda and Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre. When I was growing up Ayers Rock was the common name but in recent years Uluru has become more common. The same thing might happen here and one day "Kati Thanda" might be the common name, but that's not the case now. A google search for "Kati Thanda" returns 3,360 results while "Lake Eyre" returns 654,000. Page view statistics for Kati Thanda show 28 views today and nothing previously. Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre returns 69 views today, and nothing previously. Lake Eyre returns 8,661 views in the last 30 days, and 8,890 last month. nuff said.  --AussieLegend (✉) 11:20, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:COMMONNAME says that Wikipedia "prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources." Until such time as we have those future sources that you speak of, we have to use what the sources we do have most frequently refer to, which is Lake Eyre, not Kati Thanda and, like Ayers Rock / Uluru, certainly not Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre. We can't be WP:CRYSTAL and assume that Kati Thanda will be the common name in years to come. --AussieLegend (✉) 14:46, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I know of a couple of articles in the USA for which the new, official name is where the article lives but the common/old name lives on in popular usage. The article for Nevada National Security Site was moved from Nevada Test Site after a government name change but people often say the old name or just NTS even though the new abbreviation would be NNSS. That's an example of government-instituted name change just like in Australia. US sports arenas are rife with "official" names that are not yet (or will ever be) in popular usage. The O.co Coliseum is popularly the Oakland Coliseum. HP Pavilion at San Jose is often called San Jose Arena or the Shark Tank (for the local hockey team.) Qualcomm Stadium is often called San Diego Stadium. The Reliant Astrodome is just about always called the Houston Astrodome. Binksternet (talk) 19:13, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

text: I think you've misread WP:COMMONNAME. It specifically says "Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title" and then tells us "If the name of a person, group, object, or other article topic changes, then more weight should be given to the name used in reliable sources published after the name change than in those before the change". What WP:COMMONNAME is saying is that if, after the name change the new name becomes widely used then, even though the object may have been called something else for a long time (this was the situation with Ayers Rock, which very quickly became commonly known as Uluru) then the new common name should be used. The problem here is that because the change is so recent, there are virtually no sources published after the name change. Of course news reports are going to refer to it, but there are no other sources and, as I've said above, we can't be WP:CRYSTAL and assume that Kati Thanda will be the common name in years to come. We have to base the article title on how it is commonly referred to now, and that's clearly "Lake Eyre". --AussieLegend (✉) 15:51, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: You've just argued against your own quote, though. "If the name of a person, group, object, or other article topic changes, then more weight should be given to the name used in reliable sources published after the name change than in those before the change". And you're yet to cite a single source published after the change that still insists on using the outdated name. The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:48, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I haven't done that. I've specifically said, "The problem here is that because the change is so recent, there are virtually no sources published after the name change", which I followed up with "we can't be WP:CRYSTAL and assume that Kati Thanda will be the common name in years to come. We have to base the article title on how it is commonly referred to now". As for your claim that I'm "yet to cite a single source published after the change that still insists on using the outdated name", to be honest, that's quite ridiculous. There are certainly hundreds of sites that are in no hurry to start using the new name. The change is so recent that there are virtually no sources than news reports (which I also mentioned above) that use the new name. Google hits and Wikipedia page view stats clearly indicate that Lake Eyre is the common name and that our readers are using Lake Eyre still. --AussieLegend (✉) 00:36, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

text: You know, one thing that bothers me often on Wikipedia is when I make a post, then someone else posts as if they haven't read a word that I wrote..... (or calls me stupid?) HiLo48 (talk) 22:54, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmm, I was thinking that myself. --AussieLegend (✉) 00:39, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

text: I agree. We do, of course, have :Category:Geographical naming disputes. StAnselm (talk) 04:12, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Done - :Category:Places with dual names. Mitch Ames (talk) 05:35, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

text: Indeed it is very odd, the dual naming process used by Australia is consistent between states in that the names are separated by a solidus sometimes preceded and followed by a space( / ) with neither name taking precedence, meaning that the name should be "Kati Thanda/Lake Eyre". Interestingly, Geoscience Australia doesn't list Kati-thanda, it lists "Lake Eyre (North)", which has a variant name of "Kati-Tanda". --AussieLegend (✉) 09:14, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

text: Since there is no written language, there's no real evidence that Kati-thanda has been in use any longer than Lake Eyre. However, that's not the point, which is that we should be using Lake Eyre, which is the common name. There will be no further name changing process, the lake is dual named and will retain both Aboriginal and English names. That's how the dual naming system works. --AussieLegend (✉) 08:53, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

text: Comment: This argument supporting the move runs foul of both article naming policy and content policy (which is also relevant in this particular case), see vote below for details. Andrewa (talk) 06:12, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey

message: This page is incorrectly titled and racist.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.222.165.93 (talk) 03:32, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Racist

message: I have seen suggestions that the southern half of Australia, when connected to Antarctica, that the area including Lake Eyre has been cooler and moister when in the high-middle and middle latitudes. 
: Global Climate Change (Modern to 540 Ma) CR Scotese - YouTube
:: @Pbrower2a - The geological history is much more complex than that - at the time when Australia was rifting away from Antarctica during the Cretaceous, a large part of the continent was covered by the Eromanga Sea, a prehistoric epicontinental sea that once covered the Eromanga Basin. During the Pleistocene there have been extreme climatic fluctuations from glacial to interglacial phases; in southern Australia periglacial (icier/windier) conditions were also times of increased rainfall. As recently as 35,000 years ago the lake was freshwater and three times its present size, and is referred to as Lake Dieri (see e.g. Lake Dieri) - the modern Lake Eyre is a remnant. Bahudhara (talk) 03:31, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Geological history and climatic change 

message: This lake has been historically known as Kati Thanda by the owners of the lake and the land surrounding it. The use of a European name only occurred for a blink of an eye compared to the more than 35,000 years that it was known as Kati Thanda. Given that native title has finally been recognise over the lake and the surrounding land, it is correct to use the name given to the lake by the owners of it. To use any other name, other than as a reference to the imposed European name, is not just disrespectful to the wishes of the native title holders, but is incredibly insulting. The continued use of the European name in this article is form of oppression and racist. Using the European name, or the combined name, is a way of diminishing the ownership rights and history the Arabana people have over this lake.
If the wishes of the owners of the lake are not recognised, then I will refer the matter to the Australian Human Rights Commission to ensure the correct name is enforced, by court order if necessary. Such action would also include the potential prosecution of Wikipedia editors that continue to remove the Kati Thanda name and replace it with incorrect European name. The use of the incorrect European name leaves Wikipedia and editors making such changes, open to legal action for damages to the value of the naming rights Arabana people. Whats up skip (talk) 09:58, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: See Wikipedia:No legal threats Bahudhara (talk) 16:52, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Using the correct name 

message: Even if an editor didn't agree with the changes to name of the lake, it was unacceptable to remove my edits that contained reference to the source documents, rather than just a reference to a third party news article which contained errors. Whats up skip (talk) 10:01, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I readded the ref that you had added, BEFORE you posted your comment. (Interestingly, this ref doesn't contain the term "Kati Thanda".) Bahudhara (talk) 16:52, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of information on recognition of native title