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Dropping state/territory from Australian place names by default

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is no consensus to change the current approach. The most editors opposed dropping the state/territory from Australian place names in article titles, noting that many names are duplicated and the current system avoids confusion. A few major cities are already exceptions, and no consensus emerged to expand that list. There was some agreement that in article prose, the state/territory may be omitted after the first mention if the context is clear. The default titling convention of "City, State/Territory" remains unchanged. (non-admin closure) Vanderwaalforces (talk) 12:38, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

---

Pre-RFC discussion

I have been asked to draft language for the proposed second RFC on Australian place names that sets "Placename" as the default and uses "Placename, State name" only for disambiguation. Before starting the RFC, I'd like to confirm with the advocates of that position that this language represents them correctly. I also invite suggestions for tweaks that enhance clarity, etc. from anyone.

While drafting this language, I found the proscribed way to disambiguate railway stations is not what is done in practice, so I changed the language to document current practice based on the few examples I could find. If this is not desirable, let me know what the desired rule should be, or if that needs to be discussed.

I also note shortening of LGA names used for disambiguation is inconsistent, e.g. Springfield, Victoria (Shire of Buloke) vs. Springfield, Victoria (Macedon Ranges) instead of Springfield, Victoria (Shire of Macedon Ranges). Should text be added like 'The LGA name may be shortened (e.g. drop "Shire of").'? Or perhaps mandate shortening to reduce ambiguity? Or should names not be shortened?

Here's my draft text for a replacement WP:NCAUST:

In general, follow WP:PLACEDAB for Australian places, using the simple name as the article title if it is the primary or only topic for that name (e.g., Sydney). Local government areas are titled with their official names, otherwise follow WP:COMMON NAME. (For example, Berri Barmera Council, not "Berri Barmera".)

Only if necessary for disambiguation:

• For suburbs (neighborhoods) in metropolitan areas, train stations, and parks, add a comma and the local government area name (e.g. The Rocks, Sydney; Central railway station, Brisbane).
• For local government areas, add a comma and the unabbreviated state or territory name (e.g. Newcastle, New South Wales).
• For other non-LGA localities, add a comma and the state or territory name (e.g. Port Wakefield, South Australia which is part of the Wakefield Regional Council LGA; Tharwa, Australian Capital Territory, where there are no LGAs). If the state or territory name is insufficient, add the LGA name in parentheses (e.g. Springfield, Victoria (Shire of Buloke)).

For Australian roads, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Australian roads).

Is it clear to Australians how to distinguish between a suburb in a metro area that gets an LGA name vs. a town in a shire that gets a state or territory name? If not, either the language could be clarified or the naming pattern changed.

-- Beland (talk) 15:22, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

I strongly oppose this proposal. It overstates the importance of LGAs. Why should the LGA get precedence over the state for disambiguation? Not to mention the numerous suburbs and localities that cross LGA boundaries. How is one meant to title West Perth, Western Australia under this scheme? It belongs to the City of Perth and City of Vincent. Even for suburbs that are within one LGA, you get nonsensical titles that appear nowhere other than Wikipedia, such as Osborne Park, Stirling, which is a phrase that nobody uses, compared to Osborne Park, Western Australia, which appears on addresses. And then when you consider that LGA boundaries change all the time, we will get constantly changing article titles, whereas state boundaries almost never change.

Also, Newcastle, New South Wales is not a local government area. Look at the hatnote at the top of that article. Steelkamp (talk) 15:42, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

Aha, I see "The Rocks, Sydney" has been moved to The Rocks, New South Wales, so it seems state name should take precedence for suburbs as well. That solves the overlapping-LGA problem you point out.

Well spotted about Newcastle. Perhaps that line should be "current and former local government and metropolitan areas"? I see Victoria County, Western Australia which is an example of a former local government area. Does anyone know of an ambiguous LGA? I can't find a list of common city/town names in Australia.

-- Beland (talk) 16:22, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

---

The below is edited based on the above discussion. -- Beland (talk) 16:30, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

In general, follow WP:PLACEDAB for Australian places, using the simple name as the article title if it is the primary or only topic for that name (e.g., Sydney). Local government areas are titled with their official names, otherwise follow WP:COMMON NAME. (For example, Berri Barmera Council, not "Berri Barmera".)

Only if necessary for disambiguation:

• For places like train stations and parks, add a comma and the local government area name (e.g. Central railway station, Brisbane).
• For localities (suburbs in the Australian sense, local government areas, metropolitan areas, former administrative divisions), add a comma and the unabbreviated state or territory name (e.g. The Rocks, New South Wales, a suburb/neighborhood of Sydney; Newcastle, New South Wales, a metro area; Victoria County, Western Australia, a former county, Port Wakefield, South Australia which is part of the Wakefield Regional Council LGA; Tharwa, Australian Capital Territory, where there are no LGAs).
• If the state or territory name is insufficient, add the LGA name in parentheses (e.g. Springfield, Victoria (Shire of Buloke)).

For Australian roads, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Australian roads).

• "neighborhood" should be spelled as "neighbourhood" in Australian English, but honestly, it should just be removed entirely as it's an imprecise term that has no widely accepted definition in an Australian context. I haven't read the rest of the proposal yet to make any further comments. Fork99 (talk) 22:27, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

"Neighborhood" is there for Americans to know "suburb" doesn't mean "town outside the city". -- Beland (talk) 23:01, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

I changed that clarification to avoid the n-word and rely more on linking. -- Beland (talk) 23:03, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

"Neighbourhood" in Queensland geography means a place that is or was populated and has a well-established local name but it's not a gazetted town nor a bounded suburb/locality. In my experience of writing about Queensland places, neighbourhoods in larger cities/towns are often early small suburbs (or real estate subdivision names) which have now been amalgamated into larger suburbs, but local usage of the name persists. In rural areas, neighbourhoods often arise from the name of a local railway station (which may or may not still exist) which caused some shops, businesses, and homes to grow around it as a "mini town". Fords or other river crossing points often cause the same "mini town" effects. So, whether or not the meaning is the same across all states, we do have neighbourhoods in Australia and some do have Wikipedia articles (mostly the inner-city historic suburbs). There used to be a very useful webpage on Geosciences Australia which had a lot of these feature definitions but sadly it seems to have disappeared and I didn't save the webpage. Kerry (talk) 00:29, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

In general, follow WP:PLACEDAB for Australian places, using the simple name as the article title if it is the primary or only topic for that name (e.g. Sydney).

Where articles for Australian settlements/suburbs (in the Australian sense) require disambiguation, comma-separated disambiguation by state/territory should be used, for example Norseman, Western Australia. The state or territory name should not be abbreviated. In the rare instances where disambiguation by state/territory is insufficient, additional parenthetical disambiguation by local government area may be used, for example, Springfield, Victoria (Shire of Buloke).

The full name of local government areas should be used to title their articles, for example, Municipality of Kiama.

For Australian roads, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Australian roads). For other Australian transport infrastructure, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian Transport/Naming convention and guidelines.

Thanks for this Beland; see above my suggested adjusted drafting. My general comment is that I think we should focus primarily on disambiguation of settlements/suburbs. For train stations, the guidance is already established elsewhere and we can simply point to that. For parks, the need to disambiguate is uncommon, and in actual practice does not use local government area to do so. Furthermore, there is not a well established preference for comma-separated disambiguation over parenthetical disambiguation for LGAs and lands administrative divisions in actual usage. I've also adjusted some of the examples in an attempt to pick particularly unequivocal ones. Tomiĉo (talk) 23:42, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

This seems like good wording. I support this. Steelkamp (talk) 23:56, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

I'll try and have a read of this after work. TarnishedPath^talk 00:44, 12 September 2025 (UTC)

I like that this is shorter and better harmonized with other guidelines. -- Beland (talk) 01:33, 12 September 2025 (UTC)

I think that is what we should aim for. TarnishedPath^talk 01:52, 12 September 2025 (UTC)

RFC: Dropping state/territory from place names by default

Should WP:NCAUST be changed to say the state or territory name "may" be in an article title for a place name, to say that these should only be used if needed for disambiguation? (Other changes are also included in the proposed text.) -- Beland (talk) 19:02, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

Full proposed text, as amended per the suggestion at 00:56, 15 September 2025:

In general, follow WP:PLACEDAB for Australian places, using the simple name as the article title if it is the primary or only topic for that name (e.g. Sydney).

Where articles for Australian suburbs and localities (and other named settlements) require disambiguation, comma-separated disambiguation by state/territory should be used, for example Norseman, Western Australia. The state or territory name should not be abbreviated. In the rare instances where disambiguation by state/territory is insufficient, additional parenthetical disambiguation by local government area may be used, for example, Springfield, Victoria (Shire of Buloke).

The full name of local government areas should be used to title their articles, for example, Municipality of Kiama.

For Australian roads, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Australian roads). For other Australian transport infrastructure, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian Transport/Naming convention and guidelines.

Polling (RFC: Dropping state/territory from place names by default)

• Neutral. I proposed this, but I'm just here as the closer of the previous RFC and am not involved enough to have a well-informed opinion. -- Beland (talk) 19:02, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
• Support A clear improvement which addresses the main ambiguity in the existing guideline. Triptothecottage (talk) 23:09, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
• Support as an improvement which reduces ambiguity that some editors find with the existing guideline. TarnishedPath^talk 00:05, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

  Additionally this proposal would make WP:CONCISE the norm where disambiguation is not necessary. TarnishedPath^talk 22:25, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose. Are we seriously proposing renaming thousands of articles that are currently of the form "Placename, Statename"? Frankly I don't see how this serves the editing community or the reader very well. If I see a mention of Smallville in an article, I find seeing it called/linked Smallville, South Australia (or whatever) very useful. Often it is sufficient for me just to know "ah, a place in South Australia". I don't see why I need to click through just to find out that it's in South Australia. And while a name might not be duplicated now, it may be in the future as more articles are written. My preference is to retain ", Statename" except for when a place is so well-known (primary!) that it's really not needed, e.g. "Bondi Beach". Also, while some place names may be unique Australia-wide, they may be very similar to a place name in another state (e.g. Woolmar QLD vs Woolmer SA) or another country, where the state name would in many cases make it obvious it was not the place you had in mind. We do have a lot of place names with complicated spelling (particulary Indigenous names) that can be very hard to distinguish from similar names and, if I find it hard as an N-th generation Australian, it must be even more difficult for people in other countries. Kerry (talk) 01:09, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose I prefer the inclusion of the State name for immediate and consistent identification of a place's location and status. Except those large places that are widely known, it is better to include the State identifier so that the place is clearly designated in the title as a populated place in a particular location, and so that a consistent format is used regardless of whether a name is ambiguous with another one. Reywas92^Talk 20:06, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
• Support, addresses vagueness in the current guideline. Breleidy (talk) 05:26, 17 September 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose While the proposed guideline is more definitive, I share the preference of Reywas92 and Kerry to retain placename, state as the default - I find that the inclusion of the state name often aids the immediate identification of a location as a place in a particular state (without having to navigate via hatnotes and disambiguation pages). But more importantly, I am not sure the proposal will resolve the issue of having a large number of RM debates over whether a place is considered the primary topic. Primary topic is often not definitive and needs to be determined on a case by case basis - in some cases we have had multiple RMs for the same place resulting in different outcomes depending the level of participation. It also limits the scope to provide disambiguation that is very useful where names are spelled differently but are very close creating the potential for confusion - eg. Eastlakes NSW vs the five articles about places called Eastlake in the USA, Mossman QLD vs Mosman NSW. Dfadden (talk) 04:36, 20 September 2025 (UTC)
• Support While I do agree that not included state names by default presents problems, I also am of the opinion that having state names as the default, but also allowing some articles to not include state names because it is "more well known" in the titles is more problematic. Viatori (talk) 03:49, 22 September 2025 (UTC)
• Support The original decision to add the state name after every single Australian place was a bad decision that sucked. It was an awkward and aesthetically godawful Americanism introduced by editors in the early 00s for reasons unfathomable, that does not reflect [WP:COMMONNAME], nor has it ever. Get rid of every unnecessary state name. ҉ Randwicked ҉ 10:24, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

  The consistent naming standard reduced what at the time was a huge workload of merging <place> and <place, state> articles, while also trying to work out which other states had a <place> with inbound links that weren't intended to be for the <place> described in the article. It was an extremely useful and helpful standard which has served us well, and continues to do so. It makes it easy to detect whether an article exists yet for a place you've never heard of when you hear its name in the news (bushfire, car crash, shooting etc). --Scott Davis ^Talk 03:29, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

• Thanks for the ping. I strongly oppose this proposal. To answer a question above Why would anyone be offended at this change enough to quit editing? - that is exactly why I took my first extended break from Wikipedia. Conflict and continually refighting the same arguments makes it a less-nice place. To focus on this question again this month. It's not "predisambiguation", it's providing enough precision in an article title that it can be easily found and not need to be moved later. Most of the templates of towns/suburbs in a local government area use the qualified names for all their places because it's easier to be consistent. If the articles have the same title, the name is bolded in its own article. If it's a redirect, it's not. I noticed that Swanport, South Australia was moved to Swanport about three years ago with the edit comment "no other Swanport" which appears to be false as the only inbound link not through a redirect is about somewhere in Alaska. There are still quite a few places in Australia for which articles have not been written yet. Kerry and Gnangarra have already stated good reasons not to change away from generally using state names, but a few determined people keep coming back to trying to destroy any consistency or predictability. --Scott Davis ^Talk 01:25, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Of the 38 incoming links to the Swanport redirect, 34 were dealt with in one change to a template. There may be another Swanport, but the only other article is about Swanport Bridge in the same town. 10:37, 6 October 2025 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Docciemer (talk • contribs)

Another example of how unnecessarily long winded including a state can be, on the same template we have Murray Bridge South, South Australia when Murray Bridge South would be sufficient. Docciemer (talk) 10:53, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose It was good decision made by early editors that made writing articles very easy. What I havent seen is a reason that makes any sense beyond because we dont like decisions made before we started here. Gnangarra 13:32, 28 September 2025 (UTC)
• Support per WP:CRITERIA. Graham11 (talk) 03:13, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  What are you chosing concise or consistent? As all titles cant be all five points of WP:CRITERIA across all topics. What we have is a considerable amount of places that need to be distinguished within Australia and even more with places outside of it. Gnangarra 12:30, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  I'm actually choosing both concise and consistent (as well as precise and natural). Regarding consistency, consistently dropping the state/territory from the title where it isn't required for disambiguation and updating WP:NCAUST accordingly is perfectly in line with the text of WP:CONSISTENT (and the reference to consistency at WP:CRITERIA). Graham11 (talk) 04:40, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose. It makes consistency impossible. It makes titles ambiguous. It means more hatnotes. It helps no reader, but hurts readers, because they are less sure of what they’re getting. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:22, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
• Neutral. SmokeyJoe nailed the oppose rationales in a nutshell. But the support ones aren't inconsiderable, including the main one that I laid out in the previous round: WP title policy has us default to concise versus longwinded and has us not apply disambiguation when not necessary. While the US articles have evolved an IAR habit of "Foo, Bar" due to the extreme frequency of recurrent placenames in different states, this is not done with "major" places like Chicago, etc. And Australia does not have the issue that the US does. But me having spelled out this argument doesn't make it unassailable, nor erasive of unrelated arguments against the proposal. What we have here, really, is yet another case of "warring consistencies": one consistency between nearly all articles within a category, versus another conflicting consistency of articles in that category with most articles across the entire site (except in the US and except when disambiguation is actually required). And changes of this sort always involve a cost, but so does continuing to do something longwinded and unnecessary.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼   — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:28, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose The previously agreed-upon and longstanding default is not broken. Kalangadoo might be a unique placename, but writing about cheese, Kalangadoo, South Australia is a courtesy to readers. When the subject is the South East of South Australia, the author can enter Kalangadoo and let Wikipedia's excellent REDIRECT function handle the link. There are more other problems to address, that might actually improve the visitor experience. Doug butler (talk) 22:01, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose – I find the argument by Ms Raymond persuasive. This is a long-standing convention that serves a purpose, and is clearly not broken. I strongly believe that consistency within a given topic area is something that Wikipedia should strive for, and which militates against potential editorial conflict. This convention has facilitated such consistency for many years without issue. Additionally, I find the 'workload' argument quite pertinent. If this proposal were enacted, 1000s of articles may need to be moved. Please allow me to provide a quotation from WP:TITLECHANGES, an integral part of our article titles policy: If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed. I do not believe that the reader will in any way benefit from the enactment of this change; in such a case, how can there be any justification for the hours editors will need to spend to sort through and move all of these articles? Let sleeping dogs lie. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 00:51, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

  From the article titling policy you linked A good Wikipedia article title ... is not longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects. Per the policy WP:CONCISE is always good reason for change where applicable. TarnishedPath^talk 01:23, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

No, it would only be a good reason for change if editors come to such a WP:CONSENSUS, per WP:TITLECHANGES: Consensus among editors determines if there does exist a good reason to change the title. Concision is only one of our article title criteria. Editors have provided numerous reasons why prioritising concision in this specific case would do nothing to improve the encyclopaedia. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 01:43, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Some editors have qouted WP:NOTBROKEN (a guideline about redirects). Some others have argued WP:CONSISTENT which the current naming convention does provide and which we don't have. The proposal, if adopted, will lead to more consistency as it will state unambigiously when we should and shouldn't disambiguate rather than using maluable terms like "may". TarnishedPath^talk 02:13, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

I have fixed the link, which was meant to go to WP:BROKE. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 02:40, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Discussion (RFC: Dropping state/territory from place names by default)

@Beland, in the current WP:NCAUST, part of it guides that:

"Localities (other than suburbs) and places such as train stations, parks, etc., may be disambiguated, where necessary, by reference to city rather than state (e.g., The Rocks, Sydney, rather than [[The Rocks, New South Wales]])."

Would the proposal be dropping addressing localties alltogether? TarnishedPath^talk 00:45, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

@TarnishedPath and Beland: Could this be addressed with a simple wording tweak from settlements/suburbs (in the Australian sense) to suburbs and localities (and other named settlements)? Triptothecottage (talk) 00:56, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Ah, that would be very helpful link to add; I didn't know "localities" had a specific sense. I assume "settlements" is meant to include localities? I leave it to the Australian experts to decide on the best phrasing. -- Beland (talk) 01:03, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

@Triptothecottage and @Beland, I think the problem with that specific tweak is that we would still leave other places like train stations, parks etc unaddressed. TarnishedPath^talk 01:31, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

@Triptothecottage I think that that would be a good edit.

@TarnishedPath The guidance for train stations is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian Transport/Naming convention and guidelines#Disambiguation - stations, which is linked to at the bottom of the proposed drafting above. It would be preferable not to duplicate it here, I think?

Parks may be a bit of a can of worms—I had a quick peruse through the relevant categories, and it seems that the existing WP:NCAUST guidance for parks is not much followed. I see other formats frequently being used, such as comma-separated disambiguation by suburb, or parenthetical disambiguation by state/territory. Is there value in continuing to state a specific form of guidance for disambiguating Australian parks if we aren’t much using that format? Tomiĉo (talk) 05:10, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

@Tomiĉo, I just had a look at the NSW and Vic subcategories in Category:Parks in Australia and in seemed like it was almost universally the case that they were named without disambiguation. TarnishedPath^talk 06:54, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

@Beland, perhaps a good idea to implement @Triptothecottage's change now before anyone makes any !votes. TarnishedPath^talk 06:56, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Since there seems to be unanimous support, I have made that proposed change. -- Beland (talk) 14:44, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

• Comment: I have left notifications of this RFC at WT:AT, WT:NCGN, WP:VPP and WP:VPPR. Refer to Special:Diff/1311378375, Special:Diff/1311378433, Special:Diff/1311378469 and Special:Diff/1311378525 respectively. TarnishedPath^talk 00:11, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
• I was summoned from the VPPR notification - I do have question: As an American, we do use the AP style when it comes to excluding state names from cities with one or two exceptions - cities like Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, everyone knows that, and only in cases where there is reasonable confusion do we add reasonable disambiguators - which of the AP's 30 cities we add the word city to New York, DC to Washington (both because of the states of the same name), and Phoenix, Arizona, since Phoenix means a lot of things. Does Australia have a similar style guide which we could potentially base policy or convention in? InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 14:24, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

The Australian Government's own Style Manual has a page on Australian place names, but it doesn't say anything about disambiguation, it only prescribes a style on the matters of spelling, capitalisation and punctuation. Just from personal experience, Australians don't typically automatically add the state name after a place name in the same way that I notice Americans do, especially when disambiguation is completely unnecessary. E.g. I imagine that Lubbock, Texas can be referred to like that (or is usually referred to like that?), even though there are no other Lubbocks in the US according to Lubbock (disambiguation).

Whereas say I would imagine that it would just sound odd to an Australian ear to refer to Dubbo as "Dubbo, New South Wales" in everyday conversation or when written. If you need to introduce Dubbo in a context where the audience has no idea where it is, you'd probably describe it using a full sentence, e.g. "Dubbo is a regional city in the Orana region of the Australian state of New South Wales" or "Dubbo is a regional city 492 km west of Sydney in New South Wales" or something like that. Again, just personal experience as someone who lives in Sydney. It'd be interesting if anyone can find any written material on the matter. Fork99 (talk) 21:52, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

We're not in Kansas any more, Toto! (photo from Aappilattoq, Greenland, 2017)

We write for a worldwide audience. Sure, if I read "Dubbo", I would know where it was. But I am Australian, I have lived in Brisbane and Melbourne and driven between them a lot and Dubbo is on that route so I've stayed overnight there, been to the zoo there etc. But there are probably other places in NSW whose names I would not immediately recognise as being in NSW. Do you know where Aappilattoq is? When I do Wikipedia edit training, I often say thiings along the lines of "remember you are writing for the person who lives in Greenland, their world is very different to yours, don't assume they know things that you think are "normal" because their "normal" is very different to yours. Normal is pretty different in Aappilattoq. Kerry (talk) 23:11, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

@Kerry Raymond: I respect your opinion, but I believe the lead section and short description are also more than capable of placing a geographic place in context. I do agree that having it mentioned in a wikilink is useful, however, links can sometimes still be piped to not display the state name, forcing a reader to visit the wikilink anyways, e.g. see Bourke, New South Wales where a link to Charleville, Queensland is piped to not display "Queensland".

I also wonder if this is also a MOS:ENGVAR issue, in terms of how a place name is written/said in the US compared to the rest of the world?

I also find your oppose argument confusing where you state except for when a place is so well-known (primary!) that it's really not needed, e.g. "Bondi Beach". Doesn't this just state what the proposal does using different words? Fork99 (talk) 23:30, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Personally I would prefer the article title to be Bondi Beach, New South Wales with Bondi Beach as a a redirect. And there's no problem in having a redirect for unique or reasonably well-known names like Dubbo. But I probably would not extend that to Sydney, Brisbane, and the other state capitals (except where there isn't uniqueness, e.g. Perth is in WA and Scotland), but if someone argued strongly for including their state name, I probably would not put up strong opposition. As Australians, we are obviously familiar with some (but not all) placenames in Australia, which skews our perspective on the issue. Kerry (talk) 23:56, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

I might also comment that this is a proposal that does directly impact my editing as I predominantly write about Queensland places, so I think I have a pretty good understanding of this class of article and that all place articles mention a lot of other places articles if for no other reason than the infobox's 8 near-* fields, and the 5 locationN fields. We have masses of Australian topics not written about or stubs at best. Massive change for no compelling benefit just seems to me to burn goodwill rather than the more useful task of getting more content written. We are seeing declines in the active editor community across Wikipedia (and statistically the group that writes the bulk of the content). According to a research study, there were about 3000 active Australian editors in 2022 but this has fallen to about 2000 as at 2004 (see the graph here). This is why in a previous proposal about place naming I supported the "let's not unscramble the existing eggs" because of the workload (and the inevitable errors) that would occur if we attempted to do so. Kerry (talk) 01:34, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

Why would anyone be offended at this change enough to quit editing? The intent is to reduce local disputes by making a clear rule. It doesn't seem like anyone who is against it would have to take part in the changeover; much of it could be done by bot, and many articles would stay put. -- Beland (talk) 01:56, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

Is Wikipedia's decline in editor numbers really down to any change in policy or convention? I get that some of our longer serving members are probably a bit resistant to change, but that alone isn't a solid reason to not explore the possibilities to evolve. The argument that it would be too much work is not a strong one. Firstly it wouldn't need to be done in any rush, and could easily be handled by bulk nominations, e.g. [1]. Breleidy (talk) 05:38, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

"I get it that some of our longer serving members are probably a bit resistant to change". Was that an insult directed at me? Having spent a career managing projects and serving on boards, I do know about projects and how you have to weigh up their perceived benefits (which aren't always achieved even if implemented), costs and risks. I've been involved in projects on-wiki on my own and with others with ambitious scopes (1000+ new articles) and achieved them. I know how to run an on-wiki project to a reasonably successful completion and I know quite a bit about what works and what doesn't. If you look at my contribution profile, you can see when I choose to take something on, I see it through. The worst outcome is a project that leaves things in a half-baked state. The big picture is this. Wikipedia survives because lots of ordinary folk donate the funds to support it because they like the content we provide. So that's the main KPI, keeping the content growing, both in terms of range of topics and the depth of coverage in individual topics and the usual things of being readable, well-cited, and not broken etc. This means we need to retain and increase our number of active editors (5 edits in a month) and very active editors (100 edits in a month) as they write the bulk of the content. So, things we do towards the goal of serving the reader is more and better content, not denying the reader some clue as to "where in the world" is this place?

To answer the other question about editor decline. We do not know generally what causes Wikipedia contributors to disappear, because once they do, they generally don't respond if you try to contact them to ask them (assuming you have a means of contacting them if they are no longer looking at their User Talk page). However, the research reported here (page 4) looks at the recent history of on-wiki contributions from editors who become inactive. For newish editors, it shows being reverted seems to be associated with becoming inactive. With experienced editors, it is conflict which usually plays out on Talk (or other non-main space) pages. Being aware of this research, when I notice I have not seen edits by a regular contributor for a while, I look at their recent contributions and, when they have become inactive, the conflict theory seems to be supported by what I see, e.g. an article was deleted at AfD (which they had started or made substantial contributions) and other disputes on various non-mainspace pages involving articles to which they made a significant contribution. So, yes, these things do seem to drive people away. The research shows that contributing to controversial articles is associated with becoming inactive (but contributing to controversial articles usually does involves reverted edits and/or conflicts on Talk pages, so it seems to me to be probably the same factors). The other reason for inactivity is failure to obtain or loss of privileges (e.g. adminship, etc), which generally involves direct personal criticism or perceived disrespect. Now many of us put up with a lot of stuff in the workplace, because we get paid a salary. Here on Wikipedia, we don't get paid a dollar, so what is the currency of payment here? Well, for volunteering, the "currency" of payment is generally receiving appreciation and respect. I encourage people to be aware of research about Wikipedia as it is helpful in thinking about a situation as it enables one to step back and see the bigger picture. Kerry (talk) 01:29, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

If your theory of editor departure is correct, shouldn't clarifying a rule in a way that reduces disputes improve editor retention? -- Beland (talk) 01:53, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

It's not my theory. I provided the source. Kerry (talk) 07:04, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

OK, if the cited source's theory of editor departure is correct, shouldn't clarifying a rule in a way that reduces disputes improve editor retention? -- Beland (talk) 07:52, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

@Beland I don't believe the current proposal will reduce disputes, as it relies on Primary Topic to determine where disambiguation is required. Even more so if you are suggesting the wholesale renaming of thousands of articles to align with the new convention. I don't think this should be done by bots... One of the reasons I became so involved in the debate and the original RfC is because we were seeing RMs nominating bulk articles on the basis of Primary Topic. These were being blanketly supported by some of those who favoured removing the state as a default, providing little by way of amplifying comments. However, when taking the time to actually work through those same nominations, many had to be withdrawn as primary topic was either contested, or did not apply. The nominations were based on the rationale that currently NCAUST states the name of a city or town may be used alone if the place is the primary or only topic, however it also states that Most Australian settlement articles are at Town, State/Territory, which was until recently broadly (though not unanimously) understood by those of us who have been editing in this area for many years to be the default. I do accept consensus can evolve, but I have observed a frustrating lack of diligence done to actually provide evidence of the primary topic rationale in some of these cases. So I have two questions: are we really going to go through every single Australian place article to ascertain Primary Topic if this proposal is successful? And if that task is to be performed by a bot, does that not undermine the idea that primary topic is to be determined through consensus (WP:DPT states decisions are made by discussion among editors, often as a result of a requested move)? If the answer to either of those questions is a yes, I can absolutely see that having a negative impact on editor retention, or at least participation in this subject area. Dfadden (talk) 05:25, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

If I were writing a script to handle this, if "LocationName, StateName" is the current title I'd have it check "LocationName". If there is a redirect there pointing at "LocationName, StateName", then I would assume that location is the primary topic and do the move. I suppose someone would need to eyeball a bunch of histories to make sure none of the ones that would need to be deleted are substantial, or a bot could move them to a holding area. I checked through the major cities, and it seems the ones that are primary topics are already at "LocationName". So if the script finds there's an article or disambiguation page at "LocationName", I think it's very likely the location is not the primary topic, and it can just stay where it is. That assumption isn't 100% true, but we can leave it up to editors to nominate any articles that need to displace an existing article at LocationName.

It sounds like there are a lot of disputes right now over an arbitrary question - whether to adopt name pattern 1 or name pattern 2 when both are allowed, and this needs to be decided separately for thousands of articles. The two ways I can see to resolve that are to choose one of the name patterns (which this proposal does) or take an approach like MOS:RETAIN which forces retention of the status quo for each. The latter solution is rather unsatisfying and confusing. A small number of MOS:PRIMARYTOPIC debates may be preferable to a large number of arbitrary move debates. I have just closed some PRIMARYTOPIC discussions where people behaved badly, but really it should be a simple matter of gathering statistics from Google Ngrams or similar and moving or not. If there are a large number of PRIMARYTOPIC debates triggered by this, then that would be one argument for picking "LocationName, StateName" or "retain the status quo". Though I would hope such debates would be one-time affairs because they're going in a single direction, rather than picking between arbitrary name patterns of which neither is universally recognized as better. -- Beland (talk) 06:45, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

TarnishedPath is continuing to make bulk move requests (see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Australian_places, though they are well aware that this discussion could directly effect the validity of this practice. There is no rush for these moves to be done before this discussion reaches a conclusion. Innesw (talk) 22:33, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

@Innesw, this discussion doesn't affect the "validity of the practice". If the proposal is supported LocationNane must happen when WP:PTOPIC and if the proposal isn't supported LocationName may still happen in line with the current WP:NCAUS and WP:CONCISE. TarnishedPath^talk 23:47, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

@Beland and how would your script handle situations where names are very similar (such as Mosman, NSW and Mossman, QLD? The current consensus (and I say current based on the historic RMs at Talk:Mosman which arrived at a different outcome) is that hatnotes are sufficient here, but that is something that has been a concession via the RM process. If I understand your explanation, the automated script would simply checks if two articles exist with a name spelled the same way exists? Another example of where this type of nuance is important is at Talk:Villawood, where it was argued that a hatnote sufficient because it is the only suburb by that name (thus determined Primary). However, the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre actually gets far more page views, and arguably, detention centre, often referred to as just "Villawood", has much more significance and recognition outside of Sydney and New South Wales, thus some way of directing readers to this alternative target is necessary. 08:03, 24 September 2025 (UTC) Dfadden (talk) 08:03, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Those cases should already have hatnotes, because the redirects already send readers looking for A to article B. If you want to check and see if they actually do, you could eyeball the list of articles to be moved, or even the list of articles on Australian locations as they currently are. -- Beland (talk) 16:31, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

I gave those as examples of why it is not as straightforward as the solution you suggested. I am sure there will be others that dont currently have hatnotes that will require them after a move since the new titles will be far less specific. Frankly, I dont have time to "eyeball" every one of the thousands of Australian place articles this would impact to check which ones would need hatnotes. That would be onerous and unnecessary. I agree with @Gnangarra that the proposal disrupts thousands of articles that have had long term, stable titles without any reason other than "because policy permits it". Arguments have been made that dropping the state is a better fit per WP:CONCISE thus disambiguation is not required. However, even if not strictly required, the existing placename, state does no harm and in many cases actually makes the encyclopedia easier to navigate. It makes the article subjects immediately more recognisable - especially for audiences outside of Australia who may not be familiar with our geography. Rather than flipping the status quo on its head and creating a bunch of extra work, the time and effort would be better spent on providing some clearer guidance on when it is appropriate to move existing articles (noting Primary topic alone isnt always the best method to determine nuance). Dfadden (talk) 20:57, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Wouldn't any article that requires a hatnote after being moved require one now? -- Beland (talk) 22:55, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Yep, as suggested at WP:SMALLDETAILS and WP:ONEOTHER. TarnishedPath^talk 00:58, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

@Beland Not in the case of Villawood that I mentioned above - in that case, prior to the RM, the term "Villawood" targeted a disambiguation page - Villawood (disambiguation), so the hatnote was only necessary after the move occurred. That's not to suggest a hatnote couldn't have been added to the previous target "Villawood, New South Wales", although it was obvious enough that it was referring to the suburb that nobody had thought it necessary previously. Dfadden (talk) 07:09, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Articles should not be automatically moved if the redirect they are moving over doesn't point to them. -- Beland (talk) 13:49, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

It continues to be raised by some oppose !votes that "more hatnotes would be necessary" but I don't understand this point. In many situations where "X" already redirects to "X, Statename" but a very similar spelling redirects to an overseas place, the hatnotes should already exist anyways regardless of whatever the article title is. For example, Guy's Hill vs Guys Hill, hatnotes should have existed anyways regardless.

I don't have any rebuttal for any other points made, but I see the point between "fixing ambiguity" by support !votes versus "inconsistency" by oppose !votes. Fork99 (talk) 13:23, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

• Pinging @Ahri Boy, @Bkonrad, @Dfadden, @GMH Melbourne, @Gnangarra, @Graham11, @Innesw, @MrAussieGuy, @ScottDavis, @Servite et contribuere, @SMcCandlish and @Traumnovelle as editors involved in the previous RFC, who haven't already participated in this one. Appologies if I've pinged anyone who has already participated or if I've missed anyone. TarnishedPath^talk 04:28, 22 September 2025 (UTC)
  • replying to the ping, I am yet to see an argument put forward that makes this a necessary change(ie improves Wikipedia, or clears a conflict) to what has been a stable set of many thousands of articles. Changing these articles is not just changing a title the change comes with an order of magnitude above this by impacting every article that has existing links. What I have experienced is that people like changing titles but then never take on the work load of fixing redirects and the mess that these moves leave behind. Nothing has been shown that such a big disruption of what will be hunreds of thousands of articles across every topic on Wikipedia is adding value. Convince me of the value beyond oh this policy says I can then I'll agree to this change. Gnangarra 06:26, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

    What redirects are you envisioning would need to be fixed en masse? Any links to "LocationName, StateName" will continue to work if an article has been moved to "LocationName", whether piped or unpiped. WP:NOTBROKEN discourages editors from changing these in e.g. article prose. Any double redirects that are created will be fixed by bot. -- Beland (talk) 17:15, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

    I support Gnangarra in the workload created by dropping the state from the article name. The moves may be simple, but page movers rarely comply with the request that they updated all the linked articles direct to the new page name. I do not see the value in such a change. Oronsay (talk) 20:03, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

    Is this because WP:NOTBROKEN is telling them not to change links, or are there links that don't fall under this you see not getting changed? I ask not to challenge your assertion, but because I have some semi-automated tools which might be used to help update links that need it and I'm curious what patterns to look for. (And I have been pondering doing this for unrelated reasons anyway.) -- Beland (talk) 23:29, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Traditional Owners on Template:Infobox Australian place

I believe Template:Infobox Australian place should be modified to have a field for who the Traditional Owners of the land are. IE the sydney CBD would list the eora people. Many pages list them and its common practice to list them. Thoughts? Pencilceaser123 (talk) 02:18, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

I don't see an issue with having such a field, so long as we have policy around it. Because traditional ownership of a place is often disputed by a number of Indigenous groups, I would suggest we only put a value in that field when the article already has well-cited content to support one group of traditional owners. If the article has any indication that this is the subject of a dispute, then I suggest we follow the Neutral Point of View policy and mention both (or however many) claims in the article body (appropriately cited) but NOT put any of them into the field in the infoxbox. We could make an exception if there has been a successful application for Native Title (appropriately cited to the court determination), but I would still include the article that other claims exist. Kerry (talk) 01:40, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

Good point, sounds like a fair policy. Perhaps a good standard that could be used would be seeing which groups are acknowledged on acknowledgements or welcomes to country made by local government organisations. But obviously many places do not make acknowledgements of country or do not mention specific groups, and they might not be specific enough for more specific areas, such as suburbs. Pencilceaser123 (talk) 01:52, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

I started formulating a response then saw that Kerry said what I was going to say here ... so, +1, as the young people say. ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email · global) 02:00, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

Agree with Kerry. The proposal raises a few issues:

1) My understanding is that the preferred terminology nowadays is "traditional custodians" rather than "traditional owners".

2) The problem is that info boxes are supposed to summarise key information and are not the place to try to present complex or contested information. MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE.

3) Welcome to country speeches, websites run by different indigenous groups, and published information by sporting groups, local councils etc are often contradictory and sometimes designed to support particular claims relating to ongoing legal disputes. They are not as good as academic sources in determining the boundaries of traditional Aboriginal groups.

4) Unfortunately, most of the articles on Australian places and Aboriginal groups are terrible. Few are anywhere near GA or FA status. Everything in them needs to checked against reliable academic sources, preferably by distinguished anthropologists, linguists and historians.

5) That said, the proposal might encourage editors put some effort into finding reliable sources for traditional owners (the reasons for decision in Native Title claims, academic studies, etc).

Of course, there are some cases where the traditional custodians of a particular area is well established. For example, the infobox for an article on the Sydney CBD could state with authority that the Gadigal (or Cadigal) were the traditional custodians.

Please see the article on Sydney#First inhabitants of the region for one approach to the problem which was arrived at after a great deal of discussion and consensus building. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 06:18, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

Generally agree with this, all good points. Although I slightly disagree with point 2. I would argue the tradtional custodians is key information. But I understand its nuanced, but in most places, you could definitively state one or two groups as traditional owners. Pencilceaser123 (talk) 06:23, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

'Custodians' would be better than 'owners' as has been pointed out.

It may be unclear or disputed (at least for the latter in the case of 'Eora') in terms of who should be listed as traditional custodians.

The boundaries of administrative areas are very unlikely to align with the approximate boundaries of Aboriginal clans. There appears no equivalent for Scottish clans or kinship groups in the case of areas or localities in the Highlands.

It is worth, regardless, discussing the Indigenous habitation of an area in the article body.

Cheers, Will Thorpe (talk) 15:28, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

We have discussed how the borders may not line up. In cases of dispute there will be a link in the info box to where in the article it talks about it. Personally I think it would be cool to also have this for other countries. For example the Scottish highlands as you mentioned Pencilceaser123 (talk) 21:36, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Notified: Template talk:Infobox Australian place. ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email · global) 01:39, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that the traditional owners did not occupy land based on the boundaries of towns, suburbs, etc as they exist today, which are the basis of most of our Wikipedia articles. Might it be better to create articles that directly represent the lands of Indigenous groups? E.g. Land of the Eora people using resources along the lines of maps like this. NB the map I linked to does have problems, as there have been successful native title claims subsequent to its publication, hence my "along the lines of", hoping for a more recent update. Kerry (talk) 01:50, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

I was thinking in many places multiple groups could be mentioned. In the Blue Mountains the land is usually refered to as the Tradtional land of the Dharug and Gundungara people, although sometimes in the lower mountains only the Dharug people are mentioned. Many articles already say "the area is the traditional land of the X people" or "the X and Y people" so for many pages the change would be just transferring that to the wikibox. Pencilceaser123 (talk) 01:56, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

Where there aren't disputes, adding two to the infobox probably isn't a problem. It's the disputed areas that will be the problem. Kerry (talk) 07:16, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

Prehaps in disputed areas you could put a "see indigenous history" in the field or something. Kinda like how in battles without a clear result usually "see aftermath" is put. Pencilceaser123 (talk) 07:21, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

Help:Infobox says they are for facts and statistics, but I guess we could put "disputed"

linked to the section (or anchor) within the article that discusses it more fully (or even to another article if the dispute has its own article. That way there is a "fact at a glance" as per the Help, which a "see ..." isn't. My bigger concern is disputes becoming an edit war simply involving changing the infobox value back and forwards rather than making a case with cited content in the article. This is why I suggested having articles for what each group perceives as their land, which enables overlap in their claims without it creating a head-to-head argument in an article for a post-colonial place whose boundaries are usually unrelated to Indigenous history. Maybe that is the best way to achieve a "neutral point of view" in this situation and minimise on-wiki disputes given that there is a lack of written sources for pre-colonial times. Kerry (talk) 06:26, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

I probably should say that parts of Brisbane (where I live) are disputed between the Jagera and Turrbal and this creates on-going edit wars on Wikipedia because the Jagera people made a native title claim which was refused because of the Turrbal counter-claim (so it is undetermined legally). So this may make me more sensitive to the issue of disputed claims than those who write about places which are not subject to such disputes. Kerry (talk) 06:35, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

I have been involved in some of the Brisbane pages too, and to be fair the edit wars have settled down recently. The Brisbane page itself is a prime example of poorly sourced and misleading information on Aboriginal issues. For example, "Meanjin" (however spelled) was never a traditional name for Brisbane because there was no "Brisbane" in traditional Aboriginal culture. "Meanjin" is an English transliteration of an Aboriginal word that (probably) referred to a small piece of land within what is now Brisbane. We can say that many people (Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal) now use the word "Meanjin" to refer to Brisbane but are they really using it to refer to Brisbane as defined by the article? There are many Aboriginal groups who were the traditional custodians of land that is now a part of Brisbane and they had many different names for the land they had rights over: the Yerongpan, Chepara and Coorpooroo are a few. The tragedy is that the traditional custodian groups are gone for ever and glibly stating in an info box that "Meanjin" is the Aboriginal name for Brisbane is one more erasure of the diversity of pre-colonial Australia. If we want to list traditional custodians and traditional names in an info box I would be inclined to just put: "many" and explain the detail in the articles. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 07:33, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

Putting "many" in the wikibox is deffinitly a good idea for larger areas or areas with multiple peoples. Prehaps you could put "many" if 4 or more groups could be considered custodians of the area. Pencilceaser123 (talk) 02:50, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

This seems very unusual to me, although I understand how this can happen. In areas where I have lived its common to mention 2 (or even 3!) peoples as the tradtional Custodians. So I dont see why we couldnt just put both on the wikibox. Your idea for having an article for the lands of each group is great. Its just theres hundreds of countries, many of whom have wikipedia pages that are little more than stubs, so it seems along way to be able to do that. Pencilceaser123 (talk) 02:49, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

Also I think its worth noting: When I was making this proposal I was thinking to be considered a custodian/owner of the land they would only need to lay claim to part of the area, not all of it. Pencilceaser123 (talk) 02:52, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

I would suggest that, normally, only one traditional custodian should appear in the infobox. For large-area places (cities, large state or national parks) that have different custodians in different parts, a second custodian can be added. For pretty-much point places (towns), one only. If there are more than 2, or any dispute, or lack of good references, put nothing in the infobox and discuss the topic in the body of the article. So I would argue for |traditional_custodian1= and |traditional_custodian2=.

I would also suggest |traditional_custodian1_footnotes= and |traditional_custodian2_footnotes=, partly as a reminder to editors that the statement(s) need to be referenced, especially if there is little or nothing in the article body.

Question: where in the infobox should this appear? My suggestion would be with the 'larger areas this place is in' items (LGA, region, electorates), but I'm not wedded to it. Innesw (talk) 01:32, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

Having only one custodian for single points is problematic. Aboriginal people didnt have set borders, and nations could share land. For example the dharug and gundungurra people Pencilceaser123 (talk) 04:47, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

As for where it should be in the wikibox, thats a great idea. As is the reminder for references Pencilceaser123 (talk) 04:48, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

OK, happy to widen the criteria for 2 custodians to (a) large places and (b) where custodionship is shared or overlaps. But I think 2 is a reasonable limit for the infobox - anything more complicated or disputed needs a longer explanation elsewhere. There is a precedent for linking to a section of the body of the article from this infobox, if |near= is defined but all of the near-* are blank. So for any custodianship more complex that 2 verified (& undisputed) names, we could advise |traditional_custodian1=see {{slink||Traditional Custodians}} (or whatever the section name is), which will appear as 'see § Traditional Custodians'. Innesw (talk) 12:28, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

• I'd support the concept, and support adding a field to the infobox, but only use it when it's clear and unambiguous, with only one group. If it needs a list, then it needs an explanation too. There are lots of modern towns which are clearly in the territory of only one traditional custodial group. There are also lots of more complex areas where different groups used the same territory at different times of year, or shared border regions. There have also been shifts over time - should "traditional" refer to the timestamp of white colonisation of the state, or of initial white exploration (before they left Smallpox and measles)? Sometimes it's not even clear if the named group exists/ed or is/was part of a larger grouping. There are also more modern competing claims for recognition of Native Title. --Scott Davis ^Talk 01:50, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

  I’ll make a proper reply. But I think it’s fine if two different groups can be listed at the same time, more? Maybe not Pencilceaser123 (talk) 06:14, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

• I generally agree with the concept as described by Kerry, though I have some issues around how we describe it. Think Traditional Owners are not equal to Native Title holders. Within that the ability to have multiple groups is necessary. There are significant over laps between current(Government authorities if one likes) boundaries to those of Traditional Owners, and Native Title groups. Example SWLAC is Native Title holder for South West, but Yuet, Minang, Ballardong, Whadjuk et el are the TO of different areas within the single Native Title Claim. Gnangarra 12:05, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

It seems like there are possibly 4 concepts we could be referring to here (there may be more). (See Native title in Australia.)

1. Native Title Determinations under the federal Native Title Act
2. Indigenous Land Use Agreements made under the same act
3. Other settlments made by various states (eg: under the Traditional Owner Settlement Act 2010 in Victoria)
4. Traditional Custodianship - allocation of land areas to traditional first-nations groups as their pre-European-settlement - or current - areas of occupation or affiliation

The first three are legal concepts that give particular first-nations groups particular rights over particular areas of land. The fourth can probably be said to apply to 100% of Australia, with the boundaries more- or less-precisely defined, depending on the source of the information. This will generally be the group specified (if there is one) in an Acknowledgement of Country: We acknowledge the [..] people as the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet ....

So, on what basis do we include the name of a first-nations group in the Infobox under 'Traditional Custodians'? I would think any 'place' that is within or immediately surrounded by an area covered by any of the first 3 formal concepts - for a single named group - could rightly use the name of that group. For legal determinations/settlements with more than one named group, or for any statement based on #4, we need either to examine the details of those determinations/settlements, or use other reliable references. (And does an Acknowledgement of Country meet the reliability required? Of itself, I would think probably not.)

Together with the criteria (stated above) about two possible custodians, and complexity/ambiguity/disputes, does this move us closer to a set of guidelines? Innesw (talk) 12:44, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

Acknowledgement of Country is used by agents that arent the traditional owner ie Government departments. To do a "Welcome to Country" one must be from the country and have the rights bestowed by Elders to represent that country. As a reliable source an Acknowledgement can be fraught with issues, inaccuracies, or disputes, it not something I'd be comfortable with asserting as reliable source. Use of Traditional Custodians I would be uncomfortable with, preference to use Traditional Owners which is more self explanatory. Gnangarra 13:43, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

I think we are in furious agreement about 'Acknowledgements' as a reliable source - they just aren't. Unfortunately 'Welcomes' are probably also not sufficient, particularly if there are disputes and somebody has to decide who to invite to do one. As I said previously, any level of complexity etc. needs the Infobox to refer readers to a detailed discussion, not look as if a definitive statement can be made. On 'Custodians' and 'Owners', there does not seem to be agreement on this amongst first-nations groups (see here - which is my only source for this). Maybe just 'First Nations' as an Infobox heading row label? (That's just a new idea I've had, completely un-thought-through.) Innesw (talk) 22:17, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

I've been to events where acknowledges/welcomes have attracted an outburst from someone in the crowd disagreeing with which group was mentioned (or not mentioned). It's far from universally agreed. That's why I suggested writing articles about the Traditional lands of different groups as a way to document what the different groups believe and not create issues of having that information in the same article (creating edit wars). Kerry (talk) 02:06, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

So, as far as the Infobox is concerned, our guideline needs to say (along the lines of) 'If there is any level of dispute, link to a description of that dispute. If there is no such description in WP [eg: if one of your proposed articles doesn't exist yet], then do not fill this parameter.' Innesw (talk) 12:12, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Below is a draft section for the template documentation page. I have gone with 'First Peoples' as a base parameter name, but this, as the rest of the draft, remains open to discussion.

First Peoples
Parameters:

• |first_peoples1=, |first_peoples2=. Give the names of the first (Aboriginal or Torres-Strait-Islander) people(s) who occupied the place prior to European settlement, or who are the traditional custodians/owners of the land.

• use these parameters where the place is within or immediately surrounded by an area affiliated with a group named in the sources (see below)
• filling first_peoples2 is valid for large-area places (eg: cities) that have different custodians in different parts, or where affiliation is acknowledged as shared
• if there are more than 2 groups sharing affiliation to the place, or there is any level of dispute or ambiguity, use 'see {{section link}}' to refer to a discussion of the details within the article, or to link to details elsewhere. If there is no detailed discussion to refer to, and there is some dispute or ambiguity, do not fill these parameters.

• |first_peoples1_footnotes=, |first_peoples2_footnotes=. References demonstrating the named first peoples' affiliation.

Common sources would include:

• Native Title Determinations under the federal Native Title Act
• Indigenous Land Use Agreements made under the same act
• Declared Indigenous Protected Areas
• Other settlements made by various states (eg: under the Traditional Owner Settlement Act 2010 in Victoria)
• Anthropological or similar information about pre-european-settlement occupation or current affiliation with the land

Note that acknowledgements of and welcomes to country are not generally regarded as reliable sources for the name(s) of first peoples affiliated with a place.

Innesw (talk) 23:36, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

Sounds good to me! Thanks for doing this! A few thoughts:

Maybe something could be added to specify that the group does not need to be considered traditional custodians over the whole location, just at least one place within the modern borders.

Maybe we could add to common sources official statements by local councils?

No major problems though, and open to discussion on this. Pencilceaser123 (talk) 23:51, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

I strongly oppose using statements by local government as a reliable source for traditional owners. Local government websites are not academic sources and their policies towards local indigenous groups often change depending on who is in power. There are also often disputes between indigenous groups and local governments about these very issues. There are exceptions when local government websites publish anthropological or similar information about pre-European-settlement, occupation or current affiliation with the land. A good example of this is the City of Sydney's.Barani website. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 00:05, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

I agree with you, im more meaning in areas where there isnt dispute. Pencilceaser123 (talk) 00:06, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Well, if there is no dispute then we can probably find a better source that a local government website. Your other point raises a difficulty: what if there are some Aboriginal groups that are only associated with a small part of the geographic area covered by the article? (Say, 5%). If we give them equal weight to the majority group, we are likely to be presenting disputed or misleading information. If we exclude them, we are erasing them from history. If we include an explanatory note then we are presenting complex information which probably shouldn't be in the info box. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 00:10, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

I suppose you could do it like this? "People A (Majority)" "People B (Minority)" or "People A" "People B (West only)" or something Pencilceaser123 (talk) 00:15, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't think even short comments like '(Majority)' or '(West only)' belong in an infobox. It's for summaries of key facts that should appear in detail elsewhere in the article. It could well be argued that if there is no detail of first nations affiliations in the article then these fields should be left blank. Innesw (talk) 23:03, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

This is excellent work. Thanks for doing this. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 00:06, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Agreed Pencilceaser123 (talk) 00:07, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

The more important question is how the proposed parameter should be displayed in Template:Infobox settlement. Where in the infobox should it appear, and what heading should be used? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:35, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

@Michael Bednarek: as of the current state of the proposed wrapper to {{Infobox settlement}}, it would fit at |subdivision_type5=First People(s), so below the LGA and above the Location (=distances & directions from other places). As shown, my suggestion for the heading is 'First People(s)'. If first_peoples2 is filled, the single |subdivision_name5= would have to be filled with (I think) a {{plainlist}}.

I'll raise the topic at the talkpage where the wrapper details are being discussed. Innesw (talk) 07:04, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Why would Wikipedia use 'First People(s)' in capitals? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:25, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Fair point, I hadn't really thought about it. I'll change it to 'First people(s)' when things calm down over there! Innesw (talk) 10:40, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

My only concern is that |subdivision_type5=First People(s) is not intuative as common terminology is to use traditional owners Gnangarra 11:44, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Iirc if your using visual editing and search say “aboriginal” it will show up with that parameter if it’s in the description for that parameter includes that word Pencilceaser123 (talk) 21:38, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

The options at the moment seem to be 'traditional owners', 'traditional custodians', 'first peoples' and 'first nations'. As per here there are different traditional groups who would prefer not to use both #1 and #2, so #3 or #4 attempt to avoid that issue. But maybe term-recognition in the wider user community is more important than not using #1 or #2. I have no idea on what grounds we would resolve this. Innesw (talk) 23:32, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

I here first nations more often personally if that changes anything Pencilceaser123 (talk) 23:33, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Unfortunately all these terms are disputed and we risk getting bogged down in semantic disputes. As per wikipedia policy, we should use the terms most commonly used in Australian English. If it is possibly to produce an NGRAM restricted to Australian publications we can then run the various terms and see which is the most common. My guess is it will be "Indigenous Australians" and "traditional owners", but I am happy to go with the most common results. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 02:29, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

Indigenous Custodians is probably most common nowadays, followed by tradtional owners. Let me see what I can find Pencilceaser123 (talk) 02:33, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

Cant find one specifically for australia, but from what I can tell, Indigenous owners seems to be the most common Pencilceaser123 (talk) 02:46, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

That looks like an 'I hear more often', a 'my guess', an 'is probably' and a 'seems to be' - not exactly solid grounds for a decision. :(( (That may sound a little sarcastic - please take it in the humorous tone that's intended - but unfortunately it's also true.) Anybody have thoughts on somewhere authoritative we can turn to? Innesw (talk) 09:25, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

Uluru Statement use First Nations and First Soveriegn Nations, thats were the largest consensus has taken place in the last 30 years. On a technical level that is still where places are located on that soveriegn land. Gnangarra 10:01, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

I've capitalised "Aboriginal", per convention. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:01, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Asia-Oceania Contest

November is Asian month but I was thinking of running a joint Destubathon and Article creation contest spanning Asia and Oceania then, which would benefit Australia. $2500 in prizes, divided daily. If interested, comment on Wikipedia talk:Asian Month.♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:06, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

New resource about Indigenous Australian stories from the ABC

Participants in this project might be interested in Deep Time Australia, a fantastic new resource from the ABC showing stories of indigenous Australian peoples over time. I'll cross-post this to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of Australia. Graham87 (talk) 20:32, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, thank you Graham87 - I saw that and will definitely be using it in the future! Laterthanyouthink (talk) 09:11, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Template talk:LGBT in Australia#Requested move 16 October 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Template talk:LGBT in Australia#Requested move 16 October 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 13:30, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Cocos (Keeling) Islands flag

There seems to be an edit dispute happening at States and territories of Australia over whether (the image of) the flag of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands is able to be used. It has been deleted from commons as still in copyright per this discussion, but the image is on the English WP at [2], and the question seems to be whether use of non-free content is valid in this case. Can somebody with experience check it out. Innesw (talk) 09:22, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

It definitely meets the criteria for non-free content usage and is very important to the article Pencilceaser123 (talk) 09:24, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

How is it that Wikipedia can't use the flag of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, but every single modern operating system can use the 🇨🇨 emoji? Is this widespread copyright violation by Apple, Windows, etc? Or is Wikipedia taking an overly strict view of copyright? Is it against Wikipedia's rules to use the 🇨🇨 emoji anywhere? Does https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%F0%9F%87%A8%F0%9F%87%A8&redirect=no have to be taken to Redirects for Discussion? Steelkamp (talk) 09:33, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

Its very silly in my opinion. Makes sense to have the flag Pencilceaser123 (talk) 09:38, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

Alas, copyright on Wikipedia often is very silly. Steelkamp (talk) 10:11, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

yep, Commons is extremely strict its policies specifically says something like; even if no one would care enough to enforce any claim it must still be deleted until its free without question or condition. Gnangarra 06:06, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

Well in this case we are discussing if it counts for non free use Pencilceaser123 (talk) 07:54, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

That does appear to be the issue - the edit summaries are very cryptic. One user replaces the flag image with a copyright sign, another changes it back, a third makes the place blank stating "No valid non-free use rationale for this page" and linking to Wikipedia:Non-free_content#Implementation. I'm not up with the ins-and-outs of non-fair-use to make a judgement. Innesw (talk) 06:15, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

ohhhh I figured out the problem. You need to have a free use rational for each article its used on. I forget how you do it but you gotta add one here Pencilceaser123 (talk) 06:18, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Potentially helpful photos for articles

Hiya. Not sure if this is quite the right place but thought I'd pass it on. I was at the Queenscliffe Literary Festival this weekend for WikiPortraits and I've taken a number of photos (over on Commons at Category:WikiPortraits at 2025 Queenscliffe Literary Festival). I've tried to add them to as many useful biographical articles as I can (eg Virginia Trioli (shocked she didn't have a photo), Hannie Rayson, Francis Leach, etc) but thought I'd put it here in case it was useful, as I'm wary of just spamming my photos everywhere. (eg photo of Zach Tuohy is only off-field one of him but not much room on the article without replacing the infobox photo, which I don't think would make sense) Thought I'd post the category here in case people were curious. LivelyRatification (talk) 12:16, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Wow, that's quite an impressive collection. Re Zach Tuohy: If you could mention his memoir, The Irish Experiment, under "Personal life" in his article, that would be a perfect place to add his photograph. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:11, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Ty! I looked at that briefly but the source I found didn't mention he co-wrote it with Catherine Murphy, who was the other speaker at that talk. I'll do some more digging now! LivelyRatification (talk) 23:27, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Greater Cities Commission

An editor has requested that Greater Cities Commission be moved to Greater Sydney Commission, which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You are invited to participate in the move discussion. Qwerty123M (talk) 01:34, 2 November 2025 (UTC)