This portal was identified as a featured portal before the process ended in 2017.
Portal milestones Date Process Result February 2, 2006 Featured portal candidate Promoted

This portal does not require a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Australia Australia is within the scope of WikiProject Australia, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Australia and Australia-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page.AustraliaWikipedia:WikiProject AustraliaTemplate:WikiProject AustraliaAustralia Countries This page is within the scope of WikiProject Countries, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of countries on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CountriesWikipedia:WikiProject CountriesTemplate:WikiProject Countriescountry WikiProject Countries to-do list: Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Article requests : Check out the article alerts; see if anything catches your fancy. Cleanup : clean-up listing for Countries Stubs : de-stub articles in Category:Stubs by region. Other : add {{WPCountries}} to talk pages of related articles, and assess. Portals Complete‑class (Rated Mid-importance) This page is a portal. Portals are within the scope of WikiProject Portals, a collaborative effort to improve portals on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PortalsWikipedia:WikiProject PortalsTemplate:WikiProject PortalsPortal Complete This page has been rated as Complete-class on the project's quality scale.  Mid  This portal has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. See also: List of Portals This portal has minor issues in need of editor attention. This portal's subpages have been checked by an editor, and are needed. Please take care when editing, especially if using automated editing software. Learn how to update the maintenance information here. (July 2018)

• Portal:Australia/Index

• Archive 1

I've started a set of subpages at Portal:Australia/Anniversaries, which has a subpage for every day of the year, so that notable events and anniversaries in Australian history can be considered. Hopefully, if approved by the community for inclusion on the portal page, it would not be hard to maintain, as a glance at the code of Portal:Germany, shows that there is an automated device so that the reference to the relevant day's subpage will automatically update itself at 0:00 every day. I've stuck a few random notable events in there just off the top of my head, etc. Regards, Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 02:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest that the set of pages needs to be nearly complete before the portal starts displaying them. Otherwise we'll get unsightly red links on the portal page. It would be a lot of work to complete these pages, and I'm not sure the benefits would be worth while.-gadfium 02:58, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, of course, but in time I think we could rummage together at least three or four anniversaries per day. It's just like the main page, and I think there could be more Australia content than German content on the English Wikipedia. Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 03:01, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• I think the proposal is good. I was thinking of it already, but not sure how to implement in the context of the years in Australia pages, which are of course an easy source of events. I would like to see the links back to those years too, eg for July 11 1916 being Gough's bithday, don't link to 1916 but instead 1916 in Australia, though piped to 1916, ie [[1916 in Australia|1916]]--A Y Arktos\^talk 03:12, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • • I think they (the German portal) just trawled through the data manually, unless someone creates June 8 in Australia, which would have the exact same effect anyway.
  • Could the update be UTC - 10 hours - ie midnight AEST? :-)--A Y Arktos\^talk 03:14, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think so, there is a template that works out the day, with an offset of days, I don't think it would be difficult for the people who write these templates to create one with a deliberate time offset and then convert to days and months. I don't know what the WP policy is w.r.t changing the clock for regional portals not on GMT however.Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 03:20, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I like the proposal, though it would need to be completed before inclusion on the portal as either a new feature or replacement for DYK.--cj | talk 03:34, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Im all for this proposal and would be glad to help with finding notable historical events. michael ^talk 04:59, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• three or four events per day is 1,000 events. I have made a bit of a start but there is a lot more to do! You can check what has been added by using the recent changes link at Portal:Australia/Anniversaries - ie [1] --A Y Arktos\^talk 22:31, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Do we want pictures? The German Portal does have them.--A Y Arktos\^talk 22:33, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Since we are drawing from a smaller pool of articles than Wikipedia, it might be a good idea to include notable births and/or deaths, and important cultural works - like the publication date for books etc. I've also got to say, I don't really see a great problem with having red links on a portal - red links often prompt people to write articles.--Peta 23:42, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• • I also have no problem with red links. If using years in Australia for the date (which is my preference), there will be red links and these definitley deserve an article, 1916 in Australia, 1868 in Australia and [[1916 in Australia are all redlinked at the moment, they each have interesting events happening in them--A Y Arktos\^talk 00:18, 25 May 2006 (UTC).[reply]

• • • Is "19xx in Australia" too going too fine-grained for the article topics? I mean, there were those world factbooks for each year in my local library when I was growing up and I agree their content would be great on Wikipedia, but with its extremely broad frame of reference I worry that fine-grain summary articles like these will be hard for researchers to find. Imagine you are looking for information about the goldrush in Australia and associated economical change... You have an idea it happened in the goldrush happened in the mid 1800s, but not sure exactly what year the most important dates happened. You are going to want an article more like "1850s in Australia".... What do you think? This is going to be particularly relevant for the pre-1788 years in Australia and pre-Renaissance years for most countries — Donama 00:50, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Have a look at one of the non redlinked years in Australia, for example 1962 in Australia. It links to the Timeline of Australian history which has major events per decade. It also links back to 1962 which from there links to decades - not too many clicks to get to a broader timeframe. I agree with you about pre 1788, but are we putting in dates pre 1788 (other than 1770 which I am in two minds about), there weren't that many records or consistent calendars around for dates relevant to Australia. However, if it was something like the Batavia or similar event you had in mind, no I wouldn't link back to 1629 in Australia--A Y Arktos\^talk 01:11, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you're looking for events to add, try this ABC site--Peta 05:08, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cool :) .Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 05:09, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Peta, per featured portal criteria, red links are limited to only contibution-encouraging aspects of portals (ie, to-do lists). This portal does not include a to-do list, but instead points to ACOTF. --cj | talk 05:25, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It would be my preference to not include pictures amongst the anniversaries because they are too variable; not all subpages will be of sufficient size to balance the image. In other words, the image should be a secondary aspect - the text should outweigh it. If images are included, they should be limited to dates with 4 or more anniversaries. Moreover, they should not be thumbnailed. Also, please ensure in adding dates that a uniform format is followed; the first letter of the anniversary after the hyphen should be capitalised in all instances, and all anniversaries should have full stops.--cj | talk 08:52, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The issue is, it is much easier to include pictures as we are building the items now rather than go back and add them later. I would like to add now and discuss later, rather than the other way around, if pictures are an agreed option. I think we should be able to find pictures for one in four events. The model I had in mind is Portal:Germany/Anniversaries/May where there is a picture for each day. I note they are not thumbnailed or captioned - the lack of captioning a consequence of not thumbnailing rather than editor's intention though looking at the code, but probably a Good Thing.--A Y Arktos\^talk 23:35, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That seems reasonable. There are a few reasons to not thumbnail images on portals; firstly, they conflict with set backgrounds; secondly, they are not always aesthetically appealing (the box in a box issue); and finally, for this portal, they would be inconsistent. Capitions should always be included for images though, as they are still shown on mouse over.--cj | talk 07:23, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

mouseover does not seem to work for me in mozila at present - but if it does for some, no probs--A Y Arktos\^talk 11:31, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Every day in Portal:Australia/Anniversaries/June is now blue linked. Plenty of opportunities still for additions or replacements. Can we start from 1 June?--A Y Arktos\^talk 23:37, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As soon as all red links within those days are taken care of.--cj | talk 07:48, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see the red links as "contribution-encouraging aspects". The German portal seems to have achieved its blue links through the domination of births and deaths - few events per se doing a quick scan. I am not interested in merely a list of births and deaths - a light scattering only should be sufficient. I also see little point to linking to the common year for an Australian portal. Given the lack of interest from other editors to even add events, I can't see this going anywhere with the constraint put on it by Cyberjunkie's interpretation of "Red links must be restricted to only contribution-encouraging aspects, and limited at that." at Wikipedia:What is a featured portal?--A Y Arktos\^talk 11:31, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm actually quite happy with the response to this proposal – it has been the most concerted group effort this portal has seen. The catalogue will continue to grow over time, so I don't see any particular need to rush – the portal certainly isn't going anywhere. Peta's suggestion below to run it on AWNB may trigger further participation. The "contibution-encouraging aspects" comment refers to self-referential sections on portals, namely things to do, WikiProjects etc. Red links are confined to these sections. You can trust my interpretation of what is a featured portal?, because I wrote it. The reasoning behind the red link criterion, imported from Wikipédia française, which was more advanced vis-à-vis portals at that stage, is that because portals are meant to display quality snippets of the encyclopædia, red links serve only as a distraction.--cj | talk 05:52, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here's another proposal, why don't we have a dummy run on the notice board? I think the collaboration of the fortnight could be moved - (cj would it be possible to make the candidates box half as high and make a skinnier box for the collabortion of the fortnight? Or we could rename the box community and just have the collabotation and candidates in there.) and the box could go beneath in the news. Red links would be ok, and it would draw attention to the "project" since more people (probably) visit that page than look at the portal. Then when we have some more polished material it can appear on both the portal and the noticeboard.--Peta 02:29, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I like this proposal, though I'm not exactly clear on what it is you want me to do?--cj | talk 05:52, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We need to free up a box, so I though we could have two boxes where the candidates box is now, one for the cotf and one for candidates - or we can just combine those things in one box.--Peta 05:59, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I like the idea. I think Peta means merge the contents of Collaboration of the Fortnight and Other Candidates boxes at the AWNB to free up a box for the new Australian Anniversary content. -- Longhair 02:39, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• I support this proposal--A Y Arktos\^talk 02:40, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I made a change and think it looks ok. What do you think? Alignment in the middle right box could do with an expert tweak though. -- Longhair 11:05, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another (minor) problem being, the edit link actually edits the box contents, and not anniversary dates. -- Longhair 11:12, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• looks good except for the edit link problem, not sure how to fix other than to remove the editing link--A Y Arktos\^talk 11:29, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect a page or two also needs to be renamed, plus the edit link problem. Other than that, I quite like it. I stole your userpage idea too AYArktos :) Thanks. -- Longhair 11:35, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be a problem with the images being used. Compare the results on WP:AWNB with my user page and User:AYArktos for an example of the problem. -- Longhair 00:56, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can't spot it.--cj | talk 06:26, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Appears to be fixed. What was happening was the image tags where being presented as such, and not an image. -- Longhair 06:27, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What happens on dates where there are lots of events (Jan 1, Nov 11 and Dec 10 spring to mind, but there will be more)? Does someone need to manually modify a template, or will the whole list appear?--Peta 21:50, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If they are excessive, and distort the portal proper, then that may have to be done. But they are only temporary and none have yet struck me as too large. Still, maybe we should place a cap on the number of events per anniversary?--cj | talk 07:30, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• I think we will have to review to reduce to no more than five per day, but it is easier to review later and take out than provide guidelines up front. The criteria for removal might not be significance of the event but interest of the unusual - directing to an article that would not have come otherwise to the attention of the casual browser. It really comes down to refining the purpose of the Anniversaries list. Some events/articles have more than one date associated with them and are easier to move than others - eg a significant Australian was born, died and might have done something on particular days; they need only be mentioned once in the year's 365 days. I suggest review when a month is about to go live - we still have lots of blanks in July but it seems a bit early to be working on the clean up when so much is still being added generally throughout the year. Need to start the clean up in the last week of June.--A Y Arktos\^talk 22:59, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• I have been adding captions to images. In at least one case the caption had been removed. The mouseover does work if pop-ups is not enabled and is important information thus for general readers that they would not see otherwise.--A Y Arktos\^talk 22:59, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why does the faux-browsebar at the top link to categories instead of portals?--ragesoss 04:22, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There was talk somewhere of a list of Featured Australian articles but I can't seem to find it. If we're running short of Australian content, there's always the Good article pool to chose from. -- Longhair 02:46, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• I created it at Portal:Australia/List a while ago. It needs to be updated.--cj | talk 06:28, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See this and this. I couldn't bear to see redlinks, so I quickly copied them from around Weeks 40/41, 2006. If I've stuffed this up, my apologies, but I figured these were better than nothing for a featured portal. Daniel Bryant 07:35, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much Daniel. Eek, indeed! I've put fresh entries in.--cj | talk 07:45, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The portal says that Australia has been inhabited by Aboriginals for 50,000 years, whereas the Australia article says that it has been inhabited by Aboriginals for only 42,000 years. Please explain, --Spebi 22:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Simply, the text in the introduction of this portal was taken from the Australia article, which has subsequently changed. I've updated the figure.--cj | talk 16:46, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In particular, logos. What's the current status regarding the legitimacy of their use in portals? I see at least two in Portal:Australia/Anniversaries/August (A-League and Demons), and I always thought that they were off-limits, so I'm asking here for more input. Thoughts? Cheers, Daniel Bryant 11:50, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Under present policy, they are prohibited in portalspace. A proposal to allow them is currently being discussed, but looks unlikely to get up. I've removed the photos you pointed out. Thanks,--cj | talk 16:45, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

The portal was showing redlinks for "week 0" on selected items! I have copied materials from week 1 to temporarily remove the redlinks. Arman ^(Talk) 01:28, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have fixed the problem now. There was an error with the function that automatically produces the week number of the year, and (I think) the ISO week number was Week 0 of 2008, but the year number still generated 2007, and as Week 0, 2007 didn't exist, hence the red links. I've fixed the problem so it manually displays the Featured selection of the first week of 2008, even though it's technically (according to the software) not 2008 yet. Spebi 01:32, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, would any Australians be willing to help me get the text of two particular Gazettes? I am looking for the ones referenced in http://www.airwaysmuseum.com/Civil%20Air%20Ensign.htm, namely:

• 6 June 1935 № 30
• 4 March 1948 № 39

The topic is the Civil Air Ensign's specifications so I can create an exact image. I can't get Australia Gazettes from where I live. Thanks, ButterStick (talk) 09:55, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You'd probably get a better answer if you try asking at the Australian Wikipedians' notice board, because not many people watch this page. Spebi 09:56, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, will do. ButterStick (talk) 09:58, 1 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by ButterBar (talk • contribs) [reply]

Portal:Tasmania's Related Portals box could be used here. feydey (talk) 18:28, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Located between Batemans Bay and Moruya and by the village of Tomakin. This sandy beach is about one kilometre long with shrubbed sand dunes and grassed flats to the interior. It is crescent shaped and features Barlings Island and Long Nose Point to the north and Melville Point to the south. The beach faces south and, therefore, picks up southerly swell. The beach is affected, usually after mid morning, by strong north-easterly winds especially in summer. Sea temperatures usually vary between 15 and 20 degrees Celsius, with the coldest months being October and November. Wet suits are advisable in the non-summer seasons. Salmon, sting rays and dolphins are common. Whales can be seen in the migratory months. Several years ago a mother whale and its calf sheltered in the bay for a day or so.

Barlings, also known as Chunders, is patronised mainly by local Tomakin surfers who are more atune to the vagaries of the beach. Outsiders are quick to dismiss Chunders because of its famous close-out break, its unforgiving bach-wash, its sometimes dodgey paddle through the rocks, the presence of bluebottles after a strong southerly and suspect flotsam after a stong north-easterly. The north of the beach is sheltered from swell while the south can experience periods of strong surf-- usually followed by a flat spell. The sand banks are normally best after strong waves have shifted sand further out to sea. Right hand breaks are usually fast while the left handers are generally slower with a faster section close to the shore. Waves break into respective rips which can be hazardous to visitors.

To the north of the beach, between Barlings Island and Long Nose Point, are rocky coves and a sewage outlet. To the sooth, between Melville Point and the mouth Of the Tomaga River are Tomakin Cove (Little Beach) and Tomakin Beach (River Beach). The former is protected from waves. The latter has a long right hander on the river mouth with NE swell. Avoid a fast out going tide. In the middle, The Basin, provides a large fattish left/right hander. Be prepared to wait...

Always remember the surf is always far better and the girls are prettier at Broulee!!!! ECO

– — … ‘ “ ’ ” ° ″ ′ ≈ ≠ ≤ ≥ ± − × ÷ ← → · §
210.9.137.176 (talk) 02:47, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that someone move protected the main australia portal page but not any of the subpages, e.g. Portal:Australia/Indices. This could potentially turn into a big problem.
Oli (talk) 05:30, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what has gone wrong, but the top of the portal page looks really awful. The map overlaps the text, the text is ragged and right-justified, and there is a big blob of useless whitespace. cojoco (talk) 16:27, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've commented out some html in Portal:Australia/Intro which has fixed it. This is just addressing the symptoms. Perhaps something changed in MediaWiki which broke the layout. Someone more familiar with this portal can try reversing my change in a few hours and see if it now works, and perhaps report it at WP:VP/T if it still doesn't.-gadfium 17:42, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rock Eisteddfod Challenge results contains wrong Informations, but i did not know which edits are bad or good. Please check it. The edits of 18th January are bad, I am sure. --Diwas (talk) 06:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But I do not need this list. Feel free to delete it. Greetings Diwas (talk) 06:44, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've begun a discussion at Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board#Integration with Portal regarding integration between this Portal and WikiProject Australia. LordVetinari 11:11, 28 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Selected Article section overlaps the Indices section. Acalycine^talk 09:53, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The effect may be browser-dependent, but I hope I've fixed it with this edit. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:15, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Still there. Looks like this: http://i.imgur.com/P9z5HpR.png

I can't see what's causing that. What browser and version are you using? -- John of Reading (talk) 10:38, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Currently I'm using Firefox 24.0 and it's fixed. I was using Safari 6.0.5 when it was bugged like that... I'm also using Mountain Lion on a Macintosh. Acalycine^talk 00:11, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I added a clear:both to the header and it fixed it on my iPhone. How does it look on other browsers? — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ^{♪ talk ♪} 23:14, 8 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I just found out my previous fix didn't work in IE, so I've tried using a {{clear}} template in between the header div and the other divs. Let me know if you spot any issues with it. — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ^{♪ talk ♪} 06:24, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The intro blurb for the portal cites Australia's population as 21 million, while the actual figure is more like 24: would someone with sufficient permissions to get to the template on which the intro is located like to fix it? Rpot2 (talk) 02:45, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Rpot2: should be fixed, thanks for noticing the error. -- Euryalus (talk) 05:52, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No worries :-)

Rpot2 (talk) 22:44, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I should also probably mention that, to stop it getting too out-dated, that stat will also need to be monitored, and updated whenever the population ticks over to the next nearest next million. Is using a bot for that worth-while? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rpot2 (talk • contribs) 05:58, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion is at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposal to delete Portal space. Voceditenore (talk) 15:09, 22 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals is back!

The project was rebooted and completely overhauled on April 17th, 2018.

Its goals are to revitalize the entire portal system, make building and maintaining portals easier, and design the portals of the future.

As of April 29th, membership is at 56 editors, and growing.

There are design initiatives for revitalizing the portals system as a whole, and for each component of portals.

Tools are provided for building and maintaining portals, including automated portals that update themselves in various ways.

And, if you are bored and would like something to occupy your mind, we have a wonderful task list.

From your friendly neighborhood Portals WikiProject.    — The Transhumanist   03:24, 30 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Portal:Darwin. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. UnitedStatesian (talk) 11:34, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Portal:Newcastle. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. -- Tavix ^(talk) 14:12, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Portal:Norfolk Island. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. -- Tavix ^(talk) 14:17, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The portal has been expanded with the addition of a new Good article section. The article selections listed below were added. Additional expansion, updating and cleanup was also performed. If anyone is interested, please feel free to discuss these changes here. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 14:27, 20 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

1 * Brumby 2 * Green-head ant 3 * Cyclone Glenda 4 * 2010 Gascoyne River flood 5 * Glebe (rugby league team) 6 * Angie Ballard 7 * Australian Crawl 8 * 2010 Claxton Shield 9 * Black Tears 10 * Fighter Squadron RAAF 11 * Jack Fingleton 12 * Anthony Field 13 * Green Lantern Coaster 14 * Stuart Clarence Graham 15 * Great Northern Highway 16 * Frog cake 17 * Albany Highway 18 * Jennifer Blow 19 * Ivor McIntyre 20 * Kelsey Wakefield

• Additional articles for the portal can be considered from those available in the table listed below.

Have collapsed the table as it was overwhelming the section on this page. Feel free to revert if preferred. -- Euryalus (talk) 05:14, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Seems worth extending this talkpage discussion as there's now a minor edit war under way. An editor boldly added a Good Article section to the portal, along with some minor technical changes. Another editor has reverted those changes on the grounds they were undiscussed beforehand. In the spirit of WP:BRDD, let's now have a discussion to decide the content for this page. In passing, please note that this is about content, unlike the ANI discussion which is about alleged editor conduct. Pinging @Northamerica1000, BrownHairedGirl, and Kusma: as the three people so far involved, but of course anyone is welcome to offer a view. -- Euryalus (talk) 05:14, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The blanket revert should be reverted as the edit summary is a complete fabrication in this case. That said we could easily pick some top level articles from many GAs and FAs....not seeing much of a problem with Norths picks though.--Moxy 🍁 05:23, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comment. As very much a passing suggestion: given how heated portal discussion sometimes are we should probably leave issues of other portals, and mass editing/reverting, for the ANI debate and just focus here this particular portal. Feel free to disagree, I just think we're more likely to get consensus from a simple content discussion about Portal:Australia. -- Euryalus (talk) 05:32, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Your right in one sense ...my point was the work was already done. That said I created Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia/Featured and good content years ago that we can cross reference with Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia/Popular pages and Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/1 and see what we got to work with.--Moxy 🍁 05:53, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Moxy, I ask you withdraw your allegation that edit summary was a complete fabrication. Apart from being gratuitously abusive, it denies the facts. I have set out my concerns in more detail in a lengthy section below. If you choose to reply there, I urge you to do so collegially. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:24, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I support the blanket reversion being undone. The edits performed improved the portal, because 1) Using transclusions from articles provides readers with current, up-to-date information, 2) The Good article section was a logical starting point for more to be added as time goes on, and 3) The articles chosen for the GA section as a starting point serve to provide readers with diverse content about Australian people, geography and environment, sports, transportation, cuisine, military history, and other aspects. Many more GA articles are available.

I also added a Selected cuisine section, which served to functionally expand the portal's scope a bit more. That was also removed. I would like both sections restored, but at the very least, the GA section should be restored. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 05:40, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• @Euryalus: Out of curiosity, do you have any opinion about this matter (e.g. whether or not the removed content should be restored or left out?) North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 05:44, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Not really. I've (very occasionally) used this portal as a navigational tool and generically like the idea that any content-related page gets updated once in a while. On the other hand advance discussion of major changes per BRD never hurts, and if this discussion uncovers good technical or content reasons not to make these amendments then let's not. Sorry that's not more helpful - my interest in starting this section is just to create a relaxed forum to resolve this single editing question. -- Euryalus (talk) 07:32, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your pleasant reply, which is appreciated. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 10:21, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This portal is supposed to serve as a gateway to en.wp's coverage of Australia. Like nay other portrals, it was restructured and lots of new content was added without prior discussion or even notification to the editors who routinely build and maintain en.wp's coverage of Australia. The edit summaries used inadequately describe their effect, and the notes left after the effect do not explain many of the decisions made. So I am delighted to see a review discussion taking place, and I offer this explanation of why I decided that NA1K's changes were best reverted pending such a discussion.

Per WP:Portal, "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects". The list of articles is the core of any portal. It should be chosen on a transparent basis, and it should easily viewable and reviewable at any time by any reader or editor, as clickable links, without needing to edit the page or to search on the talk page. None of those apply to the portals restructured by NA1K.

I see three issues which need to be resolved with respect to this portal. Similar issues apply to the many other portals which NA1K has reworked:

1. The failure to display a list of the articles in the portal. The list of articles is the core of any portal. Hiding it from scrutiny opens up a wide range from problems
2. Criteria for selection of articles. These should be agreed by consensus and clearly stated, so that editors can review the list against the agreed criteria.
3. The selection of cuisine as the only topic area for its own section

List display

NA1K chose without prior discussion or notice to add new sections to this portal ("Good article" and "Selected cuisine) in a no-supbage format which does not display a list of the articles anywhere on the face of the portal or on a linked sub-page. In other portals, existing sections were converted to that format; that conversion did not happen here.

This was a design choice; other models of single-page portal do display a list, e.g. Portal:Wind power. (Personally, I deeply dislike the excessively bulky way that one displays its list, but that is a formatting issue which could be easily fixed). It would also be only a modest programming task to modify other types of format so as to display a list.

Displaying the list of articles is important in two ways:

• So that readers can directly see the full set of articles. The model which NA1K used means that there is no way to see the full set, and readers are forced to purge the page to see one more excerpt from an undisclosed list of undisclosed size. This is a massive usability fail; it is equivalent to having a magazine or newspaper with no list of contents, and without even the ability to flick through the pages. The only way to see articles is to make repeated lucky dips, with no guarantee of ever seeing the full set.
  No explanation has ever been given of why NA1K considers it is desirable to take the extraordinary step of hide the list of articles from readers
• To allow editors to easily monitor the set. It should be easily viewed, with clickable links, by any editor, to examine its suitability. A copy of the list on the talk page is not sufficient, because that is there is no indication on the face of the portal that it is available there, and there is no guarantee that it will be synchronised with the actual embedded list.
  Reasons for performing these checks include:
  1. reviewing the quality of articles (e.g. up-to-date? Free of clean-up tags? Of sufficient quality? Been vandalised? NPOV?)
  2. to check for various forms of unconstructive list-making, e.g.
     • adding off-topic articles to the list, (e.g. topics with no connection to Australia)
     • promotion, e.g. promoting a minor musician or politician or business by adding them to the portal's list of articles
     • monitoring for POV-pushing, which could be done in several different ways, e.g.
       stacking the list of articles in one direction, e.g. giving undue emphasis to a particular political POV, a particular geographical area, a particular style of music
       omitting topics which someone would prefer to get less attention
       favouring one historical era over another (e.g. recentism)
       
     • pranking, e.g. adding excessive articles about hoaxes, or giving undue weight to the bizarre
     • plain vandalism (e.g. adding Hitler, Stalin ad Pol Pot to a list of biographies)

Criteria for selection of articles

Editors need to decide how articles should be selected. At one extreme, any editor could be free to add whatever they like, possibly subject to a quality threshold. At the other extreme, there could be a strict formulaic system such as a quota by topic area (politics, sport, geography, culture) with a requirement for balance by geography, history and POV.

So far as I can see, the selection by NA1K of articles for the cuisine section amount to the first extreme: I see no stated criteria anywhere for the choice. If criteria were applied, they have not been disclosed; it is equally possible that the choice was simply a ILIKEIT set of NA1K's personal preferences.

Editors here may decide that ILIKEIT selections are fine, or that anyone may apply their own criteria. However, either approach seems to me to be a) wrong in principle for an encyclopedia, b) a recipe for instability, if editors argue over personal preferences; c) even if stable, excessively privileging whoever adds an article.

I note that NA1K added a section for GA-class articles. However, I see that NA1K added only 20 such articles, whereas I just used AWB to count Category:GA-Class Australia articles+subcats, and found an impressive 750 GA-class articles (well done Australian editors!). There is no indication from NA1K of how or why they selected those 20 from the set of 750, and my attempts elsewhere to ask NA1K how they make such choices has elicited only meaningless word-soup responses. For example, at WP:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Ghana, when I challenged NA1K on what criteria had been used, their reply was simply vague and obfuscatory: I assessed these articles relative to their suitability for this portal.

Cuisine

The addition of a cuisine section was an undiscussed unilateral addition by NA1K. Regardless of its content or quality, it stands out as the only topic area to be given its only section on the portal.

I can see no reason for this choice other that NA1K has a personal interest in cuisine. However, in any objective selection of sub-topics for Australia, I find it hard to see any basis for giving such prominence to cuisine. Food is only a level-2 vital article, and cuisine is a sub-topic of that. Australian cuisine comes low down in the category hierarchy for Australia: Category:Australia → Category:Australian society → Category:Food and drink in Australia → Category:Australian cuisine.

The choice of this topic area seems to me to give undue weight to one editor's personal interests, over more the broad topic areas such as history, geography, society, economy, environment, politics … and even to more significant sub-topics such as arts and culture, education, sport, military history, law, or crime.

Additionally, some of the article choices are bizarre. NA1K chose the heading "cuisine" rather than the broader "food and drink". The article Cuisine says a "A cuisine is a style of cooking characterized by distinctive ingredients, techniques and dishes, and usually associated with a specific culture or geographic region". So having chosen to make a section labelled as being about a style of cooking, why does it include Kangaroo meat, Australian wine, Beer in Australia, Kensington Pride and Vegemite? None of those are styles of cooking, and while vegemite is an icon Australian food, it is not a "style of cooking"; it's an ingredient.

If portals were simply magazines in which editors were encouraged to use to showcase their own interests, then this magazine-style choice would make sense. But I see nothing in WP:PORTAL to justify this widespread use of portals to promote one editors' personal interests at over objectively broader and more significant topics.

It is up to Australian editors to decide whether they want the portal on their country to be developed in this way. But I hope that as they make their decision, they will consider where this could lead. If it's OK for an editor to add a randomly-chosen third-level topic, then logically the door is open for any editor to add a section on their own pet sub-sub-topic: elections, cricket, snakes, cities, cars, immigration, whatever. Is that what editors really want? Or would they prefer the portal to develop according to the broad hierarchy of topics? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:21, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Responding in bullet point form. Would recommend reverting back to the last stable NorthAmerica1000 version and cleaning up from there.

• I've restructured several portals myself, some of which have been deleted at this point. I'm not sure I've been particularly good with edit summaries or explaining which articles I've added in the edit summaries, and in any case, they're not mandatory (I know they're highly recommended.)
• I don't see any policy or guideline which states "the list of articles is the core of any portal," or that "they should be chosen on a transparent basis," or that "they should be easily viewable/reviewable at any time by any reader or editor, as clickable links, without needing to edit the page or to search on the talk page." I've looked, it's possible I've missed it, if I have please kindly point me in its direction. I also want to note I generally agree with this, but I don't see where it's a requirement.
• The added articles are easily viewable and more easily editable in the "black box." I do agree a way of checking which articles exist in the list without needing to check the page source should exist, but I think this can be added in programmatically, through the use of edited templates. It's certainly easier to update, and I would prefer it going forward if we can fix the problems with it.
• As far as I can tell, no defined criteria exists for the selection of articles for use in portals. We should create one. I think it just needs to be as simple as:

• On the portal topic matter
• Either a good article, a featured article, or an article of sufficient quality representing an area of the project without any featured or good articles
• Editors should seek to add a broad and diverse selection of articles on the topic subject

• Looking at the old portal, I don't see anything wrong with any of the selected good articles. There's a good diversity there.
• Agree there's no reason to have a cuisine box. I do want to note the "style of cooking" argument is pedantic. I don't know why you wouldn't include Vegemite in the Aussie cuisine box if an Aussie cuisine box should exist. It's certainly more popular here than a quandong. (I don't have a problem with any of the articles on cuisine, they're all part of the Aussie style of cooking, or the foods produced here.) SportingFlyer T·C 12:58, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• @SportingFlyer:I didn't claim or (I hope) imply that any policy or guideline explicitly required that a list be transparent, or that that articles are the core of portal. I was using WP:COMMONSENSE in both cases. I am glad that you seem to agree on the substance, so we please can we focus on the comonsense?
• The "black box" is visible only by editing the portal page, and result is no clickable links which it makes it v hard to scrutinise a set of articles. That's a barrier for editors, and it's a big barrier for readers. Yes, it could be fixed programmatically … butt it should have been either fixed before mass rollout, or some consensus reached to proceed without.
• On article selection I would advocate that the guidance should at least specify an need for a balance of views and topics and eras, and to explicitly note that WP:POV applies to the selection of articles just as it does to the content of articles. I also suggest that the addition of any article to a portals should be accompanied by an explanation of how it was chosen, and how the editor believes it fits into the balance of articles. "Hey, we can't have too many articles about X" should cause concern, but an explanation along the lines "the set of biogs contained only two writers, and no poets. I added MsX because it's a GA-class article on a major poet (see source for her significance)" would be an indication of probably good approach.
• Glad we broadly agree on the "cuisine" box. I agree that my comment on style of cooking was pedantic, but this is an encyclopedia, so some pedantry is justified. The title chosen by NA1K describes a narrower scope that than the list which they created under it. If the section is kept and NA1K's list is used, the section should be relabelled "food and drink"; but if it's called "cuisine", then wine and beer should be removed because they are not cuisine. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:24, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In terms of the WP:COMMONSENSE I think there's two different things going on and they're both temporal - first, whether NA's improvements were proper, and where do we go from here.

• Past - As you've mentioned, the guidelines and policies for portals are really ill-defined. As I noted in a couple different places on the ANI thread, first, the mass deletion of portals almost caused me to leave the project, and second, I believe the fact we don't have a good rule book means these discussions get more personal more quickly, since it becomes more of a street fight. In the sense of the mass deletions, I'm actually referring to a problem which I see here - when we were deleting portals, we didn't have good guidelines on which portals should be kept. In that time, I started to see the value of a well-done portal as a window into the navigation of a topic, along with being able to show off featured articles in a topic, and it was frustrating to see well-done portals nominated and deleted along with the ones that needed to be purged.
• In light of the portal guidelines, I don't see anything wrong with NA1000's improvements to the Aussie portal (or other portals). There's a lot of "should" being thrown around both here and on the ANI thread, and - placing myself in NA1000's position, and having improved some portals myself in the last couple months - there's no clear "what to do, what not to do" when improving a portal. I know you're claiming WP:COMMONSENSE, but I don't see anything in the improvements that I would consider a lack of WP:COMMONSENSE, and while I consider them practical, I don't necessarily consider the proposed rules to be understood as WP:COMMONSENSE. Two cases in point: if I were editing a portal last month, I wouldn't necessarily know to put the articles I'm adding into an edit summary, or to put them on the talk page, and secondly, I consider the "black box" a general improvement in spite of its current limitation, and may have added it to portals myself if I had learned about it before this discussion. My own WP:COMMONSENSE would lead me to believe any GA or FA article would be automatically eligible for inclusion into a portal without the need for explanation or discussion, which is generally what I've been doing. Portals should be a place where we're able to show off good content. If a non-GA/FA article is added, more of a discussion may be needed. (For instance, in football, there's a bias towards English GA/FA articles, so we shouldn't have only GA/FA articles.)
• Future I think the way forward here pretty simple in spite of everything: 1) revert back to the last version created by NA1000; 2) remove the cuisine box; 3) either fix the "black box" template to display all of the listed articles without needing to edit the page, or to open up an RfC on whether "black box" templates should be used in portal space (I think the obvious answer is to just fix the template, as in theory the amount of work would be modest.) 4) open an RfC looking to create specific policy on how articles should be selected to portal space, with the goal of adding the proposal to WP:PORTAL as a rule. I've written up what I would propose at User:SportingFlyer/Portal proposal. Comments are more than welcome. SportingFlyer T·C 01:58, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• @SportingFlyer: I agree with your "Future" stance and several other of your points above, and support moving forward as stated in your "Future" section. As I already stated above, articles for the Good article section were chosen to provide a starting point to present diverse topics regarding Australia using articles that are GA-class. The section included carefully chosen diverse content about Australian people, geography and environment, sports, transportation, cuisine, military history, and other aspects. Again, this is a starting point, and this sample was selected from the many GA-class articles about Australia-related topics that are available.

Choosing a diverse array of articles to present is directly aligned with WP:POG, the now non-guideline, failed proposal page, where it states, "A portal helps to browse on a particular subject, hence the subject of a portal should be broad so that it presents a diversified content." (Underline emphasis mine). If there are any concerns about the specific articles chosen, which are clearly listed in the "Good articles" subsection above on this talk page, and now also below, then that can be discussed on this talk page.

Regarding listing articles direcly on the portal to avoid any "black box" concerns, a simple way to move forward is to devise a list such as the one below, which could be placed at the end of the portal. In this manner, a list would be present, and also placed unobtrusively on the page. Or, the list could be placed below the Good article section, although it may look visually unappealing having a list of bright blue links in this area.

Just to reiterate, this is a starting point, and more articles can easily be added or removed from the list. Again, if need be, such selections can be discussed here. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 05:20, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Northamerica1000: I'd prefer if the template could do this itself, but I agree a box would be a good way to go, along with a link to a category of other good content. SportingFlyer T·C 05:38, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Pinging Certes, who created the {{Transclude random excerpt}} template. Hi Certes: is there a way for this template to also generate a list of articles that can be displayed directly on the portal page, so readers can see what articles are being used and to address the "black box" concerns above in this discussion? North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 05:46, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That doesn't sound too difficult. The change would probably go in Module:Excerpt. Rather than showing the list by default I would suggest we [hide] it or put a subtle link to it like the V T E in some template headers. One slight issue is that we would show all potential pages even when some might get filtered out as redlinks or stubs; it would take too long to analyse every page rather than the one randomly selected.

By the way, can we restore section edit links on this long page? It's a bit unwieldy to edit as a whole. Certes (talk) 11:02, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]