User talk:Silversmith/Towns in Victoria, Australia

I'm afraid I don't understand the point of this article. At least some of these towns already have articles of their own, and those that don't, should.

I'm tempted to place this of VFD, but I'd like to discuss it first.

-Rholton 14:23, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

Hi Rholton. What I'm trying to do here is create a good article that contains all the information on these towns that is presently in stubs. All the stubs can then redirect to this article. If they weren't just stubs, but proper articles, then there wouldn't be a point. They are not about to become more than stubs though, as I created the stub on Euroa about a year ago and it's still a stub. If some become large articles then I can just have a link to them from this article. It can also link from "list of victorian towns" which names each town. By doing this you will now go to a large article instead of one stub, getting a better overview of the towns in victoria. I'm still working on it, and I hope that you will give me a chance to finish before doing anything like a VfD. Not that that would be necessary anyway, as you can redirect "victorian towns" to "list of victorian towns" if you don't want it to be kept. --Chammy Koala 15:12, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm not going to make a big deal of this. Since you have a plan, I'm satisfied. Thanks for taking the time to explain it to me. -Rholton 16:30, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

this is highly non-standard. it will make it difficult for google to pick up on these articles. i understand somewhat the reasoning, but i still think it's best to keep the stubs rather than do redirects. if we must have this page, i think the threshold for redirecting should be a lot lower. i.e. if an article is less than 2-3 sentences then I can see the point, but wodonga is definitely a comprehensive stub verging on an article. clarkk 05:12, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

it also screws up the category system, and the category system already serves the purpose of giving an "overview" of the names of towns. there's nothing to be gained by including them all in one page, and it this process has left many broken double redirects. yes, please revert this for all but the shortest stubs. i can't see any gain in this at all. clarkk 05:27, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree with clarkk. Putting all the Victorian town stubs in one article will reduce the functionality of the listings. I would like to see this reversed. We need to keep a long-term view with regard to stubs. Stubs are important for inviting people to contribute. Bairnsdale is a city, and even though it is presently only a few sentences, has the potential to grow into a substantial article and should be an article in its own right. I would even say that those towns with just 2-3 sentences should have their own listing as a stub. They are just waiting for someone to come along, research and tell the social, historical, and geographical story associated with the place. See my work on Tarcutta, or my initial contribution on Orbost --Takver 06:26, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What would you guys think about either finding somewhere to redirect this (perhaps just to Victoria, which has a list of cities anwyay, IIRC, or otherwise turning this into an actual list (i.e. names and nothing else), seeing as how this now duplicates about fifty different articles? Ambi 04:58, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Why don't you make a list of the "fifty different articles" so we can see. Of couse, if you're refering to the stubs that you un-redirected then that's your fault they're duplications. I'm actually adding a lot of new towns which aren't mentioned anywhere else on WP, which if they weren't in this article would make even more stubs. I also have plans for this that will just take time, but it will end up being a very good article that will not be a duplicate of anything else. Just give me a chance and stop getting on your high horse about it. I've not "vandalised" WP and will refrain from redirecting your precious stubs. --Chammy Koala 08:36, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

well, ambi's right because some of the un-redirected articles are duplicated in whole or part here, for example Glenrowan, Victoria, which in the list above now points back to the article. what might work for all parties is to make this a user or talk subpage, e.g. talk:Towns in Victoria/working, because it could be helpful for editors to see all various articles in place, and it won't affect the article namespace. mainly now there is a lot of duplication, which is bad in the article namespace, but not a problem in talk or user subpage. (ps. chammy: don't forget to indent your replies so that we can see who responded to what, thank!) clarkk 09:51, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

my point is that you're both right, it may be a good idea to develop such an article, but ambi's right too: the right place to do such a large and experimental endeavour is in a talk/user subpage and then canvas opinions. clarkk 09:54, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The problem is that Wikipedia is always biased towards the status quo, so usually nothing happens if you ask people first. It is often better to Be bold and just improve the encyclopaedia. Everything is 100% reversible, so there is no big problem. — Helpful Dave 10:04, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

in general, i agree, but aggregating geographical stubs is a fairly large change, but it was the redirection of them to one article that was bound to raise hackles, because whilst being reversible in principle, it practice it is a real hassle. being bold is good, but i would apply it mostly strictly in terms of content. large changes across articles should be discussed. a talk/user subpage would be the ideal vehicle for that. clarkk 10:39, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I can see from my watchlist that it took Ambi just 2-3 minutes to revert all the redirects, and even that was probably due to slow server response time. If we also consider that she had no need to do so, it's hardly true that hassle was caused. I spend longer than that every day correcting people's facts, links, wiki-syntax, spelling, punctuation, etc. without whingeing. The problem is that some people think they own articles. — Helpful Dave 11:42, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

i'm also talking about including the time merging changes that were made in this article back into the stub, which i have been doing. if the redirects had not been made, this would not have been such a big deal, i agree, but i wanted to make sure that any changes made were reflected back in the stub. that's what can take time. also double-checking that all redirects have been rolled back and none have been missed requires careful study. clarkk 00:49, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

kill stubs Guess I'm not the only anti-stub editor.--Chammy Koala 12:16, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm anti-stubs as well, but this is taking it to a ridiculous extreme (and most importantly - without any consensus to do so). I also haven't vandalised Wikipedia to make a point about it. Ambi 04:58, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

hey folks, let's keep it friendly, vandalism is a loaded word, remember: assume good faith. clarkk 05:10, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ambi, stop being absurd. No vandalism has occurred. It is very bad practice to use that word in disputes on Wikipedia. I avoid using it even with highly destructive editors. It is wrong to use it in a dispute over where to put content, where not a word of actual content itself has even been changed. Calm down, assume good faith, and don't be a whingeing Aussie. ;) — Helpful Dave 08:27, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't make it clearer what I was planning, but I didn't really know, and I still don't really know what the final result will be. I just shouldn't have made redirects at this stage as then no-one would have really noticed anything. But as long as I don't make redirects until a later stage, and after discussions, then I don't see the problem with me continuing to work on this article. --Chammy Koala 11:51, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It is now some little time since this article was last edited and it is in a most unsatisfactory state, there is no coherence to the towns selected, the information about them, or any unifying features other than the corner of the globe and the fact that these towns were not articles at the time that this article was written. Are we going to demerge - possibly at the very least into regions - eg towns of the Gippsland Region.--AYArktos 22:51, 23 May 2005 (UTC)