Talk:Charlestown, New South Wales

Newcastle or Lake Macquarie

"Charlestown is a suburb of Newcastle" - No it isn't. Charlestown is a suburb of the City of Lake Macquarie, which is a proclaimed city of NSW. That the city of Lake Macquarie is also an LGA is irrelevant. It just so happens that in NSW city boundaries follow the LGA boundaries. That's done for reasons of administrative convenience and applies to all cities now, regardless of when they were proclaimed as a city. The current city of Newcastle is not the same area that was originally proclaimed a city. Nor is the city of Cessnock. Sydney is a special circumstance. That city actually includes multiple LGAs but it is the only city in NSW that does. All of the other cities cover only one LGA. It is verifiable from several authoritative sources that Charlestown is a suburb of Lake Macquarie. I've yet to see an authoritative source that says Charlestown is a suburb of Newcastle. Wikipedia:Verifiability demands that all Lake Macquarie suburbs be listed as being in the city of Lake Macquarie, not Newcastle, except of course where suburbs are part of both cities.

I'm especially confused as to why my changes to the first paragraph of this article[1] were reverted. It is a fact that "Charlestown is the largest suburb in the city of Lake Macquarie in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia" and it's considerably more accurate and informative than what was there before my edits. --AussieLegend (talk) 08:56, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I could, with some effort, find and dig up the *lengthy* discussions that took place on this very issue years ago at great length, in which we were both parties, but it is generally accepted right through the Australian WikiProject that LGAs are not "cities" (in the sense of metropolitan agglomerations), and that suburbs pertain to a metropolitan area unless they are not located within one. In most, we use the Statistical Region for large cities and Statistical District for smaller ones, but we found the SD to be unsuited to our purposes for various reasons, which I and others accepted (i.e. it included areas which were indisputably nothing to do with Newcastle beyond relative geographical proximity). The Newcastle UCL on ABS, which includes all of City of Newcastle and the eastern and northeastern parts of Lake Macquarie was the source we ended up agreeing to use for population and metropolitan definition, and this seems to happily coincide with other Newcastle-wide facilities such as the bus system, which extends for instance to Speers Point, which is included by the UCL boundary line, but does not extend to Toronto, which is excluded. Like I said at the time, I live in the City of Stirling, a proclaimed city of WA, but my suburb is very much part of Perth, as are suburbs *well* beyond mine in different LGAs further north. Bunbury, a city further south from Perth with a population about 1/5 that of Newcastle, has several suburbs in different LGAs beyond the City of Bunbury (Harvey, Dardanup and Capel) but they are still considered suburbs of Bunbury by residents, planning authorities and the ABS alike. As a different example, the Cities of Geraldton and Kalgoorlie respectively include VERY large areas which are not by any stretch urban, so the metropolitan definition is limited to the definition provided by the ABS and anything else is a town or district in Western Australia within the LGA "City of...". I asked a contact of mine who lives in, and grew up in, Charlestown and there doesn't seem to be much debate that it is part of the Newcastle metropolitan area, he thought this entire argument rather weird and funny. Orderinchaos 15:22, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Also, is it the largest suburb? I don't have a list of suburbs with populations, so we don't have a cite for that, either. I've found two cites that say "largest business centre" or "largest town centre". Orderinchaos 15:52, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I understand the reasoning behind the argument that LGAs are not cities and I've noted all of your comments but nothing of what you've said changes the fact that Charlestown is not a suburb of Newcastle. Yes, it is in the Newcastle metropolitan area but it is not a suburb of Newcastle, any more than Gosford or Doyalson are suburbs of Sydney, despite both being within the Sydney SD and despite their populations being included in the population that is used in the Sydney article.

The comments that you've made regarding WA are irrelevant to NSW. NSW is not WA and these comments are right in the realm of WP:OTHERSTUFF. Regardless of what happens in WA, city boundaries here follow the LGA boundaries. Based on arguments that you've previously put forward and what I know from living in NSW, there seem to be valid arguments for both systems and the systems used in both states seem to have been chosen to suit the different circumstances that apply, which is exactly what we did with Newcastle, New South Wales when we chose to use the UCL figures. Using those figures in the Newcastle article does not immediately mean that Charlestown, or any other Lake Macquarie suburb, is a suburb of Newcastle. They're still suburbs of Lake Macquarie and every reliable source says so. It's quite ridiculous to say (for example) that Speers Point is in Newcastle but Toronto is in Lake Macquarie.

As regards contacts, I actually live in the area as do almost all of my family, friends and business colleagues and customers, I do business all over the Lower Hunter and a relative of mine, albeit a twice-removed one, is the mayor of Newcastle. I haven't even bothered discussing the argument with anyone beyond my immediate family. I know they'll say that they think it's crazy that anyone would claim that Charlestown is a suburb of Newcastle but really, what contacts may or may not think or say is completely irrelevant to the discussion. Reliable sources trump family, friends colleagues etc, even if those people do know what they're talking about.[2] I will point out though, before the last state election there was a proposal to change the electorate name and it failed because the people of Lake Macquarie very fiercely opposed the proposal. It's not directly relevant to the discussion but it does go to demonstrating how the people of Lake Macquarie try to protect their individuality. It's Lake Macquarie, not Newcastle or any other place as far as they're concerned. And they're right.

Now, regarding the size of Charlestown, I checked all of the Lake Macquarie suburb articles assuming that edits such as this and this were accurate. A couple of articles had no population figure so I checked the ABS census data directly (I also randomly confirmed a few of the figures in various articles) and Charlestown does appear to be the largest suburb, population wise at least, followed by Warners Bay and Belmont in 2nd and 3rd places respectively. There's no direct cite, but since it's easily verifiable by comparison of the ABS figures it appears uncontroversial and, as such, I don't think it needs one. --AussieLegend (talk) 12:25, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

To me this all just sounds like the POV warring that went on at Townsville/Thuringowa for over a year between editors up there which only stopped when the government unexpectedly abolished the City of Thuringowa, leaving the editors from that side of the divide to lick their wounds and me as the mediator without a job. At the end of the day, WP:CON is policy. We have, as an editing community, agreed to adopt a system of classification which works for all cities. As there was some issues with Newcastle, those of us who do a lot of the cross-regional editing bent over backwards to try and find a solution that fits Newcastle and addresses objections (the LGA one is false, as has been established over and over again - what about Rankin Park?) Strangely this problem has occurred nowhere else, despite the exact same issues being the case in cities all over Australia.

One point you seem to miss entirely is that we are not talking about city but metropolis. Nowhere in the proposed wording does it say it is a suburb of the City of Newcastle, it refers to Newcastle only. There is a distinct difference. Australia has such a bewilderingly confusing array of definitions for cities - every state has its own and even within a state there are different ones in at least one case - but thanks to the ABS and some planning authorities, we *do* have a definition for metropolis. There is absolutely no question that the north-eastern area of Lake Macquarie, included together with Newcastle by the ABS in the Urban Centre/Locality and in my view, given their algorithms that they use, a safe reliable source to cite - is part of the Newcastle metropolis. I have not the time to look right now but I'm fairly sure that were I to look through the academic literature and other reliable sources, I would find clear evidence of the contiguous suburban area being referred to as "Newcastle". I do intend to look this up, but I have an important deadline on 16 Feb which I literally cannot afford to miss, so if it can be allowed to wait until then, I will put it on my (rather long) Wiki priority list. Orderinchaos 16:44, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

As someone who lived in Whitebridge for the first 30 years of their life, then moved to Cardiff, I can confirm it without looking it up... --Athol Mullen (talk) 11:17, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

As can I, but that's not the issue. --AussieLegend (talk) 00:54, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Expecting compliance with a core policy of Wikipedia, without people resorting to original research, is not POV warring. According to the NSW Department of Local Government last week, there are no plans to abolish Lake Macquarie, Newcastle or any other city in NSW. As I understand it, abolition of Thuringowa was part of an overall statewide reorganisation and so it was not completely unexpected. In any case that's QLD, not NSW or even WA. What happened in QLD is WP:OTHERSTUFF. Rankin Park is completely irrelevant to the discussion. As you are aware, there are a number of suburbs that cross LGA boundaries. That doesn't stop city boundaries following LGA boundaries as they do in NSW. It just means that one part of Rankin Park (or Adamstown Heights as another example) is in one city while the other part is in another. The situation is similar to what you've described is the case with WA, where LGAs cross city boundaries, only on a smaller scale. As for discussing cities and metropolises, if the field in the infobox refers to metropolises and not cities it should not be called "city". However, at this time it is "city" and therefore the city in which the suburb is located is what should be in that field. There are numerous authoritative sources stating that Charlestown is in the city of Lake Macquarie. There are none indicating that it is in Newcastle. This is why I challenged the factual accuracy when you repeatedly reverted my edits,[3][4]. Removing that challenge,[5] was inappropriate. What you should have done is provide appropriate citations from reliable sources. That would have resolved the matter. Reverting the challenge, arguing that other articles don't have tags in these places is WP:OTHERSTUFF and completely disregards Wikipedia:Verifiability.

I think one point that you are missing is that I have absolutely no problem with the concept that Charlestown is a suburb within the Newcastle metropolitan area. What I have a problem with is the implication that it is a suburb of the city of Newcastle. It isn't. It is a suburb of the city of Lake Macquarie but putting Newcastle in the "city" field in the infobox implies that it is a suburb of the city of Newcastle. The various definitions of city don't even come into this. Both Newcastle and Lake Macquarie fit well within real world definitions of city, especially in area and population. Lake Macquarie's population is greater than that of Newcastle. Lake Macquarie is probably unique in that it doesn't have a defined CBD like most cities, because it (also uniquely) surrounds the largest saltwater lake in the southern hemisphere, but it does have a defacto CBD, Charlestown, which is why identifying Charlestown as a suburb of Lake Macquarie is so important.

I really don't understand what you mean by proposed wording. The proposed wording is what I suggested and which you kept reverting, ie that "Charlestown is a suburb of the City of Lake Macquarie", with not a mention of Newcastle. Actually, I would prefer that it be worded similarly to the way I have done for the Port Stephens suburbs: ie "Charlestown is a suburb of the City of Lake Macquarie Local Government Area in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia."(with citations) That's accurate and removes any ambiguity as well as giving the reader a better idea of the actual location. The infobox should have the actual city that the suburb belongs to in the "city" field for reasons explained elsewhere. --AussieLegend (talk) 00:54, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

The field is called "city", but it is unmarked by a title. It's a handy tag, much as many fields in Infobox President (which believe it or not we use for state MLAs!) are either completely irrelevant to state MLAs or are used in ways which reflect how they appear in the table rather than the name of the field. The only way I can think of to get around this is to create a metropolis= field *just for* Newcastle articles and use it in the exact place where city is used in Infobox Australian Place, but it seems like overkill to me given that "city" appears nowhere to users. As for the lead, I see absolutely no problem with "Charlestown is a suburb of Newcastle" (note it does not say city anywhere, nor does it link to CoN) "... It is located within the City of Lake Macquarie local government area." Like to take another example, Hamersley is correctly speaking a suburb of the City of Stirling (it was declared in the Government Gazette as such in 1975) but its lead says it is a suburb of Perth, located x kilometres from Perth's CBD, located within the City of Stirling. Hamersley's only connection to "Perth" as such is that it is located within the Metropolitan Region Scheme boundary. Likewise, Stirling was legally declared a City in 1971 in the Gazette. The arguments for doing something completely different for Newcastle seem difficult to fathom given that in every sense, it is the same situation.

BTW, Port Stephens is an entirely separate issue as I think we're all agreed it is not in any logical sense part of Newcastle, despite the ABS "statistical district" classification. Its situation actually approximates some parts of the new Sunshine Coast Regional Council which are most *definitely* not Sunshine Coast (Nambour and Eumundi come to mind.) Orderinchaos 01:04, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Wording that completely omits mention of the fact that Charlestown is in the Newcastle metropolitan area is not going to work. It would create the incorrect impression that Lake Macquarie is a separate city to Newcastle. What is needed is a wording that accurately reflects both its position within the Newcastle metropolitan area and its status as a suburb of Lake Macquarie. I don't know what you're trying to achieve by omitting the fundamental fact that it is within the Newcastle metro area. --Athol Mullen (talk) 08:58, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

The field may be missing a title but it is still called "city" and, according to Template:Infobox Australian Place/doc, the source for the field is List of cities in Australia. It's clear that this field is supposed to be the name of the city. Carrying on from what you claim, one could argue that the field data could equally be the region, but we all know that's not the case. It could also be argued that the entry in the "state" field doesn't necessarily have to be the state. It could be, for example, the region, or any other thing we wish, but we all know it's supposed to be the state. Newcastle doesn't need a separate "metropolis" field. The fact that Charlestown is within the UCL can be covered in the prose, like everything else for which there is no field and, while "city" may not be displayed for users, anyone who wishes to edit an article (ie everyone!) does get to see it. Of course, if you don't agree with this then you should see nothing wrong with seeing Charlestown, Hunter Region, Oceania.

The problem with having "Charlestown is a suburb of Newcastle" is that, at best, it's not true and it's misleading. As I've already stated, it is a suburb within the Newcastle metropolitan area but it's not a suburb of Newcastle. Also as I've already stated, "Charlestown is a suburb of Newcastle" implies that Charlestown is a suburb of of the city of Newcastle, just as "Doyalson is a suburb of Sydney" implies that Doyalson is a suburb of the city of Sydney. As for (yet another) example from WA, I remind you that we're talking about NSW so what applies over there doesn't necessarily apply here. It most definitely doesn't apply in this case because you're using capital city examples and applying them to non-capital cities. Hornsby, despite not being in the City of Sydney LGA is a suburb of Sydney. There is legislation covering this because Sydney is a special case within the state of NSW. Everywhere else is different. Each city covers an entire LGA and suburbs outside of the LGA are not suburbs of that city. To state that "Charlestown is a suburb of Newcastle" is misleading. It's no more a suburb of Newcastle than Toronto (or Doyalson) is and to claim that it is, without very clear qualification of the facts is as misleading as claiming that Nelson Bay (or Hamersley) is a suburb of Newcastle.

Moving now to Athol's comments, there is nothing wrong with implying that Lake Macquarie is a separate city to Newcastle because they are. Like Forster and Tuncurry they're right next to each other and share various services but, just like Forster and Tuncurry are separate towns, Lake Macquarie and Newcastle are separate cities. That they're right next to each other and share significant borders as well as a few suburbs blurs the lines but they are separate. That said, I don't see an issue with saying something like "Charlestown is a suburb of the City of Lake Macquarie Local Government Area in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia. It lies within the Newcastle metropolitan area, 7 kilometres (4 mi) from the Newcastle CBD." But, it should be made clear that Charlestown is a suburb of Lake Macquarie. --AussieLegend (talk) 12:51, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I think the proposed wording is blatantly WP:POINTy. It's calling for an exceptionalism which does not contribute to the encyclopaedic value of the articles and instead is designed to create division between residents which isn't even felt by many of those residents - as evidenced by Athol's comments and those of my Charlestown-based friend. You keep saying the examples from WA are irrelevant, then go on to provide *exactly* the same legal basis for separating them as would exist for those very same places. Would it help if I cited Eaton instead - a suburb of the Shire of Dardanup about the same distance from Bunbury that Charlestown is from Newcastle, an urban centre just like Charlestown is, gazetted as a suburb of the Shire of Dardanup just as Charlestown is of Lake Macquarie, part of a regional city (a smaller one in fact than Newcastle), not dependent on the City of Bunbury in any way, but considered by the ABS and most of its residents to be a suburb of Bunbury? The position for creating exceptions in one city is VERY weak indeed. Essentially, we're ignoring reality, we're ignoring the ABS reliable source and we're ignoring many other sources which say Charlestown is a suburb of Newcastle. We're also ignoring the broad consensus on the Australian project which uses "city" quite loosely in the infobox. If the consensus was as you suggest, there would be no *need* for the city tag as we already have an LGA field.

This debate has been going on for two years with the same minority insisting on the same bizarre outcome. The history of this, by the way, is that someone (a user not in this debate, and long since retired from editing geographic articles) went to the trouble of creating a WikiProject Lake Macquarie years ago which lay abandoned for two years and let the articles rot until I came along and fixed them all up in mid-2007 in a systematic way. The sheer fervency with which this agenda is being promoted by one or two users actually makes me wonder if it's all about land values and "we're better than you", or about using Wikipedia to promote a consistent corporate identity or image (the previous state of many of the LM articles would suggest this was indeed the case), much as the Townsville-Thuringowa one was until the rather heavyhanded decision of the Queensland Government to merge the two LGAs. (The person on the minority side of that particular dispute is, I believe, still promoting the idea of Thuringowa as a separate "city", but not on Wiki.)

In the interests of resolving this and getting it over and done with, I propose the wording from the lead of Hamersley, Western Australia, modified to the local situation, be adopted. Note that the Hamersley article does not state specifically that Hamersley is a suburb of Perth, but positions it - hence avoiding the specific argument of whose it is, but informing the reader. I think this would be a fair compromise between the positions, and given it comes from one of only 3 suburb FAs on Wikipedia, it would be an improvement on the present wording as well. Orderinchaos 18:51, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Protected

I have protected the article from editing for a nominal period of 1 week due to the revert war going on. Reach a consensus here on the talk page, then let me know and I will unprotect the article so that you can implement the consensus you have reached. If any further reverting goes on, I'll be more inclined to enforce WP:3RR. - Mark 15:45, 27 January 2009 (UTC)