Talk:Lists of Australians

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Introduction

Wikipedia has a standard for lists at WP:LIST. Some of the lists presently linked from here do not and can not meet it. Rather than scatter conversation across several talk pages, Steve _(Slf67) and I decided the central place for the discussion is here.

This list of lists was created in response to several lists of Australian people being deleted due to bad criteria and not being maintained. Some lists have already been cleaned up since being put here, some still can be, and some should be removed (my opinion anyway).

My opinion is that if the list membership criteria include "notable", "significant", "has a wikipedia article" or similar, they should be represented by a category, but not a list.

The ones that I don't believe can be made to fit WP:LIST, can not ever be "complete" and have no appropriate objective membership criteria are:

Lists which could be useful, complete and acceptable, but need work to get there include:

List of Australian rules football and cricket players: incomplete, any suggestions for a better name too?
List of Australian soccer players with dual nationality: vague criteria for "Australian soccer player", talk page has comment that it's not really about "dual nationality" either
List of Australian politicians: can't decide exactly what its purpose is
List of Australians in international prisons: has a noteworthy inclusion criterion
List of Australian university leaders: needs references and lead paragraph, and has lots of red links needing articles

There's my opinion. Anybody else got opinions? I'd rather not nominate the top list for deletion and then find out I'm the only one who thinks they deserve it. --Scott Davis ^Talk 06:21, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy to get rid of List of Australian politicians if we can have categories with all members of every state and territory Parliament, and perhaps one each for the Senate and House of Reps, instead. That's a big job, but it's definable and better than that category. JRG 03:14, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

General discussion

I think that, for the most part, you're right with these. Most of those in the top list may be worth deleting - with the exception of List of Australian National University people (which follows a widespread precedent of splitting off alumni list articles when they become too big for the main university article). I also think that most of those in the bottom list could go, with the exception of List of Australians in international prisons and List of Australian university leaders. Rebecca 09:00, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can I have a quotation that says that lists have to be complete ones? The whole point of writing a list is that you can add red links so you know what you can add and what you have to maintain. With a category, it's just inclusion or not. There are some advantages to having lists, which I don't think people here are realising. JRG 03:09, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Alumni lists

List of Australian National University people has three sections, the first two are "notable" lists. WP:LIST applies to embedded lists as well as standalone lists, so the inclusion criteria don't change just because the list was split out of another article. When you graduate, should User:Rebecca be added to "Notable Alumni" as the "first Australian administrator of Wikipedia"? Notability is predominantly in the eye of the beholder. We can't quickly delete List of Australian politicians as it recently survived AFD. --Scott Davis ^Talk 13:57, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Don't be silly. Everyone on these lists either has an article, or, in a few cases should but doesn't. A list of notable alumni is perfectly relevant content, and I see absolutely no need to get rid of it - or to single out ANU when most decent university articles have the same associated lists. Rebecca 03:56, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The only reason I "singled out ANU" is because it was the only university alumni list in this list of lists at the time I did the review. I'm happy to expand the scope, but this discussion should be general first if possible. Your argument for keeping the top part of List of Australian National University people applies to most of the lists in the top list above, which you agreed could be worth deleting, too. --Scott Davis ^Talk 11:22, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The alumni lists are far more finite than the others and are relatively easy to maintain. I think you're being a bit overzealous here - what is the great problem with keeping it around? Rebecca 02:15, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are list for most of the major universities, Category:Lists of people by university in Australia. Although they use the term "notable" alumni and staff within the list, on the whole I don't think the notability of the inclusions is in question, most have reasonable wp articles. I'm not sure they belong here, or under the heading of "education" though. --Peta 23:47, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I should also say, I think a list of alumni and staff is more useful than a category. This is not the case for many of the lists above.--Peta 23:51, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Arts-related lists

Personally I think there is scope for arts-related lists (and indeed sports related lists) provided they are broken into some historical era - eg, pre-federation poets, 20th century painters. This will help provide an inclusion criteria and "close" the list to some extent.

Any of the lists, should provide "summary information" - if it is a "strict" list then a category is better.

all my AUD0.02 of course...Ga rr ie 01:39, 2 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone know an Australian dance award which would provide criteria for inclusion in a list of dancers?

I know about the Archibald awards for portraiture. Is there anything similar for Australian cartoonists?

Ga rr ie 01:47, 2 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For dancing there is the Australian Dance Awards; but they don't seem to have been going for a very long time - it should be pretty easy to verify that someone is an internationally recognized dancer- if they are one by association with famous dance companies etc.

There are fields for cartoonists in the Melbourne Press Club Quill Awards and the Walkley Awards. For cartoonists specifically there is the Rotary National Cartoon Awards (I'm not sure how notable this is) and the National Museum cartoon prize, and others, see Australian Cartoonists' Association's

I don't really think awards are the only reason to include a person in a list of persons by profession, but it can't hurt as a starting point.--Peta 23:30, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Should List of Australian independent bands, 1976-1992 be added to this list, or sent straight to prod/AFD? These days, any man and his dog can release their own CD, but maybe back then an independent label meant enough that releasing an album was notable? --Scott Davis ^Talk 14:13, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think this one has issues with verifiability, as well as notability - unless the band went on to become "famous" then who cares if they released an album/EP on their own (WP:MUSIC) between 1976 and 1992. Maybe it could be refocused to Australian bands who's initial recordings were independently released; if someone was willing to do the leg work. Or converted to a category, then prodded. --Peta 23:32, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree that the list includes a large number of Australian bands who don't meet the Wikipedia criteria for notability - came up with a similar issue with the List of Western Australian musicians which have agreed should be changed to a category and have placed the list on my user page (so that I can add articles for those bands that do become notable). I'd suggest that the bands on this list and on the List of Australian independent bands, 1993-2008 should be included as a category and that the existing category [Category:Australian indie rock groups] be used. Dan arndt 08:27, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Religion lists

I really think that these are better as a category since there is an obvious issue with BLP - I think I remember there being a MoS thing saying that the cats should only be applied if it has been verified - and none of these lists are anywhere close to verified. Any opinions? --Peta 23:30, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BLP does indeed state that the article should have a referenced entry that justifies the addition of the cat, and there are further guidelines in WP:Categorization of people. A list should have the same verifiable reference for each and every entry! It's not just religion though, much of the recent discussion on BLP centred around referencing every detail, and assume that every BLP detail and categorisation is potentially controversial. --Steve _(Slf67)^talk 01:07, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Film and tv

Maybe thet film and tv list should move to List of Australian film and television actors, see Category:Lists of actors? I'm pretty surprised that there is no actors list already--Peta 06:15, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Then again, it's a pretty useless list. --Peta 06:16, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A number of those lists should be screened through a process like we're doing here, too. List of female television actors meets the "added value" criterion by naming the series each actress is/was in. It appears hopelessly limited in geographic scope though - there appear to only be a few British shows and the rest are American. None of the females in List of cast members of Home and Away are in it, for example. If it was expanded to cover all television series, or even English-language series that ran for more than one season, the list would be huge! --Scott Davis ^Talk 13:29, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Now, List of cast members of Home and Away is a great list... List of female actors sounds like one of those lists which could be "anyone who was ever in a school play, anywhere in the world".

Looking at Category:Lists of actors, List of Neighbours and Home and Away actors turned musicians exists but is shocking. List of Australian actors is just too broad a criteria for inclusion. What would be good would be complete lists such as List of A Country Practice actors and other completed series - which could be accessable through a list of lists of actors.Ga rr ie 02:52, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Current AfD/Prod debates

None

Outcomes

These are the outcomes on specific lists so far, I've left as redlinks in case any get recreated --Steve _(Slf67)^talk 02:15, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since there's no policy that categories and lists can't co-exist, there's no point in watching these. Editors are more than entitled to recreate them. JRG 12:50, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not aware of anyone here suggesting that lists and categories cannot co-exist. Of course editors are entitled to recreate them. That's the point of watching them to ensure that they are significantly different from the deleted versions and that they are in line with WP:LIST --Steve _(Slf67)^talk 21:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted

Preserved after AfD

Redirects

Prominent Indigenous Australians

I had a look at the Native American and African American lists and one way to improve Prominent Indigenous Australians, would be to break it down into List of... Indigenous Australian politicians; Indigenous Australian sports people; Indigenous Australian visual artists; Indigenous Australian writers; Indigenous Australian performing artists etc. I'm not sure what to do with some of the more unconnected groups of people, like historical figures. Any suggestions, agreement or disagreement? --Peta 03:21, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of Australian scientists

From Wikipedia:New articles (Australia), List of Australian scientists was created at 06:50, 25 March 2007 by User:Drinkbeerinpubs. Seems to be too broad a scope which doesn't lend itself to being maintainable. Ga rr ie 22:21, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The only way it could be really useful would be to break it down into more specific fields - as is it can include thousands of people. --Peta 22:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Garrie that it is too broad in scope, but it appears similar to List of Australian novelists which recently survived AFD. --Scott Davis ^Talk 14:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, novelist is really quite specific compared to scientist. The entries on the list aren't even just confined to the physical and biological sciences - it also includes social scientists ... --Peta 04:29, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]