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Archive 1

The following template: 

<table border cellpadding=5 cellspacing=0 align=center>
<tr>
<td colspan=3 style=background:#efefef; align=center>'''<!-- Replace w/ lk to a local gov't area -->''' <br> ([[List of localities (Victoria)|All Melbourne Suburbs]])</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><!-- Replace w/ lk to NW --></td>
<td align=center><!-- Replace w/ lk to N --></td>
<td><!-- Replace w/ lk to NE --></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td align=center><!-- Replace w/ lk to W --></td>
<td align-center>'''<!-- Replace w/ name of page -->'''</td>
<td align=center><!-- Replace w/ lk to E --></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><!-- Replace w/ lk to SW --></td>
<td align=center><!-- Replace w/ lk to S --></td>
<td><!-- Replace w/ lk to SE --></td>
</tr>
</table>


may be added to a troublesome page of this project, and a comment such as 

<!-- Replace w/ name of page -->

may then replaced by the corresponding text (or by the markup for a link, i.e., a double-bracketed suburb name.

Then the existing markup can be discarded, since all its useful information will be in place awaiting filling in the other cells of the table. (Well, by what will become a table again, once the present (directional) dummy links, and the comments in this template, are replaced by suburb names and links to suburbs.)

Here's how the template looks with nothing replaced:

'
(All Melbourne Suburbs)
'

Here's how the template looks with the info that most of the suburbs already have replacing those two corresponding comments:

The Podunks
(All Melbourne Suburbs)
Podunk Center

Here's a more completely filled in sample:

The Podunks
(All Melbourne Suburbs)
Podunk NW Podunk NE
Podunk Center
Podunk SW

I think this works better. Unfortunately, a lot of pages already have the To North tables, (in hindsight I shouldn't have made those links when I suggested the table in the first place). I and other people are starting to fill in the tables though, so any new suburb pages ought to have this one by default. Hypernovean 05:34, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

Sounds good. While those who know something about the subject matter are doing that, i hope to steadily chip away at the ones no one is getting around to, by occasionally converting pages listed on To North's ghost's What-links-here page. Wikipedia grinds slowly, but the time when they are all completed or converted is forseeable.
The improved MediaWiki 1.3 transclusion facility may also be valuable for this; when it's on line and stable, let's discuss whether to use it here. --Jerzy(t) 17:22, 2004 May 25 (UTC)

I've made a few changes to the table, including the new table syntax, a small All Melbourne suburbs link, N, W, NE, etc. text so as the table doesn't appear without any cells to begin with, and a Please help fill in this table. notice. I'm starting to roll this out were the To Norths still show up, and will start to fill things in from the street directory when I have more time. TPK 06:36, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Naming

Should all suburbs be named XXX, Victoria, even when XXX is a unique name on WP? TPK 04:08, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'd argue so, for the sake of consistency. It's likely for many of them (apart from the Aboriginal-based names) that there will be others someday, and it'd be nice to know exactly where the article is when linking to it. Ambivalenthysteria 04:19, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Moved from main page:

(Articles should be titled as Suburb when unique, Suburb, Victoria when not.) Should all suburb articles be in the Suburb, Victoria style? TPK 08:52, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The general form seems to be the first option (Suburb or Suburb, Victoria if not unique.) However the second would be extremely helpful when doing adjacancy tables, as we wouldn't need to second-guess what the articles were named.
The other thing to be careful about is to make sure none of the other Victoria's have smaller geographical subdivisions, with the same name. I don't think we should worry about that until it happens. -- Chuq 02:42, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I agree, and I've started to think it would be better to have , Victoria across the board. It would require a lot of moving around though, but it's neccessary. As for other Victoria's, I doubt they'llbe much of a problem, and disambigs are no big deal if they were needed eventually. TPK 03:42, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

What is and what isn't a Suburb

I know I tend to wax lyrical on this subject, but I believe it's important to make sure that the places called "suburbs" on Wikipedia actually are official, gazetted suburbs according to government guidelines. I have here the Edition 31 Melway (it's more or less my bible!). It gives the official suburb boundaries, and in the front, states that there is a difference between a "locality" and a "suburb", basically that one is an unofficial name for a place and the other has distinct boundaries. Now I know that most of the pages that have been created, or are redlinked on the List of Melbourne suburbs are official suburbs, but I wouldn't want something to slip through into the wrong category. I don't think there's much to worry about, but checking things would be nice.

That leads to the next point: should the unofficial "locality" names be created as redirects to the suburb that contains them? For example, Gardiner, Victoria redirects to Glen Iris, Victoria (which is currently just Glen Iris, see above - also note that Glen Iris, Victoria was named after a place in Scotland, so it doesn't really deserve the main article).

Should the unofficial locality names then be listed somewhere too? List of Melbourne localities would be technically appropriate, but not wiki-appropriate. I guess they can go into the main list, as long as they are indicated; e.g.:

TPK 03:56, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Infobox MelbourneSuburbTable

I've just created Template:Infobox MelbourneSuburbTable. As a result the following code: 

  {{Infobox_MelbourneSuburbTable |
    suburb_city_name=[[City of Kingston]] |
    suburb_nw=[[Chelsea, Victoria|Chelsea]] |     suburb_n=[[Chelsea Heights, Victoria|Chelsea Heights]] |     suburb_ne=[[Bangholme]] |
    suburb_w=[[Bonbeach]],<br>[[Carrum]] |        suburb_name='''Patterson Lakes''' |                          suburb_e=[[Bangholme]] |
    suburb_sw=[[Seaford]] |                       suburb_s=[[Seaford]] |                                       suburb_se=[[Carrum Downs]]
  }}

Generates the suburb adjacency table as shown at Patterson Lakes/temp.

Advantages:

  • Layout, etc. can be standardised, and changed when needed, with the changes taking effect on ALL suburb pages that use the Infobox!

Disadvantages:

  • Shading, ie. Port Phillip Bay cannot be done (though it can be, with some minor changes)
  • Joint cells (as in Patterson Lakes now) cannot be done - but I think this way looks better.. more organised.

Suggestions/comments?

-- Chuq 06:54, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I love it! I would have done something similar if I had gotten my head around the template variables syntax. There are now so many different versions of the table around its getting ridiculous, with everyone trawling through and replacing them with their own variations. I think standardization is very important. Do you think you could create something similar for the railway stations? There are a few (albeit slight) variations around (though I have to admit they're mostly due to my tinkering!), but it would be great to have a standardized template and syntax there too. Taking up fewer lines in the edit box is a nice side-effect too.
PS: In the code above, if you replace suburb_name=Patterson Lakes with suburb_name={{PAGENAME}} it would be even simpler.
TPK 07:13, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)


I don't blame you - the syntax is pretty tricky. I had to do some copy and pastes from existing templates to make sure I did it all correctly. I'll look at the railway stations but I can't guarantee anything! BTW, the {{PAGENAME}} may be an issue for articles names Suburb, Victoria as it would include the whole name in the suburb box. -- Chuq 10:21, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Doh! I forgot about that - especially considering all the articles might get standardized to X, Victoria anyway. TPK 10:56, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've done some more playing about with the template - and attempted to simplify the pages, by making the template more advanced - and I've come into a problem. I decided to try including the ", Victoria" in all suburb wikilinks by default (see change history for the template), assuming that article names will be standardised, and found that due to the link being in a template, the wiki software can't tell that the page has content. I've implemented the table (for real) in Patterson Lakes, Victoria and Chelsea, Victoria - try clicking the links between those two suburbs (the others don't work) - you will see what I mean. Is this a known bug? More problems - with my revamped template, you can't have more than one suburb in each compass point direction. I thought this may be a problem - less content for the readers, for the sake of making it easier for contributors - but I think this is a minor problem compared to getting the infobox working, considering that once the infobox is ready to use, it will make it easier to fill the table in all suburb pages, and therefore make more content. Ideas? -- Chuq 07:33, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

-- Chuq 07:33, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've seen the kind of thing were a page appears redlinked but it actually has content - but not in the same situation (sometimes, when creating a new page, another page's pre-exsting link won't update to bluelinked until that page is edited and re-saved) - you might want to look at m:MediaWiki 1.3 comments and bug reports on the Meta-Wiki, and report it if no-one else has.
As for single-suburb cells, I've been building an excel table (slowly, slowly) from the Melways including all sorts of information on the suburbs that I'll eventually include (or let someone else include if the table could be uploaded, but it's damn long already, and it's only up to Ashburton!) Quite a few of the suburbs already done have more than one boundary suburb in a particular direction - and not just some odd-angle adjacency for a few metres, but solid boundaries and directions. A lot have at least two suburbs in at least one cell - a few so far have 3. I can't see any way of accurately showing suburb boundaries while keeping to one suburb a cell, though I wish it could be kept that simple.
Still, I agree that getting some standardised infobox working is the first priority, as it can always be changed later (unlike the horrible mess we have now).
TPK 10:34, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Having just looked at the code, are you sure this isn't the problem?:

Template:Suburb nw%7D%2C_Victoria&action=edit" class="new" title ="{Template:Suburb nw}, Victoria">{Template:Suburb nw}

I have no idea how this syntax works, but it looks like its directing the clicker to the edit page, not the 'front' page of the article. Maybe action=submit is right? I'm not sure. TPK 10:57, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've checked the source of the table, and there are no mention of any &action=edit parts of URLs, so it must be being introduced via MediaWiki. The bug seems to be logged here http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=80 if anyone else wants to follow its updates, or vote for it (ie. give it points which makes it more of a priority!) -- Chuq 03:37, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Latest update 19/9/04 - I saw TPK playing about with some test pages :) It appears to be working! I also saw his design at User:TPK/Design which looks great as well! Do you think its a good time to (a) start using the template and (b) to make the template work, start naming all suburbs as <Suburb>, Victoria? -- Chuq 10:00, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)


For reference, the code to use the Infobox looks like this: 

 {{Infobox_MelbourneSuburbTable |
  LGA=[[City of Kingston]] |
  Northwest=Chelsea     | North=Chelsea Heights     | Northeast=Bangholme |
  West=Bonbeach         | Here=Patterson Lakes      | East=Bangholme |
  Southwest=Carrum      | South=Seaford             | Southeast=Carrum Downs
  }}

Which gives this result: 

{{Infobox_MelbourneSuburbTable |
  LGA=[[City of Kingston]] |
  Northwest=Chelsea     | North=Chelsea Heights     | Northeast=Bangholme |
  West=Bonbeach         | Here=Patterson Lakes      | East=Bangholme |
  Southwest=Carrum      | South=Seaford             | Southeast=Carrum Downs
  }}

-- Chuq 12:02, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Regarding the variables, I think the entire link should be passed, i.e. {{North}} = [[Chelsea Heights, Victoria|Chelsea Heights]] (with just {{North}} in the template), rather than {{North}} = Chelsea Heights (with [[{{North}}, Victoria|{{North}}]] in the template). This allows for more than one suburb per cell, which I think is essential, per my comments somewhere above. (That's how the table at User:TPK/Design works, as opposed to the current one). Not as streamlined, but neccessary methinks. And the pages really ought to all be at X, Victoria, so we can start moving them and adding the table. T.P.K. 03:27, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Good point. If more the one suburb is required in some instances, would it be possible to "crowd" the other ones, if they double up? ie.
Instead of this... Would it be ok to have this..?
A B,C D
E,F X D
G H H
A B C
E X D
F G H
That just seems confusing :? T.P.K. 04:45, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Another work around may be - depending on how many suburbs need to double up - is to have different templates, ie Infobox_MelbourneSuburbTable2, Infobox_MelbourneSuburbTable2, etc. These could be (say) 4x3, or 4x4 tables -
4x3 example table 4x4 example table
A B C
D X E
F G
H I J
A B C D
E X F
G H
I J K L
The downside being we would still have different templates to change if a design change was needed, but there would still be only 1, 2, 3 or so pages to change - not several hundred. -- Chuq 04:14, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Maybe, but I still think it would be easier simply to pass the whole link, allowing multiple links to go in one cell. Considering that our overriding aim is to create articles for the readers, we shouldn't compromise to make it easier for the editors. Anyway, it only really needs to be set up once, it's not as if people will constantly be fiddling with the links in the template call. T.P.K. 04:45, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Hmm, If there are that many names that need to go around the table, I think it would be easier for the readers and editors to have a larger table. I would guess a 3x3 and a 4x4 should handle all of them. Do you have an example that we can test both formats with to see how they look? -- Chuq 04:53, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Note: Template for testing at Template:Infobox_MelbourneSuburbTable4 (4 because 4x4 table). Please don't think i'm forcing the issue on you TPK, I just want to see how it looks with the "problem suburbs" :) -- Chuq 05:03, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
On looking at the state of the Melbourne city suburbs, what should be done with North Melbourne, Port Melbourne, South Melbourne, and East Melbourne? Should they stay as they are, just as Melbourne isn't Melbourne, Victoria (any more)? Or should they be made consistent with all the rest? But seeing as West Melbourne has to be West Melbourne, Victoria (due to that Floridian Melbourne), is it a problem at all? T.P.K. 03:45, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I think change them all to South Melbourne, Victoria and so on, except for Melbourne itself. That table can be updated manually if styles ever need changing. -- Chuq 04:14, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Agreed then. T.P.K. 04:45, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Here are a few choice examples from my database. (1 with only 1 suburb per cell, 1 with a 3 item cell, and 1 with several 2 suburb cells). These are probably fairly common; could you whip up the comparison? (I would but I have to skedaddle). T.P.K. 05:14, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)


Suburb Name Postcode LGA NW W SW S SE E NE N Dependencies Melway Maps Railway Stations Tram Routes Bus Routes
   
Abbotsford 3067 City of Yarra Clifton Hill Collingwood East Melbourne Richmond Hawthorn Kew Fairfield Clifton Hill 44 Collingwood, Victoria Park (Epping, Hurstbridge) 200-1, 203, 205, 207, 246, 301-9, 313, 315-6, 319, 350
Albert Park 3206 City of Port Phillip South Melbourne Port Melbourne Port Phillip Bay Port Phillip Bay, Middle Park, St. Kilda West St. Kilda West Melbourne Melbourne South Melbourne 57 1, 96, 112 606
Altona Meadows 3028 City of Hobsons Bay Laverton Seabrook, Point Cook Point Cook Point Cook Port Phillip Bay, Seaholme Port Phillip Bay, Altona Altona Laverton, Altona 53, 208-9 411-5


Okay. The first one is fine. 

{{Infobox_MelbourneSuburbTable |
  LGA=[[City of Yarra]] |
  Northwest=Clifton Hill    | North=Clifton Hill        | Northeast=Fairfield |
  West=Collingwood          | Here=Abbotsford           | East=Kew |
  Southwest=East Melbourne  | South=Richmond            | Southeast=Hawthorn
  }}

The second two can be done with just the 3x3 table, and with "moving" names around: 

{{Infobox_MelbourneSuburbTable |
  LGA=[[City of Port Phillip]] |
  Northwest=South Melbourne  | North=South Melbourne     | Northeast=Melbourne |
  West=Port Melbourne        | Here=Albert Park          | East=Melbourne |
  Southwest=Port Phillip Bay | South=Middle Park         | Southeast=St. Kilda West
  }}

{{Infobox_MelbourneSuburbTable |
  LGA=[[City of Hobsons Bay]] |
  Northwest=Laverton         | North=Laverton            | Northeast=Altona |
  West=Seabrook              | Here=Altona Meadows       | East=Port Phillip Bay |
  Southwest=Point Cook       | South=Point Cook          | Southeast=Seaholme
  }}
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