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    24 December 2024 – 2024–25 Australian bushfire season
    Residents of the Grampians region of Victoria state are evacuated with over 41,000 hectares (101,000 acres) already burnt. (BBC)
    23 December 2024 –
    A man is arrested and charged with animal cruelty for shooting and killing 98 kangaroos on a military base in Singleton, New South Wales, Australia. (news.com.au)
    20 December 2024 – Australia–Solomon Islands relations
    Australia agrees to provide Solomon Islands with financing, training, and infrastructure support worth AU$190 million (US$118 million) over four years to strengthen its police force as part of a renewed security partnership between the two countries. (France 24)
    16 December 2024 – 2024 Australia heat wave
    Walpeup, Victoria, Australia, reports a temperature of 47.1 °C (116.8 °F), the hottest temperature reported in the state since 2019. Extreme heat wave warnings and fire risk warnings are also issued for areas across Australia. (The Guardian) (ABC News Australia)
    15 December 2024 – Australia–Indonesia relations
    Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announces that the remaining five members of the Bali Nine drug-trafficking group, who were serving life sentences in Indonesia, have returned to Australia following an agreement between the two countries to end their imprisonment. (CNN)
    9 December 2024 – Australia–Nauru relations
    Australia and Nauru announce a joint security treaty that will see Australia sending Nauru AU$100 million (US$64 million) in direct support over five years in exchange for Nauru consulting Australia before signing any bilateral agreements with other countries. (DW) (Nikkei Asia)


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    Quality watch:

    Two Wikipedians in search of a standard

    [edit]

    Australian articles are a mess as to the abbreviation and capitalization of "Junior" in postnoms.

    I had been blithely using jr Jr. Jnr and all sorts of variations until it was brought to my attention that, in Australian usage, a full stop (period) is not attached to an abbreviation where the last letter is retained. My Macquarie encyclopaedic dictionary confirmed Jr for "Junior", quite prescriptively.

    My Fowler's English Usage gives similar advice. Under "period (full stop) in abbreviations" it has Abbreviations are chiefly made in two ways: one by giving the beginning of the word in one or more letters and then stopping, the other by dropping out some portion of the middle. Those of the first kind are rightly ended with a period, but the common practice of doing the same to the second is ill advised. It then goes on to recommend Mr for Mister, Capt. for Captain, Cpl for Corporal, Geo. for George and Thos for Thomas, Lat. for Latin and Gk for Greek and ht wt for hit wicket. Curiously, I find no mention of "Junior" in that little article, nor sandwiched between "junction" and "junta". Ditto "Senior".

    The Wikipedia article American and British English spelling differences#Acronyms and abbreviations says Contractions where the final letter is present are often written in British English without full stops/periods (Mr, Mrs, Dr, St, [sic] Ave). Abbreviations where the final letter is not present generally do take full stops/periods (such as vol., etc., i.e., ed.); British English shares this convention with the French: Mlle, Mme, Dr, Ste, but M. for Monsieur. In American and Canadian English, abbreviations like St., Ave., Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr., and Jr., usually require full stops/periods. Should we be actively enforcing this convention in articles labelled {{Use Australian English}}? Doug butler (talk) 21:34, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    We have:
    • MOS:JR, which includes the full stop and makes no mention of US/UK differences
    • WP:JR/SR, which does distinguish between the two styles (full stop or not), per WP:TITLEVAR, MOS:ENGVAR.
    If nothing else, MOS:JR should mention that the US/UK difference. Mitch Ames (talk) 00:36, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    MOS:JR should mention that the US/UK differenceDone. Mitch Ames (talk) 00:55, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Exactly. Media often just uses their own style guide, which may or not match the general population. For example, The West Australian and The Age both use December 1, 2024 as their date format. I can find usage of senior, junior, snr, jnr and jr (almost all without the period) when searching for Gary Ablett on TheAge.com.au. The-Pope (talk) 13:32, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      I think there are a couple of separate issues. The first is the style. The second is when should you use junior/senior at all.
      On style, the Macquarie Dictionary says in its entry for "junior and "senior" (I presume the italicisation isn't a recommendation, just an inconsistency in the formatting of the two entries).
      Sr, Sen.
      Jr or Jun.
      So if we are going to make an argument using MOS:TIES, then I suggest that these are the acceptable forms. While not official, Macquarie Dictionary is our de facto Australian standard for spelling etc. There is also the Australian Style Guide published by the Australian Government which is supposedly followed in government publications; I checked my copy (admittedly a couple of decades old now) and it says nothing about this topic. But maybe if someone has access to a recent edition, it might be worth checking if it has any guidelines as, like the Macquarie Dictionary, it would be an important consideration. I note that if the two were conflicting, I would follow the Macquarie for informal writing and the Style Guide for formal writing (not sure which we do with Wikipedia, a bit of both I suspect).
      But, my understanding is that in Australia we do not use "junior" and "senior" as a permanent fixture to people's names as they appear to do in the USA, but only when we need to disambiguate because both are being discussed and that their use is relative to who is being discussed. That is, it is a disambiguation in context, not a permanent part of their name. So, e.g. the Katter family have three generations of politicians, all of whom are officially named Robert Katter (with differing middle names), but their Wikipedia articles are Bob Katter Sr., Bob Katter and Robbie Katter. Now the use of "Bob" and "Robbie" come from our common name policy (as that is how they are generally known, as it seems even for the Katters having too many Bobs was a problem). But I don't see why one has "Sr." as a permanent part of the article title. It's not his name. If we want to disambiguate article titles, we can use Bob Katter (1918-1990) for the grandfather or whatever. The use of "Sr." wasn't his common name (so we aren't following the common name policy) but being forced to follow some American practice by the MOS. And if we were discussing the grandfather and father together, the grandfather would be senior and the father be junior, but if we were discussing the father and the son, then the father would be senior and the son junior. And indeed if we were discussing all three, then the sensible thomg (in ordinary English) would not be talking about Robert Katter III, but saying Bob Katter (grandson) to make clear which one we meant. As far as I am aware, junior and senior are not allowed in birth certificates, passports, and official documents here in Australia, as we do not recognise them as part of the name. Kerry (talk) 09:08, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      The Americans add a full stop always whereas we do not add one to an abbreviation if would normally end in that letter. MOS:JR also adopted the American form of omitting the parenthetical comma. Since the use of "junior" and "senior" in names is primarily an America thing (although less common now than it was in the first half of the 20th century), we filed it under WP:ENGVAR. MOS:JR applies to articles in American English only. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 09:40, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    It is with a sad heart that I inform the Australian contributors of the sudden passing of JarrahTree. Please reflecting on what JarrahTree has done over the last 19 years, 6 months, 1 week and 1 day at his user talk page. Gnangarra 08:03, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I feel sad that he and I never had that catchup that he was seeking....
    Dan arndt (talk) 08:11, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, thanks Gnangarra. I was very sad to hear this, so soon after meeting him for the first time. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 08:04, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Bluey (2018 TV series)#Requested move 9 December 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Feeglgeef (talk) 19:39, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Honours search question

    [edit]

    I was just doing a bit of citation improvement and expansion on the Fred Schepisi article, and his AO was not cited, so I went looking in the official honours search. Although now fairly reliably cited (ABC and another source), I cannot find him there. Does anyone have any idea as to why this would be? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 08:12, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Hmm, he doesn't seem to be listed in 2004 Australia Day Honours either. Unimelb hon doc citation mentions it too though. Weird. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 08:17, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Ignore that. I should have gone to Talk:Fred Schepisi first! There's an old note about it, dating back to 2007. Will add a footnote to the article referring to the talk page I think. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 08:23, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The award is at https://honours.pmc.gov.au/honours/awards/1670157 , with his name redacted. The citation and date is the same though, so I know its him. Steelkamp (talk) 08:27, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    And for future reference, names in that database can be anonymised if the award is rescinded as well, so names such as Alan Bond and Ray O'Connor are not in the database but their awards still are. Steelkamp (talk) 08:33, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah, I see. Thanks for that. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 09:29, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    About Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation - I don't really know what to make of this - your opinions about this?

    [edit]

    Hi all,

    I created this article because I saw a redlink somewhere in an editing session, looked it up, and then created it, quite possibly without due regard to its notability as an organisation, and also potentially a misuse of my Wikipedia:Autopatrolled privileges.

    Should this possibly be (among other options)

    I seek your opinions about this.

    Pete AU aka 10:07, 10 December 2024 (UTC) Shirt58 (talk) 🦘 10:07, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I think it's a good idea for an article, but needs some more references. All the good ones I could find are behind paywalls, so hopefully someone else jumps in who has access. Jimmyjrg (talk) 16:34, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you, @Shirt58, for creating the page. I found some more information in an article by Mike Jones and Alana Piper. Gavan McCarthy has been with the project since the beginning, working with Tim Sherratt on Bright Sparcs. McCarthy welcomes updates and corrections, with references to back them up of course. I consider it a useful and reliable source and use it frequently. Oronsay (talk) 19:40, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    There are sources online, but I don't know how reliable they are. It's either the best and holiest school down under, or a den of vipers and bullies, depending on the POV. Please source this! Bearian (talk) 21:03, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Source what exactly? There is very little that would make this school notable within the article! The namespace also doesn't match the article lead or infobox. Dfadden (talk) 11:51, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The issue with determining notability for this school is that there are other schools with similar or same names. A quick search locates a Valley Harvest Christian School in Dublin (Ireland), another Harvest Christian School (which at some point appears to have changed its name to Frontline Christian School and most of my hits seem to be about this school) in South Africa and other schools with similar names (there's even a Global Harvest Christian School in Oklahoma, USA).
    The only secondary source that I'm sure is about the school in South Australia is this.
    Given what I could find I'm not sure this meets WP:NSCHOOL. TarnishedPathtalk 12:29, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Postnominal letters and infoboxes

    [edit]

    See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#MOS:POSTNOM for discussion. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:22, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Good article reassessment for Melbourne Airport

    [edit]

    Melbourne Airport has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 17:30, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Should National Socialist Network rallies be included in Mount Warning and Corowa articles?

    [edit]

    Editors are invited to comment at Talk:Mount_Warning#historical_irrelevance and Talk:Corowa#If_the_rally_is_historically_insignificant_why_was_it_all_over_the_news_for_weeks_then? as to whether or not to include the National Socialist Network rallies in those articles. Mitch Ames (talk) 02:05, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]