Talk:Toomelah

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:22, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

---

Toomelah Station → Toomelah – per WP:COMMONNAME. While the formal name of the community may be Toomelah Aboriginal Mission or Toomelah Station, the place is most commonly called simply Toomelah and its article should be titled as such. We call our article on the Commonwealth of Australia (to use the formal name) simply "Australia" and the same principle applies here. On a more subjective basis, I am very uncomfortable with the de facto Wikipedia protocol of ignoring WP:COMMONNAME when naming articles on Indigenous Australian communities. Use of the terms "Mission" or "Community" seem to me—regardless of the intent of the user—to mark out Aboriginal communities as somehow less than their non-indigenous counterparts and comes across to me as patronising. Mattinbgn (talk) 20:55, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

• Support. Agree completely with the nom that simply "Toomelah" is the common name. My only concern is that when I was searching google news to find that Toomelah was the common name of this community, there is currently a lot of info about an Ivan Sen film named Toomelah (that article is currently at Toomelah (film)). But then going back into the google news archives, the Aboriginal community is the clear primary topic. As the film was released a few days ago, recentism is an obvious problem when trying to determine the primary topic. So, for now, I support this move, as the community is the primary topic, but I think that in a few months or a year, this may need to be revisited to determine the primary topic. Jenks24 (talk) 00:00, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
• Comment I think the usual reference/justification for the naming like this of articles is the Gazetteer of Australia Place Names Search, which usually lists the official names of these localities as "... Community". There is an entry for "Toomelah" but it is defined as a school. In a similar case, I wrote an article on Jigalong which was moved to "Jigalong Community", and I presumed it was due to the Gazetteer listing (the comment was "Official name"). The term "Mission" seems to be mostly phased out, with the name of localities with Mission appended listed as "Historic", and the name only as the official name, however there seems to be no similar move to phase out "Community". With the example of "Australia"/"Commonwealth of..." and others, the Gazetteer also sometimes lists "unofficial" names, but not in these cases of indigenous communities. --Canley (talk) 03:07, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
• Comment The NSW Geographical Names Board also only lists a school.[1][2] Looking at the content, the entire article seems based around news reports. Surely WP:NOTNEWS applies here? I don't see the notability of the subject. Aboriginal communities are usually part of a locality or town, which might be notable, but where is the notability in the community itself? --AussieLegend (talk) 05:56, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
• Comment Let us be clear about what the place is; it is now a private property at Boggabilla surrounded by other private properties; it was once a mission station called Toomelah Aboriginal Mission which Mattinbgn correctly jumped on (a redirect to earlier names remain). The owners of the property now call it Toomelah Station as they are perfectly entitled to do; if they decide to sell and I decide to buy it I will probably rename it Crusoe Station, but I would hope that would not start a rush to rename it Crusoe on Wikipedia. As for patronising, the localities in northern Australia called Communities are named by, or with the full assent of, the residents; from a long distance can seem patronising, but ain't (Crusoe8181 (talk) 10:02, 18 May 2011 (UTC)).
• Support, this is a difficult one, given the unusual nature of the settlement and the fact that it seems to be "unofficial" based on ga.gov.au's listing, but after looking at the coverage of this community in the press, it seems that plain "Toomelah" is the usual descriptor for this community, and I believe that it should be moved there per WP:COMMONNAME. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 11:22, 18 May 2011 (UTC).

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.