Talk:Uluru Statement from the Heart

Adding unconnected views

EarthCommoner, the issue with your addition here is that there is no connection to the topic of the article in the citation given, and is thus regarded as WP:SYNTH or WP:OR. If you can find sources that clearly link the ideas re Indigenous ownership of the land to the Uluru Statement, then by all means add something about this. But it just cannot stand as an objection when nobody but you is positing it as an objection. I will add a welcome panel to your user page so that you can familiarise yourself further with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. And btw we always spell Indigenous and Aboriginal with initial capitals when referring to the First Nations of Australia. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 07:35, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Hi Laterthanyouthink, you must be able to appreciate the central importance of this objection to land 'ownership' in pre-capitalist Indigenous belief. While there has been no specific objection to the 'ownership of soil' wording in the Statement of the Heart, there is a long standing objection related to any notion of land ownership from various Elders. Anyhow, I understand your decision and reluctantly accept the exclusion of this very important objection. EarthCommoner (talk) 08:17, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Sure, EarthCommoner, I appreciate the importance of the issue, which is a complex one, but until and unless there is published commentary about it, it is not our place as Wikipedia editors to include it here. Thank you for your understanding. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 09:06, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Length

The commentary on the length question is bizarre -- from both sides. The "long" version is called the Uluru Statement as well; that is clear from the Council report. The "short" version is clearly the more high-profile one. The only "secret" documents are the records of meeting, but these weren't endorsed by the Convention. The Ref Council created a rod for its own back by giving identical names to two different documents. RingRoadEast (talk) 14:57, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

The problem I see with simply saying both are called the Uluru Statement is that there is no authoritative source saying both are called this. If there was a release in 2017 of the longer version under the heading 'Uluru Statement of the Heart' we could make this conclusion, but as far as I can tell, this longer statement was only released in 2017 as extracts from the Uluru statement. The report was authored by the referendum council, who also released the Uluru Statement as one page, so we can't conclude anything from that. Similarly, if the NIAA described the foi release as the longer version, they have subsequently changed their position to saying it's one page. Selecting either position involves a value judgement to decide which source to believe, which breaches NPOV.

IMO this just seems like a stuff up that doesn't really matter because they used two different names before setting on only calling the one pager the statement, but without a definitive source we can't make any conclusions in the text. Safes007 (talk) 06:03, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Now that Megan Davis and Pat Anderson (the latter the chair of the Referendum Council) have specifically said the Statement is 15 pages in their new book, there is no longer any reason to doubt that the Statement is longer than one page. RingRoadEast (talk) 02:56, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Saying the Statement is the longer version breaches one or both of NPOV or is original research. Saying the August book calls the document a 'one page pitch' and then concluding that the document is therefore 26 pages is original research, unless the book specially calls the Uluru statement a 26 page document.

Even if it did, such a source isn't more or less authoritative than the other sources already outlined in the length section and so we can't make any conclusions from it. There are statements from Davis saying it is one page and that it is multiple pages, so we can't choose one. Safes007 (talk) 12:33, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

You should check the references. Davis and Anderson call the one-pager a one-page pitch AND call the whole statement 15 pages. The Referendum Council characterises around 5,000 words as part of the Uluru Statement. There's no question that it's more than one page, and it's hardly original research. RingRoadEast (talk) 23:49, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Again, my issue is not with the validity of the source itself, but the making of conclusions from that source over other sources. To quote WP:SYNTH, "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source. Similarly, do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source." Saying, in the current versions "The title is often used to refer to only the first page of the text, described by Davis and Anderson as the 'one-page pitch'. However, the Referendum Council's Final Report contains more than 5,000 words of 'extracts' from the complete text, all of it endorsed by convention delegates." involves concluding from the length of the extracts in the final report that the document is longer than one page. As the report does not say this explicitly, this is original research.

Also, preferencing these sources is a breach of WP:NPOV, as there are many quoted sources that describe the statement as one page. The point is not that either view is more correct, just to say wikipedia isn't the place to make that call.

If you think your changes do not breach these policies, please continue this discussion in the talk page before making major changes. Also, while this is being discussed, I would suggest splitting your edit changes so that your good changes not directly related to the length of the document aren't reverted. Safes007 (talk) 00:25, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

You don't seem to be engaging constructively. The text I've written acknowledges the dispute. It also includes other improvements such as correctly formatting the extract from the Statement. I think it would be better if you made amendments to the existing version if you think the description of the length dispute could be clearer. RingRoadEast (talk) 00:40, 9 October 2023 (UTC)