Talk:List of gangs in Australia

Inclusion criteria

Every list needs some inclusion criteria. What are the inclusion criteria for this list of Gangs in Australia? The citations from New Idea and Who seem to have slightly different ideas of what constitutes lawful and outlaw gangs. Is there a more authoritative source, such as one published by the Australian Federal Police (AFP)? The New Idea source suggests AFP may indicate which gangs have been outlawed and which have not. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 11:27, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

I notice the Mongrel Mob is not on this list, even though the Mandurah Mail article mentions the vice-president was shot outside his Perth home in 1989. Why are New Zealand gangs that have Australian chapters not on the list? - Cameron Dewe (talk) 12:21, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

You could call it "in Oceania" to make scope less ambiguous. 2405:6E00:62C:C1B8:6FEB:F694:4A66:94 (talk) 19:31, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Bare URLs in citations

I have tagged this page as needing the bare URLs cleaned up. I have cleaned up 2 citations using the "Cite News" template from the markup editor form interface. The magnifying glass icon on the form helpfully populates the form from the website URL information, if there is suitable web-page metadata, which can save some time. It would be good if the other new websites are cited the same way. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 11:36, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

I have now removed the bare URL tags because the bare URLs have all been turned into citations that describe the news website articles. Also, I have given these citations "ref names" so just a ref tag can be used against each gang listed, where the one article has multiple gangs listed. This means one citation can be re-used several times. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 12:32, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Ethnic groups

Sorting criminal organisations by ethnicity seems somewhat inappropriate. Even if it's relevant could it be a bit more nuanced? The set labelled "Anglo / European" were mostly overt white supremacists from the names I recognised. 2405:6E00:62C:C1B8:6FEB:F694:4A66:94 (talk) 19:42, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

There's another group labelled "Hispanic / Latino". That's not a label I ever hear used in Australia. If they were from America (the continent) we'd say "Latin American", or a specific country. We don't have a concept of "Hispanic" as an identity group, that's an American thing to distinguish English-speaking AmericansAmericans from Spanish Americans. 2405:6E00:62C:C1B8:6FEB:F694:4A66:94 (talk) 19:49, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Somewhat racist framing

Sorry I'm not really sure what the correct procedure is for this. I tried just asking above but nobody replied for over a week. This page worries me somewhat and I'm trying to find some people who might be able to help improve it.

It seems inappropriate to group everything into a bikie gang or an ethnic group. There are a few criminal gangs or violent political groups that are centred on a particular culture or ethnic group, but whoever started this page seems to have tried to sort everything that way.

A lot of the labels, and even the groups themselves, aren't locally relevant. Australians don't tend to group Spanish and Portuguese speakers from opposite sides of the Atlantic as a group, other than possibly "immigrants", the "Hispanic" concept is an American thing.

I'm not sure if everything in the white supremacist group is actually a white supremacist gang, some might be all white just by chance or locality, since that's the largest demographic in Australia.

2405:6E00:62C:4A60:148D:B7C:243C:CA13 (talk) 18:19, 27 June 2025 (UTC)

Yep, that's weird, and definitely shows the American-based obsession with racial classification. We should merge all the race/ethnicity-based sections under one header. Cremastra (talk) 13:10, 28 June 2025 (UTC)

Agree this list is well cooked. Looking at the white supremacist section, I could only recognise three groups where I'd agree that they are white supremacist. Perhaps some are historical and I just don't know enough about them, but a fair bit of my writing on WP is about Australian white supremacists. Having The Carlton Crew and the Honoured Society as being white supremacists is bizarre. I'm tempted to suggest that this whole page needs some WP:TNT. TarnishedPath^talk 07:05, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

Yeah this absolutely needs WP:TNT. I just removed a couple of entries that had for over a year named people as gang leaders when their names did not appear at all in the cited source. The entire Sunshine Coast section either completely fails verification, or is based on a single quote from a random unnamed 21-year old that the Courier Mail interviewed in 2008(!!). This should be redirected (not merged) to Gangs in Australia (which is also quite bad, but slightly less unsalvageable). Happy to take it to AfD myself when I have a chance if no one else gets to it first. MCE89 (talk) 14:01, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

I was waiting for anyone to agree with me that the page is irredeemable. I've BLAH'd it to the target you suggest. TarnishedPath^talk 14:11, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

@Cremastra, @MCE89 and 2405:6E00:62C:4A60:148D:B7C:243C:CA13, I've started a discussion concerning this article at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of gangs in Australia (2nd nomination) TarnishedPath^talk 13:01, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

The "post code gangs" section might be worth keeping? That has more detail and the categories are factual rather than opinionated. But I've only skimmed it. 2405:6E00:62F:F7D5:AD8E:344B:5FEC:BC07 (talk) 23:58, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

I was about to say "If any of the rest is kept, then put them all in a simple alphabetical list" but another problem I'm seeing now is that this page is a bizarre mix of racially profiled petty criminals combined with a few ethno-supremacist political / terror groups. e.g. Soldiers of Odin are organised and criminal, but not "organized crime" as such. Political violence or vandalism is different, it is not in the same category as theft or drug dealing or the other things normally regard as "organised crime". 2405:6E00:62F:F7D5:AD8E:344B:5FEC:BC07 (talk) 23:58, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

@TarnishedPath, was there a conclusion on whether to keep the postcode section? 2405:6E00:62F:8B62:5E8:AAB9:216F:C0D7 (talk) 10:49, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

The result of the discussion was a redirect. That has left the page history intact. I would suggest that if you would the material included in Gangs in Australia, you could either start a discussion at Talk:Gangs in Australia or you could be WP:BOLD and edit the material in. If you're reverted then take it to the talk. Personally I have no interest in this topic and only got involved because of the RFC. TarnishedPath^talk 10:59, 20 July 2025 (UTC)