Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian places

Requested move at Talk:Villawood, New South Wales#Requested move 22 July 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Villawood, New South Wales#Requested move 22 July 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 11:49, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Eastlakes, New South Wales#Requested move 2 August 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Eastlakes, New South Wales#Requested move 2 August 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 04:18, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Villawood#Requested move 5 August 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Villawood#Requested move 5 August 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Dfadden (talk) 08:55, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Allawah, New South Wales#Requested move 6 August 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Allawah, New South Wales#Requested move 6 August 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 09:01, 6 August 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Alberton West, Victoria#Requested move 16 August 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Alberton West, Victoria#Requested move 16 August 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 05:05, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Caldermeade, Victoria#Requested move 20 September 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Caldermeade, Victoria#Requested move 20 September 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 23:51, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:East Warburton, Victoria#Requested move 21 September 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:East Warburton, Victoria#Requested move 21 September 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 00:28, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Gaffneys Creek, Victoria#Requested move 21 September 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Gaffneys Creek, Victoria#Requested move 21 September 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 00:36, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

Sorry User:TarnishedPath, these continual bulk move requests need to stop. The discussion at [Wikipedia:Australian_Wikipedians'_notice_board#Discussion_(RFC:_Dropping_state/territory_from_place_names_by_default)]] is directly about naming practice for places in Australia, and you note that fact in some of the requests. Let the discussion come to a conclusion. There is no rush. Innesw (talk) 22:26, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

@Innesw, move discussions can still occur in line with current policies and procedure. Additionally the RFC, if successful, wouldn't require any new discussions if these move proposals are successful. TarnishedPath^talk 00:23, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Laanecoorie, Victoria#Requested move 15 October 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Laanecoorie, Victoria#Requested move 15 October 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 23:33, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Icy Creek, Victoria#Requested move 15 October 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Icy Creek, Victoria#Requested move 15 October 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 23:33, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Adams Estate, Victoria#Requested move 27 October 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Adams Estate, Victoria#Requested move 27 October 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 03:21, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Panitya, Victoria#Requested move 27 October 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Panitya, Victoria#Requested move 27 October 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 03:22, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Nandaly, Victoria#Requested move 25 October 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Nandaly, Victoria#Requested move 25 October 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 03:24, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Tambo Crossing, Victoria#Requested move 3 November 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Tambo Crossing, Victoria#Requested move 3 November 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 07:45, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Jeruk, Victoria#Requested move 3 November 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Jeruk, Victoria#Requested move 3 November 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 08:02, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Oppose and request Speedy Close on the grounds that the RFC was closed with No Consensus, and noting the closer's remarks that most editors opposed dropping the state/territory from Australian place names in article titles and The default titling convention of "City, State/Territory" remains unchanged. Dfadden (talk) 11:13, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Vervale, Victoria#Requested move 7 November 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Vervale, Victoria#Requested move 7 November 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 14:56, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Shepherds Flat, Victoria#Requested move 7 November 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Shepherds Flat, Victoria#Requested move 7 November 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 14:57, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Cardigan Village, Victoria#Requested move 7 November 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Cardigan Village, Victoria#Requested move 7 November 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 14:58, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

Proposal: Add 'first_nations_name' alias to Infobox Australian place

I propose adding the aliases |first_nations_name= and |indigenous_name= to function as synonyms for the existing |native_name= parameter in {{Infobox Australian place}}.

The template's own documentation explicitly identifies "native" as a "deprecated archaic term" in the Australian context. However, editors are currently forced to use this term in the underlying code to display First Nations placenames. Multiple First Nations users have raised issue with this.

This aligns with the 2024 ARC-funded report How Australian Places are Represented on Wikipedia (Ford et al.), which identified the current parameter naming conventions as a barrier to respectful representation.

This is a request for a technical alias only; it does not change how the infobox displays to readers, nor does it break any existing articles. I am bringing this here per a request on the template talk page to establish local consensus first.

Does the project support this addition? Poketama (talk) 08:51, 26 December 2025 (UTC)

Link to report: How Australian places are represented on Wikipedia Mitch Ames (talk) 04:11, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

absolutely support the support of respectful terminology that enables all to contribute without abuse or barriers. Gnangarra 10:41, 28 December 2025 (UTC)

support: If it wasn't template-protected I'd say be bold. TarnishedPath^talk 10:48, 28 December 2025 (UTC)

Support, thanks for bringing this here. ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email · global) 00:17, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

Oppose. There are several issues with this. The idea that "native name" or "native language" are offensive phrases rather than simply descriptive seems to be based on a deliberate misunderstanding by the (wholly white) authors of the Ford report. They state without qualification or sourcing that "The term 'native' is offensive in Australia". Are Indigenous MPs who refer to speaking "my native language" also offensive? Should Native title in Australia be moved as well? The authors of the report are openly derogatory of Wikipedia editors, seem to misunderstand basic aspects of how Wikipedia functions (i.e. the reference to "to remov[ing] the term from Wikipedia's software"), and support the exceptionally WP:FRINGE point of view that Indigenous names should be used in preference to English names; I don't think we should be supporting any of their recommendations. The "native_name" parameter is used widely on Wikipedia (e.g. Category:Infoboxes without native name language parameter), if it is to be phased out or renamed this needs to be discussed at a wider level not implemented piecemeal on an infobox by infobox basis. Finally, not all instances of "native_name" in uses of Template:Infobox Australian place are for Indigenous names, e.g. Chinatown, Sydney and Poon Saan correctly use the parameter for those places' Chinese names. I T B F 📢 04:03, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

The use of the parameter in those articles is contrary to the documentation, which describes it as for:

Name of a place in the local Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander language, if different from name.

It doesn't state anything about using it for immigrant groups native language for a place primarily populated by that groups of immigrants. Katzrockso (talk) 06:19, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose infoboxes should share the same parameter names for consistency for editors. I don't see any real evidence the term 'native name' is actually offensive either, the term native to refer to Aboriginals is considered offensive by some sources but that is far different to the terms 'native language' and 'native name' being offensive. This all seems to be looking for a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Traumnovelle (talk) 05:30, 30 December 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose , see no need to customize for one country, I think everybody understands that there are many words that all broadly mean native. Cemoin96 (talk) 04:03, 3 January 2026 (UTC)
• Support. surely there is no harm done by adding these synonyms which would seem to better reflect current convention, where native does seem to be out of time/ from another time or era Bruceanthro (talk) 04:33, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Support. Adding synonyms is a virtually no cost change. Katzrockso (talk) 06:16, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Aside from the thousands of articles editors will inevitably edit to change the parameter. Traumnovelle (talk) 05:27, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

That's not a cost to the encyclopedia, at most it is a 'cost' to the editors who choose to spend their time doing something. Katzrockso (talk) 06:34, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Support - The term |native_name= generally implies that the English name is a translation or the English term that's different from the term used in the locally spoken language and this would clear up that ambiguity. As ITBF pointed out, Poon Saan uses Chinese names in the |native_name= parameter and in instances like that this would have the benefiet of adding indigenous names alongside the natively used name.

It's also important to keep in mind that "indigenous" and "native" are actually two very different (thought related) terms, one meaning the original and the other meaning the local, an Indigenous Australia and a "Native Australian" (meaning people born in Australia regardless of race, and sometimes also including naturalised citizens) are two very different groups of people and the same differentiation applies to the languages of those groups.

I see no real drawbacks to adding this and I think adding this as a separate paramater would not only be a great addition, but also a correction of a longstanding definitional misuse of the |native_name= parameter. Lord Beesus (talk) 02:35, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

Support. That makes for a really clear use of what the parameter is meant for and is inline with community expectations as we have more Indigenous place names now — such as Gadigal metro station and Barangaroo among others. I hope that changing its name can increase usage of this parameter to let people know what Indigenous region a suburb is in because Wikipedia's archaic Australian place infobox structure is currently holding us back from learning more about Indigenous place names quickly. This proposal will benefit Wikipedia articles immensely when adopted and is more than appropriate to use considering a greater focus on Indigenous place names from state governments. Qwerty123M (talk) 08:52, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

How do we know when a consensus has formed? This is especially pertinent to consider because the discussion has been going for 28 days with a good amount of responses. Qwerty123M (talk) 22:28, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

@Qwerty123M I apologise for not following proper processes. I thought that a simple discussion would save time, but as this was not an RFC it was just knocked back as not good enough. Poketama (talk) 22:42, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Don't worry. Most of these responses are easy to copy across to the RFC because points have already been made in good detail. I hope that via an RFC we can gain a greater understanding of the consensus on this matter. Qwerty123M (talk) 00:31, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Seeing as the latest comment to this proposal was one month ago, should I start a closure request on WP:CR to determine whether we have a consensus on this RfC? Qwerty123M (talk) 01:04, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

Support. I am a native Australian because I was born here, but I am not Indigenous. There is absolutely a difference between native_name (see Florence as a good example of the use of native-name) and what we are discussing here, the name used by local Indigenous people. I think it is appropriate to use the proposed synonyms to make it crystal clear to editors (who often don't read the infobox documentation!) how we intend this parameter to be used. Kerry (talk) 01:28, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

On the basis of the discussion here, Poketama has requested on the infobox talk page that the proposed change be implemented. Zackmann08 has responded, in part saying that 'This requires an RFC as it reaches far beyond just 1 template or region.' The discussion seems like it may have wider (than just this parameter) implcations for the infobox, and would be better not in 2 locations at once, so I suggest it continues there. Innesw (talk) 22:19, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

RFC posted here: Template talk:Infobox Australian place#RfC: Formalising 'first nations name' and 'indigenous name' as parameter aliases Poketama (talk) 22:39, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:The Rocks, New South Wales § Requested move 11 January 2026

An editor has requested that The Rocks, New South Wales be moved to The Rocks, Sydney, which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You are invited to participate in the move discussion. Qwerty123M (talk) 02:49, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Greater Western Sydney#Requested move 21 April 2026

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Greater Western Sydney#Requested move 21 April 2026 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Qwerty123M (talk) 12:19, 21 April 2026 (UTC)