Talk:Register of the National Estate

Designations and abolition of the register

The below forms part of a discussion from my user page that has been transferred here for ongoing relevance. Rangasyd (talk) 09:21, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

I just noticed your edit on Talgai Homestead. Do we really want designations to a defunct register? The plan in shutting down the RNE was that the sites in it would be moved into other registers and I believe that pretty much all of the RNE is now in the various extant national and state registers, so it's a lot of duplication to include the RNE designation and I think a bit misleading for anyone who doesn't know it's a defunct register. For myself, I would only use the RNE as a designation if there was no other heritage register that included the site. I guess I am also concerned about a precedent of including multiple designations in what is already a fairly long infobox. For example, all 500-600 sites on the Queensland Heritage Register that are in Brisbane are also on the Brisbane Heritage Register and it's a fair bet that many of the other sites on the QHR appear in the other local heritage registers (every LGA in Qld is supposed to have one) so again there's potential for massive duplication if we go down that path. Maybe this is a conversation to be had with a wider audience, but I thought I'd start here to understand why you are wanting to add the NRE. Kerry (talk) 21:42, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Firstly, thank you for all your great work on the QHR. Your attention to detail is quite interesting to observe, although I'm unsure that I agree with the approach adopted (but I disgress). Some weeks ago I noticed that the various Australian and all other state heritage registers were not on the list of approved designations; so as a first step, I sought to address this issue and invited discussion. At that time the RNE designation was proposed and there was minimal input from others. That being said, I understand your point of multiple listings and the status of the RNE as a defunct register. However, I feel that if a property has international, national and state significance, all three should be listed (think of the Sydney Opera House or the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia as practical examples). Your point re local government registers is impractical and dismissed (establishing the Brisbane register would mean that every local government register (globally) would need to be added to the list of approved designations). So, my view is that the heart of your question is: If a property has multiple listings on current international, national, and/or state heritage registers, what level of detail should be included in the infobox and in the article? I thank you for focusing discussion here prior to wider input and look forward to your feedback. Once again, well done re the QHR. Rangasyd (talk) 00:11, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, my main concern intellectually is that the NRE is defunct. My concern about multiple designations overloading the infobox is more pragmatic as it make it hard to include photos in the early sections, but I am not too worried about the handful of cases that are registered at bth national and state level (e.g. Sydney Opera House). We do have Wikipedia articles for places on Australian local heritage registers but, to date, they haven't sought to use designations. Kerry (talk) 05:49, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Aside, I am not sure what you meant by my attention to detail, but the history of the QHR articles is that their format was discussed to death on the Australian Wikipedian's noticeboard when I started the project so what you see is the consensus of those discussions. Also the first draft of a QHR article is machine-generated, so what may appear to be my attention to detail may just be the mindless enthusiasm of software. I am quite happy to discuss the QHR articles because of my observation that the NSW Heritage Register is now CC-BY opening up the possibility of generating Wikipedia articles from the NSW register, so it's timely to look at the QHR articles and consider what worked well and what didn't. Kerry (talk) 05:49, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Oh, great re machine generated. I'm trying to work through the NSW SHR and it's a big project. I wasn't aware of the earlier and lengthy discussion re QHR and my initial observations were that some of it appears as copy/paste. Sorry, no offence was intended. I was doing some work on NSW railway stations when I realised that many stations are SHR-listed, but their listing was not included in the articles. So, I started adding them to a category with the aim of getting back to them. At the same time, I also found some rail tunnels and bridges in the same situation. Then I went to Category:New South Wales State Heritage Register and starting cleaning up those items that were already listed. I'll need to review those completed and remove the RNE listing. I'd really value your help and input on your learnings re the QHR that may be relevant to NSW SHR. How do you suggest we communicate? I have reverted RNE listing at Talgai Homestead. Thanks for the update re CC-BY. Rangasyd (talk) 07:25, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Where is this topic with relation to the Australian National Heritage List and instead of removing the RNE entries shouldn't we rename the RNE entry in the designation template to point to the ANHL ? Dave Rave (talk) 06:08, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Although the RNE Wikipedia article says that it replaced by two national registers, I think that is not the case, although when you read the citation, it's sufficiently public-service-speak that it's hard to know what it means. But the numbers do not add up, as there were about 13,000 entries on the RNE, but the Australian National Heritage List has only about 100 and the Commonwealth Heritage List has about 300 entries, so where did the other 12000+ go? The answer appears to be the state heritage registers based on checking a few examples. But definitely the ANHL is not the successor of the RNE; it was created as part of the RNE closure but that's not quite the same thing. My informal understanding was that the Commonwealth got sick of having all the arguments over heritage come to them, so they decided to make it the states' problem apart from the small number of properties that they retained on the ANHL and the CHL. Kerry (talk) 06:29, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Kerry. The Commonwealth maintained a large register (RNE) which included many items not of relevance to the Commonwealth, but may of local, regional or state interest. They narrowed their definition and established two seperate registers, one focused on natural, historic and indigenous places (that are not Commnonwealth-owned) via the ANHL, and the other focused on items owned by the Commonwealth that meet the same natural, historic and indigenous criteria via the CHL. So, when you think of places, Old Parliament House was on the RNE and is now on the CHL. The Blue Mountains was on the RNE and is now on the ANHL. Sydney Town Hall was on the RNE and is now not on any Commonwealth register, but is on the NSW and local government registers, etc. BTW, I move this conversation off my talk page, for obvious reasons. Rangasyd (talk) 09:21, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm strongly in favour of having the designation, at least for the historical relevance. It was the clear nationally-recognised mark of notability for heritage sites for decades, and it still has relevance in that respect - for instance, showing when something gained heritage listing that may be 20 years before anything much was listed on the state registers. From a more pragmatic perspective, listing the national recognition, even if now defunct, also has much use in explaining to dopey Americans why state-listed articles are notable since it was the closest parallel to their NRHP. The replacement federal registers are a red herring: as Kerry notes they deliberately cover only a fraction of the sites and are neither here nor there when it comes to the RNE. I am also very opposed to the removal of the long-standing RNE category from articles (i.e. this edit) - linking articles that were on the former register is a valid and perfectly reasonable (and in this case, long-used) category. The Drover's Wife (talk) 12:53, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

@The Drover's Wife:, the conversation started about the use of the RNE designation in the infobox historic places, which I didn't like as it wasn't an extant register (intellectually) and because it made the infobox longer and hence harder to fit in any historic images in the history section (an ongoing problem I have pragmatically). I don't think we've discussed the category at all. I know some of QHR articles do include mention of the site being added to RNE (with dates and citations, etc) and I don't see any problem with doing that as it is part of the heritage history of the site. I'm personally indifferent to the RNE as a category, if people want to add it, that's fine. AFAIK there is no notability guideline for heritage sites, but I haven't encountered a lot of issues with our North American friends wrt to notability of the QHR articles, a number were tagged {{one source}} as you know, but that's as far as it went. The QHR articles are generally much longer than their NRHP articles are! I'd certainly use the RNE as a designation for a site that hadn't ended up on one of our national or state registers (I can't think of an example, but I guess there must be some). I'd probably use a defunct RNE listing to bolster the notability of a local govt heritage listing though. 02:36, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

@The Drover's Wife and Kerry Raymond: Re the this edit, up until about four weeks ago, the RNE designation wasn't even possible as the only Australian designation possible was the QHR listing; so I think it's a bit premature to start arguing towards the removal of a now defunct designation. Nevertheless, I take your point. As to the historical factor, surely if we want to follow the path of listing everything that was on the (now defunct) RNE, the category should be renamed as something along the Properties listed on the former Register of the National Estate, or similar. It is my personal belief that if a lay observer saw that a property was RNE-designated, they would think it has some form of Commonwealth or State protection. In fact, this may not be the case; for this reason, I advocate for the removal of listing any former RNE designation. I believe that we should take a low risk approach and list only those with active designations that have Commonwealth (CHL/ANHL) and/or State/Territory (ACT, NSW SHR, NT, QHR, SAHR, THR, VHR, WA SWHP) heritage-register listing. Some WP entries, most notably in WA (see this list for example), have National Trust-listing which has no statutory impact on preservation/conservation. Such lists create additional confusion. Our aim should be to simplify. Rangasyd (talk) 23:25, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

@Rangasyd and The Drover's Wife: I'm more inclined to say our aim should be to clarify. I don't think we want to hide information just for simplicity. I think we need to be clear in the article for each of the various heritage registers as to whether it is a current register, whether it provides any kind of legal protection, and whatever is a consideration/consequence of being listed there. We might want to adopt a specific convention around the RNE about the use of the term "former" or "defunct" or whatever, so that the reader is not confused. E.g "St Zebediah's Church was listed on the RNE (now defunct) on 11 June 1990" or the category with "former" as you suggest. Currently I have only used the name of the heritage register as a category, e.g. Category:Queeensland Heritage Register. Now you are right to suggest that "Property listed on ..." might be a better styling for the category name but the problem is that the type of thing that is listed on these registers may be archaeological, it might be movable (NSW SHR has these), etc. So it's kinda hard to find the right term for the vast range of stuff that gets heritage-listed but I don't really think that "Things listed on ", "Stuff listed on " will be well-regarded as category names. I didn't create the QHR category myself, it was already in use before I started writing QHR articles. Interestingly its creation has the following edit summary "Moved from Category:Heritage places on Queensland Heritage Register" suggesting that there was some decision (by one/some/many) that the shorter title was preferable/consistent/standarised. So there may be some history here we don't know about. Kerry (talk) 23:48, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

@The Drover's Wife and Kerry Raymond: I guess the big issue is that items have never been de-listed from the RNE; otherwise, we could easily solve the problem. I concur about using an agreed term in describing listing of the (defunct/former) RNE. That should be the focus of our discussion here. Where to now? Rangasyd (talk) 01:05, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

A few things, in no particular order. I've got no problem with inserting "former": I think that's wise for clarity's sake, and I've usually referred to it as such when I've mentioned it in articles. I feel like undoing that long-forgotten move and taking it back to "Heritage places on the Queensland Heritage Register" mightn't be a bad idea for reasons articulated above. I also see the point about the infoboxes - what about if we added, for example (defunct) or (former) to the RNE title there? Definitely agree that National Trust classifications, etc, don't belong there. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:49, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Hence, @The Drover's Wife and Kerry Raymond::

1. Propose: adding "(Defunct)" to the designation infobox re RNE (and editors adding it to their descriptions in the body of the article). I suggest not adding "(Former)" as this phrase appears when an item is delisted from the/any register. If "(Former)" was to be the default, and a subsequent time in the future the place was delisted, the description would appear as "Former (Former) RNE". If we used "(Defunct)" as proposed and the place was delisted, the description would appear as "Former (Defunct) RNE". I'm not skilled enough to change the designation to "(Defunct)". If you're in agreement to my proposal, can either of you tackle or make a request for same?
2. Suggest: add a new category of "[[Category:Places listed on the defunct Register of the National Estate]]", or similar. This new category should be a sub-category of [[Category:Register of the National Estate]], and we move all those (72) places (plus the 18 in WA) listed in this category over to the new category. Rangasyd (talk) 08:53, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Agreed - but I think (defunct) should go after, not before, the RNE designation. The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:07, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

@Dysklyver: Would you please look at 1. Propose above and assist, as this is beyond my capabilities, at {{Designation}} by renaming the designation from Register of the National Estate to Register of the National Estate (defunct). Many thanks for your help. Rangasyd (talk) 13:14, 28 November 2017 (UTC)