Talk:James Cook

Cook's encounter with Indigenous Tasmanians

I have made some changes to this new content. We should specify that it was at Bruny island that Cook's expedition landed. Also Sides does not say that it was the first encounter between the British and Aboriginal Tasmanians. Sides incorrectly refers to "the English" throughout his book. What he says is: "This was probably the first time these particular people had encountered Europeans...". Also, "And so, with a crack of a firearm, the historic first encounter between two races of human beings from islands on opposite sides of the globe had abruptly ended." This implies that he is talking about a first encounter between people from Britain and Bruny Island, but at no stage does he say that it was the first encounter between the British and Aboriginal Tasmanians (although it probably was). Personally, I would not use Sides at all because he is a journalist and popular historian and his book -- entertaining as it is --- is full of inaccuracies and problematic language. (Consistently calling the British "the English" and referring to peoples as "races" gets on my nerves.) I would prefer to use Thomas only, which is scholarly and accurate, and supports my revised wording. Furthermore, even if we find a reliable source that states explicitly that this was the first British encounter with Aboriginal Tasmanians, I'm not sure why this is important enough to mention. It seems parochial to me and ignores the earlier French encounter during Du Fresne's expedition. Happy to discuss Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 00:26, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! I agree that, especially since this is a featured article and there are tons of sources available, we should stick to the best sources, and Sides likely doesn't belong to them. Gawaon (talk) 02:58, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

Proposed NZ ferry named after Cook

Hello all

I have moved this content to the List of commemorations of Captain James Cook. I don't think it belongs in this article because this is only a proposal and might not be realised. Once the ferries are named and operational and the names are accepted, it might be worth mentioning, but there are already plenty of more significant memorials that are not. The title of the article with its "poke in the eye for wokesters" also seems calculated to ignite a tiresome culture war and I don't think we should track ongoing battles of this kind in this article. I would prefer to leave it for now and see what happens.

Happy to discuss Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 00:40, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

In general, Wikipedia discourages proposals or future plans that are not concrete and widely reported. See WP:Crystall ball. It probably should not even be in the Commemoration article until it is operational. Noleander (talk) 04:16, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Accessibility issues

The sources section comprises almost entirely separated list items; see MOS:LISTBREAK for an explanation why that is a problem. Elrondil (talk) 04:10, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

@Elrondil - Looks like you already started fixing that issue ... are you going to continue? Your changes look okay, the important thing is to retain the "sfn" comment for each source (makes it easier to create new in-line cites, in the future). Noleander (talk) 12:44, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

@Noleander: Sure, if that solution is accepted, I can try and tinker away at it when and as I find time. A regex search-and-replace should do most if not all of it. Elrondil (talk) 01:55, 12 October 2026 (UTC)

@Elrondil - Thanks, that would be appreciated. Ideally it would be something like

* <!-- {{sfn|Dickson |2021 }} --> {{cite news
|last=Dickson
|first=Courtney
 ...
|access-date=3 July 2021
|publisher=[[CBC News]]
}}
* <!-- {{sfn|Douglas|1768}} --> {{ cite web
|url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-222969577/view?partId=nla.obj-223065342
...
|access-date=26 July 2025
}}
* <!-- {{sfn|Druett|2017}} -->  {{Cite web
|title=Tupaia's Painting of Joseph Banks
...
|last=Druett
|author-link=Joan Druett
|year=2017
}}</nowiki>

Noleander (talk) 02:15, 12 October 2026 (UTC)

Done. Elrondil (talk) 12:07, 13 October 2026 (UTC)

@Elrondil - Thanks, much appreciated. It's important to make sure articles are accessible! Noleander (talk) 14:10, 13 October 2026 (UTC)