Template talk:Infobox UK place/Archive 13

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Double coordinate

This template is causing a double coordinate display in Great Horkesley, and I don't know how to fix it. Suppose the coord template needs to be removed? JMK (talk) 12:07, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's right - I've removed it. This infobox incorporates co-ordinates (and additionally uses them to show location on a map), so there's no need to use a stand-alone coord template alongside it. Warofdreams talk 12:22, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Relief maps

Carlisle
Shire county	Cumbria
Region	North West
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Police	Cumbria
Fire	Cumbria
Ambulance	North West

I'm in process of uploading a bunch of relief maps and adding to location map templates (see Wikipedia talk:UK Wikipedians' notice board#Relief maps.

One problem with this template is it does not allow calls to alternate maps via the relief parameter of {{location map}}. This means that this template cannot use the relief map in cases where it is desirable; it would be a good idea to add that capability.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:59, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Can you use the |map_type= parameter to select these maps? Keith D (talk) 22:56, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but only via a painful hack. That is duplicating the templates in Category:English county location map templates so instead of calling for "Location map United Kingdom Cumbria" it can call "Location map United Kingdom Cumbria relief", which doubles the maintenance needs.

It will be much simpler to just let this template call the relief parameter on request, as then we only need 1 template for the political map / relief map pair. It should be a case of adding one. Other templates can work just fine - for instance Cross Fell now calls it via Template:Infobox mountain.

I think this could be done by adding "|relief={{{relief|}}}" in front of "|width=240|lat={{{latitude|}}}|long={{{longitude|}}}|marksize=6|alt={{{map_alt|}}}|caption=|float=center}}", but not 100% sure of my markup.--Nilfanion (talk) 23:11, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I've added |map_relief= to the template. If anything needs changing on it then let me know. -- WOSlinker (talk) 23:15, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Display of county-level unitary authorities

Right now unitary authorities such as Cornwall Council and Wiltshire Council are display as Cornwall and Wiltshire, which is confusing to readers as they are immediately preceded in the infobox by the ceremonial counties Cornwall and Wiltshire. This does not give the reader the opportunity to distinguish between the council and the authority as both are displayed exactly the same. Can I suggest, for the sake of reader clarity, that local authority names are displayed in full? --Bob Re-born (talk) 10:11, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Designer of this infobox help

Hi, i recently made the following template Template:Infobox Townlands based upon the code for this one. Whilst it works great i have a major problem i need helped with - for some reason it leaves a lot of white space in some articles that it is on for example at Derrylaughan whereas at Tobermore (townland) it doesn't. Can anyone help me as to how to fix this? It has nothing to do with white space in the actual articles. Mabuska ^(talk) 23:06, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Could you clarify the problem more specifically? The infobox spacing in the above articles looks the same to me on Chrome. Is this a problem only with certain browsers? — Richardguk (talk) 04:37, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

It's all the blank lines inbetween the tr tags that is doing it. I've added html comments to stop it. See this change. -- WOSlinker (talk) 09:13, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Would never have guessed it'd have read white-space inbetween HTML code. Mabuska ^(talk) 11:41, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Civil parishes

Since {{Infobox Townlands}}'s TfD was closed, with a recommendation to "refactor the template as a frontend, and then discuss the merits of having the template as a frontend vs. substituting it", its documentation has been re-written, suggesting that it also be used for civil parishes. These are aleady adequately catered for by {{infobox settlement}} (or {{Infobox UK place}} / {{Infobox NI Civil Parish}} in some cases). Duplicating templates in this way is harmful; it increases the burden on those who maintain them, and forces editors to make unnecessary choices.

Please discuss at Template talk:Infobox Townlands#Civil parishes. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:05, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

There is no duplication but rather a decrease in actual redundancy. If you checked {{Infobox NI Civil Parish}} you'd see that its up for deletion as i've merged it with {{Infobox Townlands}}. I merged the two templates (which i both created) together simply as {{Infobox NI Civil Parish}} was redundant considering {{Infobox Townlands}} only needed the addition of one parameter to make it do the same job. So more burden? I think not. All articles that had the now proposed for deletion {{Infobox NI Civil Parish}} have been replaced with {{Infobox Townlands}}. Mabuska ^(talk) 16:29, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Also a warning that the above contains a Fallacy of quoting out of context. The full closing comment of the admin at the TfD was: no consensus, it appears there is no strong objection to merging this template with another, but it's not clear where it would be merged. Perhaps a good first step would be to refactor the template as a frontend, and then discuss the merits of having the template as a frontend vs. substituting it. Mabuska ^(talk) 16:32, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Mabuska's accusation of refactoring is both false and contrary to Wikipedia policy. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:26, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

As indicated above, I've answered Mabuska's duplicated comment at Template talk:Infobox Townlands#Civil parishes. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:26, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Coordinate display

It would be good to display the coordinates in the infobox, as is done with most others. Any comments, before I make the necessary change in the sandbox? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:51, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Good idea. --Bob Re-born (talk) 15:36, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

No real need as they are in the top corner of the article - just additional clutter. Keith D (talk) 18:31, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

As I say above, that's how its done in most other infoboxes; not least {{Infobox settlement}}. Further, displaying the coordinates in the infobox includes them in its emitted metadata, which is not the case when they're only shown in the title position. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:00, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Anyone else? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:24, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I've long thought the appearance of coordinates in the top-right corner of articles looks a bit random, even arbitrary, like, er, additional clutter! (absolutely no offence intended) I think it'd be much neater to have this info in the infobox, along with other info… Nortonius (talk) 18:38, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Use in the title position indicates that the coordinates relate to the subject of the article (and are understood to mean such by external partners such as Google); some articles have multiple infoboxes it coordinates. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:46, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Another point of note is that coordinates in infoboxes are displayed on our increasingly-important mobile site and apps; whereas "title" coordinates are not this is particularly relevant, as the new version of the app allows users to select coordinates, and thus easily find other articles, "nearby" to them. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:46, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

It's important to agree one or the other - top corner or infobox, but not both, which looks absurd and unprofessional. Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:57, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Although, is there precedence for changing to displaying coords in infoboxes and not at all in the top corner? My only concern is that else there will be a disparity between articles for settlements that have the infobox and those that don't but use {{coord|long|lat|display=title}} to display in the corner - it might confuse readers as where to look. But on the above, I am in favour of including them in the infobox. Cheers, Zangar (talk) 14:31, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

No, there is no such precedence; and please see above, where I explain the importance of "title" coordinates. We need coordinates in both positions, for the reasons I have explained. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:50, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

It's certainly not important to do so, not necessary, nor even wise. Most widely used infoboxes ({{Infobox settlement}}, {{Infobox building}}, {{Geobox}}, many more), allow coordinate display in both positions. Why is this infobox a special case? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:50, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, if that is been agreed somewhere centrally (where?), the unanswered question is.... why? I repeat, it looks absurd and unprofessional. We deprecate duplication in all other areas - why not here? Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:53, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

The reasons are given above; and discussion was in the talk pages of {{Coord}} and WT:GEO over the last four years or so. Infoboxes are intended to duplicate (and summarise) information from the rest of the article. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:01, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation, but I still think that, for most readers, the duplication appears quite unnecessary. Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:05, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Proposed merging of Infobox UK ward

An editor has proposed that {{Infobox UK ward}} be merged into this template. Please indicate your view at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 February 29#Template:Infobox UK ward. — Richardguk (talk) 20:47, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

{{Infobox UK ward}} merger proposal relisted at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 March 23#Template:Infobox UK ward. Please indicate there your view on whether a merger into {{Infobox UK place}} is appropriate. — Richardguk (talk) 21:32, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Into true infobox?

Has it ever been discussed to turn this template into a true infobox (by class and metatemplate)? Archive search is difficult with these words. After a first and second look inside I think it can be done. -DePiep (talk) 09:27, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Civil parishes...

Any chance of tweaking the infobox so the parameter "civil_parish=" actually shows "Civil Parish", not just "Parish", despite making "Parish" a wikilink to Civil parishes in England, as it does at the moment, e.g. at Reculver? For all I know Reculver is an exception here, but "parish" gets many mentions in the Reculver article, but these are mostly to ecclesiastical parishes, and only rarely refer to the Civil Parish - so it is pontentially misleading there, and I certainly see it, and the wikilink to Civil parishes in England, as introducing a confusing factor to the article in that context. Any thoughts? Cheers Nortonius (talk) 23:32, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I would also be in favour of this. It would help the reader to easily identify that this has nothing to do with ecclesiastical parishes. I can also say that there are quite a few other articles that mention both civil and ecclesiastical parishes a number of times within the text, so this change would be a great help. Cheers, Zangar (talk) 18:22, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for adding your voice, Zangar. If there are indeed quite a few articles where this issue arises, then it seems a no-brainer to me that this should be fixed. Looking at the source, I'm thinking the only change needed for this would be from <th>[[Civil parishes in England|Parish]]</th> to <th>[[Civil parishes in England|Civil Parish]]</th>...? But, to complete the circle, I think it would be a very good idea to add a preceding parameter "ecclesiastical_parish=", generating a similar link, <th>[[Parish|Ecclesiastical Parish]]</th>. I suggest a preceding parameter to indicate that an ecclesiastical parish is of less significance than a civil parish - this may be subjective(!), but civil parishes are a unit of local government, supplying local councillors. At the same time, though, a (preceding) parameter for ecclesiastical parishes would flag up for readers the fact that these and civil parishes exist, at the top of relevant articles. Nortonius (talk) 20:18, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

No problem (and agree) with changing "parish" to "civil parish". However, I'd be very reluctant to include ecclesiastical parishes, as it gets harder to maintain NPOV without overloading the template: Why include the CofE parish, but not the RC one? How about other denominations or religions, how can we include the established church but have no mention of the rest?--Nilfanion (talk) 22:17, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Support for civil parish, but with lower case "p" in "Civil parish" (for consistency with other multi-word label capitalisation).

But I would oppose adding a new parameter for ecclesiastical parishes, for these reasons:

• there are few reliable published sources for ecclesiastical boundaries;
• even though the Church of England is an "established" religion, it could be confusing to list religious areas alongside administrative and political ones;
• if C of E parishes were included, this would appear contentious for places with strong Roman Catholic or non-Christian religious activity;
• listing Anglican parishes could seem odd without also listing the relevant diocese;
• more mundanely, the label "Ecclesiastical parish" would be so wide that the table layout would be awkward, with the second column being squashed.

So, I suggest that non-civil parishes be noted only in the article text, not in the infobox.

Would anyone be able to use a bot to flag places outside England that currently use |civil_parish=? In Wales, they should instead use |community_wales=. My understanding is that, in Scotland, civil parishes were abolished a long time ago, so on balance it's probably best not to confuse readers by listing historic information in the infobox for Scottish places, and the parameter should therefore be removed from Scottish places and replaced with a mention in the article text. (There is currently a counterexample at Mull of Kintyre, where the old parish of Southend is listed.) I don't think the civil parish concept applies in Northern Ireland, and there is already |manx_parish= for the Isle of Man.

— Richardguk (talk) 23:00, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

That's all fine by me - I was indeed thinking of "ecclesiastical parish" in the terms you identify of "established church", but I take your point about possible contention - the "subjectivity" of the issue. I'm happy to ditch that idea, per all the above comments: it might've worked if we were creating a printed encyclopedia 50 or 100 years ago, but you're right, as you suggest re Scottish places, a mention of ecclesiastical parishes in article text where appropriate should be enough. Cheers. Nortonius (talk) 23:18, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

No further comment for two or three days, is that a consensus for a change <th>[[Civil parishes in England|Parish]]</th> –> <th>[[Civil parishes in England|Civil parish]]</th>? Nortonius (talk) 12:38, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

As I was away and just catching up – I can see no problem with this and it makes it clearer for readers without having to look at the link to see what we are talking about. Keith D (talk) 16:58, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I've changed the Parish to "Civil parish".--Nilfanion (talk) 22:16, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Much appreciated! :) Nortonius (talk) 00:01, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Richardguk is wrong about civil parishes in Scotland. They still exist, and are listed at List of civil parishes in Scotland, though parish councils were abolished about 80 years ago. They are still used to describe location in Scottish legislation, and most council areas were defined by the civil parishes. They have one or two other minor uses, and are used for census purposes. More useful would be community council areas, as, even though community councils don't exist everywhere, each council area is required to produce a community council scheme for the whole area. Perhaps a parameter for community_scotland, similar to community_wales would be more useful (though it can be hard to determine the community council boundaries in Scotland as not all the councils publish maps of their community council scheme on the internet—Highland Council, though, is particularly good.). In Northern Ireland, civil parishes no longer exist, and the appropriate subdivision is the ward. These are not akin to wards in England, and are more like electoral areas in the Republic of Ireland: several wards are grouped together to form an electoral division, from which councillors are elected. The ward is used as a statistical subdivision, but has little other use. In the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey, the unit is known as a parish, not a civil parish (that term is practically unknown in those three territories). Skinsmoke (talk) 18:17, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining this more accurately. I've edited Civil parishes in Scotland to clarify that only the councils were abolished. Unfortunately, Ordnance Survey seems to ignore Scottish parish and community boundaries, even in its detailed Boundary-Line and MasterMap data, but despite the obscurity their official status justifies community_scotland. For placing in the hierarchy, are Scottish parishes generally smaller areas than Scottish communities? In other words, should the parish appear above community if both are listed? Also, the infobox at Mull of Kintyre illustrates that civil_parish wrongly links to Civil parishes in England regardless of the country; unless civil_parish is belatedly separated into civil_parish_england and civil_parish_scotland, the heading link ought to #switch according to the relevant country (possibly for Crown dependency parishes too). — Richardguk (talk) 01:29, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, only just seen your reply. There is no straight forward rule about whether civil parishes or communities are larger in Scotland. Many communities are smaller than civil parishes, even in rural areas (Scottish parishes can cover vast areas, particularly in the Highlands), but some contain several small civil parishes (particularly in Aberdeenshire). In urban areas, the communities may cross civil parish boundaries (as the Scottish council areas also do). Scottish local government boundaries are a bit of a botch-up! You are correct that civil parishes should link to the appropriate page for Scotland, England, Wales, the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. Skinsmoke (talk) 07:21, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Refpunc

Could someone remove the superfluous space in the population_ref field, per Refpunc? See the infobox at [1] for an example of this in action. It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 09:34, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Agree, so Done - for consistency, I did the same for |area_footnotes= --Redrose64 (talk) 15:15, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Was this all that good an idea? Many hundreds of articles (possibly thousands) simply have a year in this field, so the end result comes out as something like "1,831(2001)". Others have "Census 2001" in the field, which comes out as "1,831Census 2001". Even worse, many have "2001 Census", which comes out as "1,8312001 Census". Better to have the gap than this unintended mess. Skinsmoke (talk) 07:29, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Is it technically possible to test whether the first five characters of the parameter are "<ref>" to decide whether or not to insert a space? (If the answer is no, then I agree the above edit should be undone until a better solution can be found.) -- Dr Greg  talk  20:34, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes: but that won't catch cases like <ref name="foo">, the {{#tag:ref}} parser function or templates such as {{sfn}} or {{citation needed}}. It would also use something like {{str left}} which is known to be expensive. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:56, 14 May 2012 (UTC) amended --Redrose64 (talk) 19:20, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Looks like what I was going to report about this change has already been noted. Think that we should revert until a better solution can be found. Keith D (talk) 21:56, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Reverted. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:46, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the extremely quick response on this. Skinsmoke (talk) 17:59, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Too clever

This template trids to be to caver by half. for example, I have just tried to enter [[B postcode area|B20/B21]] as the |postcode_area= for Handsworth, West Midlands, but it won't let me, because it tries to automatically link that parameter. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:39, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Set |postcode_area=B |postcode_district=B20/B21 - the |postcode_area= is not just linked, it's used to determine emergency services, etc. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:20, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Why does this template have no |coordinates=? Yes, I can use |latitude= and |longitude=, but that doesn't allow me to use {{Coord}}'s |type= or |region=. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:48, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

region: defaults to GB except when |crown_dependency=Isle of Man is present, in which case you get region:IM. When would you want it to be something else?

type: defaults to city(n), where n is the figure in |population= - the doc for {{coord}} says that such a type: is suitable for "cities, towns, villages, hamlets, suburbs, subdivisions, neighborhoods, and other human settlements (including unincorporated and/or abandoned ones) with known population", which covers everything that this infobox is intended to be used on. But if necessary, you can override that by setting |scale=, which causes the type: to be omitted and scale: to be used instead. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:28, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Why would I want to set something else? Because the correct code for a settlement in Birmingham is GB-BIR; for one in Walsall, GB-WLL, and so on. That the type: (and other properties) are automatically set should be explained in the documentation. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:28, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Small and the image description

Just wondering here, but for what purpose should the infobox caption for files be small? Shouldn't it already be set to 94% as via the stylesheet? This seems to be the same as the File description. Unless I am wrong, the extra small serves to further reduce the size and make it more difficult to read the caption of the image. I think it operates like this Example Small / Example Small2. Right? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 03:13, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

As no one has objected I have removed the requirement to use the tags from the documentation. Keith D (talk) 11:41, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Motto and epithet

Why does this template not include parameters for either motto or epithet? For example, on Stewarton, we could add "Knit Weel" and "The Bonnet Toun". Bovlb (talk) 18:36, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

London location maps

Further to this edit by WOSlinker to Template:Infobox UK place/local, and the related discussion at User talk:WOSlinker#London location maps, places within Greater London are now being shown on a location map of the relevant London borough, instead of on a location map of the whole of Greater London.

But many London places cover a significant part of the borough(s) in which they are situated. So showing them as a pinpointed location on a streetmap-scale borough map gives misleading precision and implies that the place is much smaller than it really is.

For example: a quick glance at Template:Infobox UK place/testcases#London (New Malden) and the corresponding infobox in the New Malden article shows a location map of the London Borough of Kingston upon Thames. The marker overlay appears to pinpoint an area between two streets (corresponding to the sports centre and field off Blagdon Road). But of course New Malden actually covers an area many times larger than the marker pin – in fact, it covers about half the latitude and a quarter of the longitude span of the entire borough.

In general, I would say that a location map will be misleading if the pinpointed place covers much more than about 5% of the width or height of the map (unless the feature's actual boundaries are so distinctive that they are identifiable from the map itself, as would often be the case for conurbations shown on county maps, or major natural features).

Though some London articles will be about individual streets or buildings, for which the new maps are helpful, I think many London articles will be about suburbs and neighbourhoods for which the borough location maps are unsuitable because the entire area of the map would be similar in order of magnitude to the area of the article's subject.

Given this conflict, and the unfamiliarity which non-London readers will have with the relative location of places within Greater London, I would suggest that it is better to revert to a London-wide location map. If more precise maps are appropriate, the template default could be overridden; or a separate image link can be added to the article (if it does not already exist!); or readers can click on the coordinates at the top of the page to see the scalable WikiMiniAtlas or click via GeoTemplate to external maps, where they can zoom in or out to their preferred scale.

So: should the change be reverted?

— Richardguk (talk) 00:26, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Good points actually. But is it possible you could help apply the borough maps to our articles on buildings and structures? I think for small localities, streets and buildings/parks etc that the more localised maps are fine, after all they do have a window locator. I just don't want to put Nilfanion's good work to waste. Actually they're not even new maps, they been hanging around with dust covers on for 15 months and I think its time to put them to good use. If not for settlements at least for buildings. I need help administering them though. A lot of places are without infoboxes.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 00:40, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. Using CatScan, I've identified 592 articles that use the infobox with one of the London location maps (including 34 which still use {{Location map United Kingdom Greater London}}, mainly because the City of London still does not have its own map in the infobox).

There is already a |map_type= parameter in the infobox, so this could be extended to indicate that the borough map should be used instead of the London-wide one – assuming that analysis of the list indicates a worthwhile number of articles with a sufficiently narrow area. (As outlined above, my assumption is that the prevalence of large-area articles justifies reverting the default back to Greater London: excess context is less confusing than excess precision on a location map.)

— Richardguk (talk) 04:08, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I've reverted the change. -- WOSlinker (talk) 07:42, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Agree that the Greater London map (and other county-scale maps) should be used as the default by this infobox, as that is likely the most appropriate scale for places. The documentation should make it clear that alternatives can be manually selected by the map_type parameter, so the Borough maps could be used on appropriate articles.

One improvement I would like to see is the ability to use something other than a location map in the infobox. That allows a locator map to be used instead. For example, maps like File:Greater Manchester Urban Area 2001.svg highlighting an area, may be better for some articles than the overly precise pusphin. A location map should be the default though of course.--Nilfanion (talk) 09:39, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, for London I think we'd be better off having a shaded borough/area like that Manchester one rather than a pin map which isn't accurate on the bigger map either because it covers an area bigger than the dot. nilfanion perhaps you could create shaded map locators at least for the London boroughs. Would that be easy to implement WOS? Sound agreeable Richard? For a start the pink and red maps appearing in London Borough of Enfield could be replaced with higher quality shaded locators like the Manchester one, they're so 2005 those pink maps.. Perhaps each borough map shaded dark red using File:Greater London UK location map 2.svg using the same colour as the Manchester one? We also need to find a way of going through the building articles though and switching maps.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 16:10, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, that's a proposal for local government infoboxes such as {{Infobox London Borough}}, in which case it would be best to discuss on a different talk page. It would be confusing to a highlight a borough very prominently if the article subject is something other than the borough itself.

As for the pink maps that are used in those infoboxes, I agree that Nilfanion's more detailed maps might be more appropriate, though I would also caution that, for articles about local government areas (which have well-defined legal boundaries) it is good for the relevant infobox to show the boundaries very clearly, so that the hierarchy and parent area is readily apparent.

The logical conclusion is that an article about a local government area should have a simple diagrammatic map of administrative boundaries (like the pink maps) and a more detailed location map (like Nilfanion's). Whether that is practicable and aesthetically desirable within a single infobox, I don't know. But there is at present an uncomfortable dichotomy, because many articles about local government areas do not have a separate article to cover the major town or city from which they take their name. This leads to the perverse situation where combined articles about larger settlements (cities or boroughs) often in practice omit information that would have been shown if they had used {{Infobox UK place}}. Unifying the infoboxes would result in a more consistent appearance, and would allow all of the UK place information to be included regardless.

For example, Plymouth is a unitary district (city) as well as a large settlement, and uses {{Infobox settlement}} to include much detail. But it still omits post town, dialling code and emergency services, all of which are listed using {{Infobox UK place}} at Penzance (town and civil parish). It would be more consistent if the local government infoboxes were supersets of {{Infobox UK place}}. I appreciate, though, the risk of creating a Frankenstein's monster, since all the existing infoboxes are already formidably complicated.

— Richardguk (talk) 21:39, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I can produce maps for articles like New Malden showing its extent within Kingston. However, that map will be useful for New Malden only, and it would be no good for a different article like Surbiton. This is why location maps are easier - they immediately apply to all places in their area. Locators only ever apply to one place, so if there are dozens of locations, dozens of maps are needed. Its doable, but time-consuming, and as it stands this template can't switch from the location map to a specific locator. Without that ability (and consensus for it) there's no point doing a bulk creation/upload of locators. The Manchester map gives an idea what they will look like - a highlighted area shown on the location maps - but that map is not suitable for use in Greater Manchester's location map.

The pink maps (like in South Lakeland) should be deprecated as they are oversimplified and inaccurately show the county in isolation. Their replacements exist (also by me, so avoid "Nilfanion's maps" when describing location maps), but I've only partially replaced them in WP articles. A Spanish editor has done that in full, compare the map in es:South Lakeland. Checking the Spanish article should find the replacement file for most districts.

As for template mergers and the Plymouth/Penzance example, it would be better to enrich Infobox Settlement than to switch templates. (IMO splitting Plymouth into two articles would be silly, there is no distinction between urban area and unitary authority in that case). Infobox Settlement can already handle dialling codes, and should be able to incorporate the other info too. Any unification should head in that direction (I'm aware a minority would like to deprecate this template entirely...).--Nilfanion (talk) 22:57, 6 February 2013 (UTC)