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Suburbs and villages etc.

I'm at risk of opening a real can of worms here, but I guess it's best not to ignore the issue. I've been doing some work on the suburbs of Southampton lately and I thought I should get some comments about which "areas" merit an article of their own, if there are any guidelines, etc. I'm sure the situation in Southampton is mirrored across the country, so it's probably worth getting some thoughts here.

At present, the articles relate to loosely-defined areas (i.e. it would be hard to draw distinct boundaries around them) which would be recognised by some locals, but don't necessarily have any official status. I'm happy with the status quo, but I'm aware that the amiguity could lead to problems later.

An alternative would be to use parishes to define the areas. In Southampton's case, this would lead to the Portswood article being merged into Highfield, Townhill Park into Swaythling or Bitterne Park (I'm not sure which at the moment!), and so on - even though many locals see these as distinct areas in their own right.

Another alternative is to use postcodes. I used to live in the Palmers Green area of London, and the local concensus at the time was that Palmers Green was defined by the London N13 postcode (and not the Parish of Palmers Green). I notice that, looking at the current article for this area and its neighbours (such as Southgate), this convention hasn't been followed and there's a much more ambiguous definition. (For example, Broomfield Park which is in the N13 area, and in the Palmers Green parish, and locally recognised as being part of Palmers Green, is listed in the Southgate article's introduction as part of Southgate!)

Another inconsistency is with villages, when there are several villages within the same parish. Sometimes each village has an article of its own, and sometimes they are together (as in Compton and Shawford).

Considering that part of our project at the moment is looking at ensuring that we have an article for each civil parish, and there's also an article for many London postcodes, I'm concerned that there's going to be either a lot of repetition across articles or a lot of stubby articles if we continue without setting up some conventions.

So to recap, there are three options that I've suggested (and possibly more that you might think of) and it would be great to reach some concensus on how small areas like these should be handled:

  1. Status quo - no rigid definitions, lots of ambiguity, possibly lots of arguments over boundaries but allows flexibility where needed and requires no clean-up.
  2. Use civil parishes; merge sub-areas of civil parishes into the main parish articles, making sure adequate redirects are in place where necessary. May go against some local instincts but gives solid definitions of what's where and redirects would ensure that users are taken to the correct article(s).
  3. Use postcode areas to define suburbs etc.

Any thoughts? Waggers 10:48, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

What I've done is create seperate articles for the parish and villages in the case of where a parish contains several villages such as Brandon and Bretford and Bourton and Draycote. In cases where a parish is named after one village but contains others I've split the article into sections covering the village and parish (see Leamington Hastings and Wolfhampcote). That's my way of doing things, hope that helps. G-Man * 19:08, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, that is helpful. I guess the equivalent for urban areas is the status quo, so that saves a lot of effort too! I think what I need to do is make sure that where a suburb or village gives its name to a parish (which also includes other suburbs/villages), to ensure that this is mentioned in the article. I think I'll go with that - thanks for your input. Waggers 09:52, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
I've had similar problems with the villages in the Chew Valley, Somerset. I've done short articles for defined villages even though they might be parts of the same parish eg Stowey and Bishop Sutton which are both parts of Stowey Sutton where there is a disambiguation page. Pensford is in the civil parish of Publow - even though Pensford is far bigger & much more likely to be searched for. I'm confused by this & I'm sure other users might be, it also causes problems when using the 2001 census data (Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOAs)) as these are by the wards of the local authority which often cover several villages. I've also had discussion about the area of a valley - the geographers answer is that it must be defined by water catchment area even though local usage includes a wider area (see discussion on Talk:Chew Valley) but this hasn't been an issue with the current FA nomination. Rod 20:04, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
  • cough* I'd just thought I'd note here that Southampton doesn't actually have civil parishes, and hasn't had since 1912 (the residual coterminous urban parish of Southampton was abolished in 1974). Morwen - Talk 14:26, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team cooperation

Hello. I'm a member of the Version 1.0 Editorial Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing articles using these criteria, and we are are asking for your help. As you are most aware of the issues surrounding your focus area, we are wondering if you could provide us with a list of the articles that fall within the scope of your WikiProject, and that are either featured, A-class, B-class, or Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Do you have any recommendations? If you do, please post your suggestions at the listing of all active Places WikiProjects, and if you have any questions, ask me in the Work Via WikiProjects talk page or directly in my talk page. Thanks a lot! Titoxd(?!? - help us) 18:40, 23 March 2006 (UTC)


New stubs

A bunch of UK geography stubs were recently created. I saved them from speedy deletion but they are quite short and could use more information:

Cheers, Fang Aili talk 14:17, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

UK infoboxes linking to UK

Does anyone have any objection to these having a link to the UK? I've noticed many of the articles often do not have a link to UK anywhere on them. Mrsteviec 13:28, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

That is a much better layout. I approve wholeheartedly of your version! Owain (talk) 15:36, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I see you are forcing these upon people without a consensus. There is no need to add United Kingdom to them, as the entries for each country make it more than clear they are constituent countries and your edits suggest that England, Scotland & Wales aren't countries. 172.207.144.139 16:42, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

In what manner does these edits suggest that England, Scotland and Wales are not countries? --Siva1979Talk to me 17:47, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


I have been encouraging people writing about Cheshire in the Cheshire Project to include the Latitude and Longitude of the places in the InfoBox (for example, as used in the Haslington entry.) This then leads to a different map, which I personally think is a bit nicer on the eye than the current colours, and the contrast is improved, I think. It does, however, have a disadvantage in being slightly less accurate, because the dot used seems larger. Is there any view about which style of InfoBox should be used? How easy might it be to vary this style of InfoBox to include thumbnails of the county and the settlement's position within that county thumbnail, for example?  DDStretch  (talk) 03:40, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

How to write about towns and villages

I'm working on a guide, here, if anybody has any suggestions. Joe D (t) 10:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The example is fine for somewhere like Northampton, where there is no controversy over its county. For anywhere where the ceremonial county does not match the administrative arrangements and/or historic county a far more workable consensus is to leave any mention of the county until after the physical geography. The first sentence would describe the location in terms of physical geography and uncontroversial terms, then a second sentence would give the administrative/ceremonial county first and then the historic one, if different. Examples of this include Hull and Totley (there are better examples but I can't think of them). Yorkshire Phoenix 10:18, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
This has already been thrashed out: see Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(places)#Counties_of_Britain. --Mais oui! 10:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I'd welcome this guidance especially about unitary authorities where the council is not in a county eg Bath and North East Somerset is not in Somerset as far as local councils etc is concerned - but parts of it are geographically & historically. Another problem is where other organisations use different areas/boundaries examples include; English Nature is the designating body for SSSI in England, and uses the 1974-1996 county system (Metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties of England), so sites which "should" be in List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset are in List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Avon and English Heritage which uses another system List of English Heritage properties uses "Bristol & Bath" ie the old Avon - I find this all confusing & I'm sure other users do as well - so clear guidance would be useful. — Rod talk 10:38, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps this discussion could be continued on the sub-page talk. --Blisco 11:56, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

New template

For talk pages to serve the following purposes:

  • categorise articles according to WP 1.0
  • add to do lists
  • advertise the project
{{WPUKgeo|
quality=start
|priority=low
|todo=
|map=yes/no
|pop=yes/no
|infobox=yes/no
|photo=County
}}

Where quality and priority are defined here and here. "map", "pop" and "infobox" refer to whether the article has a map, population data and infobox, and puts those without in a category. If you set photo it will add to the requested photos category for that county. Joe D (t) 12:24, 22 August 2006 (UTC) (edited 12:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC), 15:08, 25 August 2006 (UTC))

I am a big fan of {{WPUKgeo}}. What is the photo parameter for? It doesn't seem to do anything. I have also left a request at Template talk:WPUKgeo --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 13:37, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

OpenStreetMap invites this project to a party

Hi Folks. OpenStreetMap are having a mapping party in Rutland over the weekend of October 14/15, 2006. Our plan is to make a map of the whole county in a weekend. We currently expect around 10 to 20 people to be there.

I'd like to invite members of this project, and any other Wikipedian who reads this, to come along and join the fun. You don't need any special skills or equipment and anyone to turns up could choose to help with the mapping or just add some more content to the pages about Rutland and it's villages on Wikipedia.

More details are at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/WikiProject_Rutland_England.

80N 15:34, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Rutland wanted list

There are at least a dozen people from OpenStreetMap who will be on the ground in Rutland next weekend for the mapping party. Rutland is COTM for October. If anyone needs specific information, photographs or anything else about the county, or any of its towns or villages please list your needs here. 80N 10:25, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Have a look at Geograph (link) before you go. Most of the county, at least as far as villages go, seems to be fairly well covered, and the images can be reused on Wikipedia under the Creative Commons licence. --Blisco 10:44, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Presumably anything in the Places of Interest section which doesn't have an entry/photo ie:

— Rod talk 15:39, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Update

There was an excellent turnout for the weekend. We got GPS logs for virtually every road. So far 30 out of ~50 villages have been comprehensively mapped, including both towns - Oakham and Uppingham. I have a few photos, but had battery problems, so not as many as I would have hope to get. I'll update the appropriate villages pages as and when I get some time. We are doing Surrey Hills next weekend if anyone is interested. 80N 22:55, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Place-name meanings

If anyone wants me to, I'll do place-name meanings in the articles, this could be helpful. --TheM62Manchester 10:22, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

miles (km)

Have we got it written down anywhere that we use miles first (and km second) for UK articles? Mrsteviec 19:02, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

If not, then we should! Owain (talk) 19:19, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I think the Wikipedia wide policy is that we have distances in both metric and imperial, but which comes first is an issue for individual pages (somebody may come and prove me wrong on this though). Unless anybody objects (I don't) you can add this to the county and settlement guidelines. Joe D (t) 21:07, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Well considering roadsigns across the UK are marked in miles, I think that's the way the articles relating to places should be. To include kilometres in brackets should be optional, or standard. But certainly miles first. --Mal 06:12, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I was under the impression that it was "miles (km)" by convention as the road signs in the UK use miles. I've been reverting an anon IP who has been swapping the two around and wanted some guidance to point to. It looks like we don't have such a thing yet. Mrsteviec 07:26, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Is there a UK-related Manual of Style in existence? --Mal 15:19, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

New infobox maps option

I have added a new maps option to {{Infobox England place}} (others may wish to copy it to the other UK infoboxes). The new fields: 

 |LocalMap=        Dorset
 |LocalMapX=       110
 |LocalMapY=       50
 |UKMapX=          72
 |UKMapY=          140

Can be used instead of the Map, Image or MapX/Y fields. You can see it at work on Wimborne Minster.

A few notes:

  • This uses {{GBthumb2}}, which is a smaller thumbnail than that used for the MapX/Y fields, therefore it will require different coordinates.
  • The local map is named "{{{LocalMap}}}4dot.png". So far I have only made a map for Dorset. If you wish to use this in your local area you may need to make a map. I modified the numbered districts map for the ceremonial county found on the county's page -- quick and easy.
  • I don't have the software to save .SVG files. Somebody might like to convert the maps and modify {{UKcountythumb}} accordingly?

Joe D (t) 15:44, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Will this work for places in Northern Ireland? --Mal 00:38, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Not yet, this is just the English Infobox. However, the code can be copied to the other home nations infoboxes (might need modifying: I'm not sure if all of NI and Scotland are covered by the map -- certainly Shetland is cut off). Joe D (t) 12:29, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Info Box - Llandudno and other Welsh Towns

I am an English speaking editor and resident of Llandudno but (like most of us) I know perfectly well how to pronounce the name of that town. If a reader is a trained linguist he may also know how to pronounce it. However, if in doubt the IPA may well be a help in pointing an inquirer towards correct pronunciation. At the moment this occasionally valuable information tends to occupy that crucial first paragraph of many articles about places outside England (or even within). It would therefore be a very great help to have a place for 'pronunciation' in the info box, Is this possible? NoelWalley 19:02, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I've worked out the code you'd need to add, I think. I haven't added it or tested it because I'm not entirely sure where would be the best place to put it. I don't think Wales is the only place that should have this field, many English towns and cities already have IPA in their articles. 

  |-
  {{#if:{{{Pronunciation|}}}|{{!}}[[International Phonetic Alphabet|Pronunciation]]:{{!}}{{{Pronunciation}}} }}
  |-

Joe D (t) 19:36, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that, there doesn't seem to be a best place. Perhaps following 'historic county' under 'other' might be suitable? Regards NoelWalley 07:54, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Wow...

I see the schools are back. The amount of twelve year olds vandalising articles about their home towns has shot up today ;) -- Joe D (t) 16:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Try being told off by your school because you created an article on them... -- Dev920 23:12, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Did they really tell you off for that? I think your teachers should learn a bit about wikipedia. Tell them to read the Wikipedia:Schools FAQ. -- Nojer2 15:28, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Update

Given it is now September, might it be a good idea to update your proposed goals by June on your front page? Dev920 23:12, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Potential sub-project - King George's Fields

I was wondering about being bold and simply listing a comparatively minor potential sub-project - Wikipedia:WikiProject King George's Fields - on the main project page. But two things struck me. The first that it would be impolite to assume that this project would be at all interested in having a sub-project, and the second was that I was not sure quite where to list it.

The project is a mixture of history and geography. The King George's Fields, themselves are a monument, are a huge monument, to the UK's King George V. They are geographically dispersed, and there are 471 of them in the UK, with a very few in foreign climes. I have realised the enormity of trying to do this all myself, though have made reasonable progress. I am currently developing the project page itself, so thee will be a few edits to it to get it set up properly.

Even if you do not feel that it has a place here as a sub-project you may wish individually to put some time towards it. Fiddle Faddle 18:38, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

This looks like a very good candidate for a sub-project. Go ahead and get it started. If you want maps for it you could create a special project on OpenStreetMap as well. Here's the place to set up projects for special subjects: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/OpenStreetMap:Community_Portal#Specialised_Subjects. 80N 10:14, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, I am started. I have also left a message on the Openstreet,ap talk page asking for help with protocol (etc) there There are only so many wikis one can play with. Fiddle Faddle 11:33, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations to Weymouth

On a successful Good Article review. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 13:33, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Is Corsham a B-Class article yet?

Last month, Corsham was tagged as stub-class by WP 1.0 quality criteria. Steinsky and I made some major upgrades in the last 24 hours. I am not sure if there is a process for upgrading it to a B-Class, so I just changed the tag (at Talk:Corsham). However, as I was a contributing editor, that is a conflict of interest, so perhaps a WikiProject UK geography member would like to take a look. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 13:47, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Contradictory guidance about infoboxes

The Resources and guidelines, Guidelines section has contradictory advice about infoboxes. There is a link to Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements, which recommends the use of Template:Infobox England place. The section also recommends the use a different infobox on Talk:List of places in England. Alan Pascoe 22:42, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

No-one appears to have a view on this matter, so I'll go ahead and make the changes needed to remove the inconsistencies. Alan Pascoe 14:22, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Use of the England place infobox in Cornwall articles

There is a discussion taking place on Talk:Cornwall about the use of the England place infobox in Cornwall articles. Alan Pascoe 20:27, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Milton Keynes

Oddly, the Milton Keynes article hasn't been rated. It would be great to get it up to FA in time for its 40th birthday in January 2007, but that needs to start with a list of what needs to change to get it there. Comments welcome at Talk:Milton Keynes --Concrete Cowboy 17:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 17:32, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm interested in joining the UK geo project - specifically for editting articles in Greater Manchester. However, is this project effectively defunkt (hope that does not offend if it is not)? I'm seeing little progress being made, and alot of the tasks etc are outdated. This leads me to believe this project needs a push and a little leadership being taken. Jhamez84 23:07, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Shaw and Crompton

Further to my comment above... I've contributed significantly and worked hard on the UK geo article that is Shaw and Crompton town in Greater Manchester. I would like it to become a good article and have requested a peer review to improve the article. The response has been poor to say the least... I'm hoping the UK geo project would be more interested in leaving feedback with regards to how to improve this article further. Hope someone is willing to help (and may sway my opinion as to my comments above the S&C subtitle), Jhamez84 23:11, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

UK places coords

These Lists of United Kingdom locations by name contain coordinates , with <nowiki>{{<nowiki>title d}} these can add geographical links to any pages on UK locations. GameKeeper 22:27, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

'Borough of X' versus 'X (borough)'

There is an attempt to create a consensus for a change in the present custom on names of Borough articles at Wikipedia talk:List of English districts to disambiguate. Please contribute. --Concrete Cowboy 21:33, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Bath

Bath is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy (Talk) 19:07, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Bath lost it's featured article status - there is now a survey on Talk:Bath about renaming the city to either "Bath (city)" or "Bath, Somerset" to enable the thing you wash in to have the article title "Bath". Those with expertise in UK naming conventions might wish to vote/comment.— Rod talk 14:20, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Categories - Natives of/People from

I would like to initiate discussion about these categories. A large number have been created covering settlements, such as Category:People from Loughton. I have been updating these, using a template, so they get included in Category:Natives of Essex etc. and Category:People by city or town in England. This mix of Natives of/People from is less than satisfactory as they have different meanings. I would like to hear views on how they should be arranged. MRSC • Talk 23:39, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, in general "natives of" has been used for counties and "people from" for towns. No idea why, but "natives of" may be appropriate for both. "People from" can also cover "once lived there", which isn't really a useful categorisation. -- Necrothesp 23:54, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
In which case a switch to "Natives of" would need a thorough check of all people in categories such as Category:People from London. MRSC • Talk 00:02, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Indeed it would. I have already gone through the cats for Merseyside, Greater Manchester, West Midlands, Tyne and Wear, Cheshire, Lancashire, Warwickshire and Cornwall and all their subcats and done just this, removing people who just live(d) in a town or county but did not grow up there. -- Necrothesp 00:15, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Great. I am happy to change over to a totally "natives of" scheme and filter through the London cat. Let's give it a little time to see if there are any other voices. MRSC • Talk 00:31, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

From what I've seen, in general editors have already been adhering to this policy. I didn't have to remove a great number of people from the categories I checked through. I don't think it will be a difficult thing to implement (although obviously some editors will continue to add articles to inappropriate cats - that can't be stopped completely). -- Necrothesp 00:54, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Just a thought. Take Madonna. She is most certainly not a native of London but it could be stated that she is from London, as she lives there. Could a better split be People born in X and People who reside(d) in X? Regan123 12:51, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Definately not a native of London & according to the article about her she lives at Ashcombe House, in Wiltshire - therefore not "from London" either. But on a more serious note how long does someone have to live in an area for them to be "from" - could get messy and difficult— Rod talk 13:37, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Sorry I thought she had lived in London - don't keep up with Heat etc :-) That is an issue but this is an interesting problem. What would be the dividing line? Should there be a timescale - a month, year, 2? I don't know the answer but individuals could be added to these categories.
The easiest solution is to just put people who were born in an area and not have a from category. Therefore should we change these to People Born in X? But does that cause a problem with people born in one town but actually from another? As an example people in Newcastle-under-Lyme are often born in the City General in Stoke-on-Trent. Where are they from then? Regan123 13:47, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
I think anyone who was born in a town or brought up in a town (i.e. lived there for at least a few years at any time until they left school) can be reasonably categorised as a native of that town. People identify with the place in which they were raised more than any other (I certainly identify more with the place I spent most of my childhood than with the place I was born or any place I've lived since). That's certainly how I've been applying the categorisation. So, in answer to your question, both Newcastle-under-Lyme and Stoke-on-Trent, since both could, I think, legitimately claim them. -- Necrothesp 11:02, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to leave it a little while longer, and if no serious objections are raised, I will begin migrating the categories to a "Natives of..." scheme. MRSC • Talk 07:20, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I would just like to add that I agree that all 'People from...' categories should become 'Natives of...' (and the entries sorted out accordingly). This makes things much clearer. 'Native' has a definite meaning. 'From' is much too vague. However, I still think that categories for people who lived in a place are very useful. There are Scottish categories for both Category:People associated with Scotland by council area and Category:Scottish people by council area (and sub-categories for towns and cities). The latter are the natives (although some sub-categories unfortunately use 'People from...'). This seems like the way to go for English and Welsh counties too. Verica Atrebatum 16:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
While I agree that "Natives" may be clearer, I think it would risk losing some important information. If somebody who wasn't born or brought up in a particular place but later adopts it as their home town, I think they should be included in the category. There's a danger of over-defining things here. As an encyclopaedia we need to reflect what actually happens, and to exclude the "adoption" of home towns would be wrong in my opinion. It could even be seen as discriminatory. Waggers 11:15, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
This should only be done if it can be shown that the person really does identify more with their current home area than with their place of birth/childhood and has lived there for a long time. Otherwise we'll have well-known people categorised under every place they ever lived by obsessive partisans of that place (of whom there sadly seem to be rather a lot on Wikipedia), and that would make the categorisation pointless in my opinion. -- Necrothesp 11:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Hence why we have to stick to the strict meaning of native, beacuse everyone knows what that means and it is unambiguous. If 'Natives of...' (in their correct meaning) are not the categories you wish to create, use a different word or phrase. Changing the word's meaning is not helpful, it is confusing. If we do stick with 'Natives of...', I still believe that an equivalent 'People associated with...' category should also be created, as with the Scottish categories. People who adopt a town or were accidentally or by NHS design born outside the place they consider themselves to be 'from' may be included in one of these. Verica Atrebatum 15:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm up for that, sounds like a good compromise - although you could arguably merge "natives" and "associates" into "people from" (why have two categories when you can have one) and we'd be back to the status quo. I think the "NHS design" thing is interesting too - essentially it says that anywhere that doesn't have a hospital with a maternity unit would have no natives (apart from home-births and those that didn't get to the hospital in time etc.). I'm not convinced such a distinction would be helpful. Take Benny Hill for instance - born in Southampton (the nearest maternity unit) but to a family who lived in Eastleigh, brought up in Eastleigh, had a milk round in Eastleigh, from Eastleigh. I think calling him a "native of Southampton" would be misleading. Waggers 10:10, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

The NHS thing has also crossed my mind but also the effect of the post towns on the geography used to describe where people are from. Another issue has come up that has delayed any action on this: There are some categories that contain people by local government district such as, apparently Category:People from Knowsley. I really don't think using post-74 local government districts is a good way to categorise people (especially retrospectively). I propose we remove these and either find the individual settlement for each person or move them up to the county-level "natives of". MRSC • Talk 18:47, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Wigan and surrounding areas

Some of you may be aware of the current mess and ciruclar editing going on with Wigan, Billinge and associated famous people being from/not from the area. I am trying to resolve them by spliting Wigan and Metropolitan Borough of Wigan which I believe is appropriate. The issue is that anon IP after anon IP is basically changing the entries to whatever their POV is. I would try and engage in a constructive debate, but seeing as people have been called "prat" and so on, it would just go around in circles again. I would like to achieve a consesus so that we can stop this circular editing, and wondered if any other editors had an opinion? Regan123 23:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the issues are with Wigan, but we've had similar problems with the "Notable people from Southampton" list. There was already a Sotonians category, and the list on the Southampton article was overly long and unwieldly, and in danger of duplicating the category. We achieved concensus on the talk page to keep the list on the article as short as we could, possibly rotating through some of the people in the category. We placed a note in the article code to that effect, stating that any additions to the list should be discussed on the talk page first and achieve concensus. Any changes to the list without discussion are treated as vandalism and reverted. This approach seems to work fairly well. Waggers 11:10, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I have been trying to get a compromise going but every time we get close some edits are made and the whole cycle starts again. Apart from continuing to wikify articles there is an ongoing circular edit war going on. Neither side is prepared to compromise and I don't think they will agree to an arbitration. Are there some experienced editors who could come over to Talk:Wigan and lend a hand? Thanks, Regan123 22:40, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Hyde, Greater Manchester

Please come to Talk: Hyde, Greater Manchester and give your views on the proposed move. -- Beardo 16:58, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Duplicate categories?

Hi. I found a couple categories that appear to be redundant, but I thought it might be a good idea to run it past you guys before nominating them for a merger. There's Category:History of England by locality and also the more recently created Category:Histories of cities in England. Should they be merged? If so, which one should stay? - EurekaLott 17:21, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't disagree with a merger. History of England by locality strikes me as the one that should survive. Regan123 17:36, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
In the interests of demonstrating consensus, I agree totally with Regan123. Waggers 09:54, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Is this going ahead? --Regan123 01:08, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject

Just a query, is this WP:UK or only about the geography...? Simply south 23:25, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

It depends how strict you're being about the definition of "geography" - the project includes articles about places (cities, towns, villages etc.) which include historical, cultural and other sections, as well as purely geographical features (hills, mountains, rivers, etc.). The project doesn't cover articles on British people, organisations or event (other than those which are included in geographical articles of course) so is not WP:UK. Those are all my perceptions, other editors may think differently. Hope that helps, Waggers 09:52, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Image:Flag_of_England_(bordered).svg —vs— Image:Flag_of_England.svg

Hi - I've been trying to go through various articles and (mainly) templates to see if Image:Flag_of_England_(bordered).svg should replace Image:Flag_of_England.svg - it's very time-consuming as I don't have any special software like popups or know how to program a bot. If anyone does, please could you give me a hand - thanks!! — superbfc [ talk | cont ] — 01:21, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Category Naming

Interested editors may like to look at Category Talk:Merseyside, where there is a discussion ongoing about how to name categories for local government districts.Regan123 14:23, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


Proposed Project (or sub-project) for Cheshire

I hope I haven't trodden on any toes by doing this, but I took as a precedent the project about Cornwall. I've listed a proposed project concerning Cheshire on Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals. I think it can easily co-exist with this project, which I would not want to diminish or withdraw from myself at all. If you are interested in contributing to this, please add your name to list at the appropriate place. If you think it might be better placed as a sub-project of this project, please say so, and let us discuss it. Many thanks.  DDStretch  talk 17:39, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Given the support shown, I thought it useful to create an initial project page for Cheshire. It can be seen here. Obviously, I think it will be necessary for any project to continue to liase with this and other related projects, and so I was wondering what to do about the templates currently created by this project which are specific to Cheshire? Could someone just move them over to the Cheshire project? Once again, I do not want to cause any disagreement between this project and the Cheshire project at all.  DDStretch  (talk) 22:04, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 21:11, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

GBthumb2 bug

The Template Template:GBthumb2 shows the dot in an incorrect position. The main problem is that it varies between web browsers. I have reproduced screenshots to demonstrate. Now [Image:WimbourneMinsterMapBug.jpg|center]] The question is can we fix it or do we start replacing all the maps? We cannot leave it as it is. MortimerCat 01:51, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I'vwe noticed this bug with both Cranleigh and Camberley, which are both shown as almost on the south coast rather than where they should be. My browser is IE6. JH 22:08, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I have discovered that infobox England place is a better one to use. See Eastbourne for example. This one gives an accurate location. There is a slight difference between browsers, but its insignificant compared to the size of the dot. MortimerCat 23:19, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

New Table

I would like to start a debate regarding the use of a new template on various UK settlement pages, to include the union flag at the bottom, unlike the English version (Template:Infobox England place) in the hope that it will increase public awareness of the difference between England and Britain. In order to do this a concensus is necessary and I would therefore appreciate any possible support. A copy of this template can be seen on the Market Deeping page or here is the actual template Template:Infobox England place with UK flag for UK map. The current use of the England flag at the bottom of such tables lacks continuity between the map of the UK and the English flag, creating confusion. Many thanks for any support. --Ash online 09:43, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi there. I am currently monitoring {{Infobox England place}}, and I notice you've attempted to replace the St George cross with the Union flag. FWIW, I'm pretty ambivalent about using the UK or the home nations to provide location references in articles [introductions], although I respect and abide by the current consensus per the UK/Home Nations debate.
Please consider that any changes to the status quo need to be applied across the board (i.e. to Scottish/Welsh/NI articles too), and not just to English articles to correct some bias you percieve in the way people view England/Britain/the UK. Logically, you'd have to change {{Infobox Scotland place}} too – the map being of Scotland and not the UK is not a compelling argument against this. You'll notice that the map used on the England infobox includes the RoI and a bit of France too.
I'd respectfully submit that creating {{Infobox England place with UK flag for UK map}} comes close to WP:POINT, especially the way it's worded. You'd be better off making the case for the map on the England box to have the yellow-shaded area redrawn to reflect just England (I'd support that).
Ultimately, I think that your proposal would have to overturn the existing consensus governing all references to the UK/Home Nations, so be prepared for a long debate and maybe a few Cornish Nationalists too. Best wishes. — mholland 01:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Just a suggestion. How about having the Union flag and the George Cross (or appropriate national flag). The Union flag indicating it is in the UK, and the second flag indicating which home nation. Favouring one over the other will be very controversial. MortimerCat 19:41, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Good idea Mdcollins1984 23:45, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, the least controversial suggestion of all would be no flag for UK or Home Nations. That way, you avoid the chip-spitting of some Northern Irish editors who find that Article X has a Union flag on it, and the Cornish nationalists, who were fuelling a lot of this out of an assuredly good-faith desire to expunge articles on Cornwall of any reference to it being a county of England.
The status quo is working and meets policy; changing it would be hard work, and while there are good arguments here, I'm not convinced yet. — mholland 00:43, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
(Oh, and see here for the current debate on flag icons in general. — mholland 17:31, 1 February 2007 (UTC))
I agree – remove the flag entirely from all UK place infoboxes. As far as I can see it serves no purpose other than to provoke edit wars. --Blisco 19:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Altrincham

I've had a go at trying to bring the Altrincham article into a recognised guideline format for places. Could somebody please please take a look at it and decide whether it can stop being a stub or tell us how what needs to happen for it to stop being a stub. It's recognised that more work needs to be done on citation but it was important to work on the format first and get people focused on improving the article and off the never-ending debate about naming conventions. I've changed the format of the discussion page to try and focus attention on improvement - hope this is OK. Cosmopolitancats 11:10, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Blimey. That article is distinctly unstubby. It needs work, but it's not been a stub for a long time. I briefly wondered what you meant here, but I noticed that the project template on the talk page still said 'stub class'. I've taken the liberty of reclassifying. It wouldn't achieve GA status, but it's certainly not a stub either. I've never rated an article in this field before, so a project member may like to check it over. — mholland 11:37, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks - I'd still appreciate guidance as to what is required re adequate citation in some areas. Everything I've added today has been referenced and I feel that the reference to lack of citation is now unwarranted. Granted it still needs work but further citation needs guidance relevant to places.Cosmopolitancats 13:09, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
I've removed the unreferenced tag. Your judgment is as good as anyone else's as far as the referencing goes. You're probably correct in thinking that the article as a whole probably no longer justifies the tag, but there are a few {{fact}}s that need sourcing still on the article. If you want further advice on improving the article, you can open it up to Peer Review. — mholland 14:15, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Discussion pages for places

Moved from main page (The bottom of the main page is turning into a discussion section, it fooled me.)


It would be very helpful when setting up a format for a place if the discussion page could be set up with a similar format so that comments can then be inserted and follow in an order that new people can understand otherwise it can get exceedingly messy and IMO contributes to people not understanding how they should contribute or being put off from contributing at all. Could some thought be given to this pleaseCosmopolitancats 11:10, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Here is what I set up for my current project. What needs to be done. Each section in the article was given a corresponding section on the talk page. It has worked well, but there are some disadvantages. We have to check the history section to see whats new, and new readers may not see it as it is now in the middle of the talk page. I thought about setting up its own page, but again new readers may not find it.
Has anyone got any better methods? MortimerCat 12:02, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

If there was a template of headings which followed the format for that settlement, then all comments would be contained within the right section and all work for that section could be identified within that section. So for example, I've now just added this comment in here rather than right at the end because it says 'Discussion pages for places'. See Talk:Bowdon, Greater Manchesterfor what I introduced for that settlement and how it might work in a smaller settlement. (This settlement had masses of changes and not one seemed to have been referenced on the discussion page)

I think a link to how to write about settlements (or whichever is appropriate) would also be very helpful. It helps people to get it right first time and cuts down on the need for editing and releases more time for creating new input.Cosmopolitancats 08:47, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

There is often contention on UK-related pages about which city is the largest, the basis for urban populations, etc. The EU's statistical office Eurostat, recognising the same problem EU-wide, made a concerted effort to come up with a harmonised definition for urban area populations called LUZ (Large Urban Zones), the top segment of which is displayed on Wikipedia at Larger Urban Zones (LUZ) in the European Union. Can I propose we use this data, which is the most harmonised and scientific we have access to, for population sizes on pages for big cities like London, Birmingham, Manchester, etc and on pages specifically about the topic like Second city of the United Kingdom? What would we have to do to harmonise this, which seems a desirable goal. MarkThomas 16:25, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi there. Current practice, here and elsewhere, tends to be using ONS figures, or figures from the local government website (which I suppose ultimately derive from the ONS too, or from electoral rolls). To achieve 'harmonisation' would involve adjusting a large number of articles on British settlements. I notice that the page you linked to ranks Manchester above Birmingham: I'm aware that the Second City debate is a live issue in the media, and I would strongly oppose using these data for POV-pushing purposes. Otherwise, I don't object to your suggestion that population stats for this class of settlements should be harmonised – I wouldn't, however, volunteer to go through and update all of the relevant articles. Sorry! — mholland 16:53, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Let me say first of all that I categorically am not proposing this because of some bizarre POV between Birmingham and Manchester - personally I couldn't care less which is biggest, my sole concern is objectivity. I want us to use standard figures based on the same source for the largest cities. The most authoritative data on that is now the Eurostat study which itself uses the ONS data you refer to. In this way, (a) a casual Wikipedia user can compare cities across Europe, (b) we get round the difficulty of variation between Scottish, Welsh and English counting methods, (c) the data refers to actual built-up areas rather than variations on local authority boundaries which are not a good guide to true city sizes and (d) we would harmonise the articles within the UK which currently draw on different sources and are not always comparable. I would be very happy to do the legwork if other editors would be prepared to take a good look at this. MarkThomas 18:22, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay. I confess, I don't quite understand the figures and the methodology involved in the Eurostat data. It does appear though, that because the (supranational) survey rejects national definitions of what a city/urban settlement is, the areas to which the data properly apply do not match up with Wikipedia's articles. For example, the figure for the London LUZ belongs in London (Larger Urban Zone), which does not exist: you can't put the figure in the infobox slot on London, because London covers the city which is a subset of the LUZ.
Does that make sense? I apologise if I'm not being clear. To pick another example, the Eurostat population figure for the city of Paris (2.13million) differs (slightly but significantly) from the figure given on the article Paris (2,153,600). Which figure is better? (The number on Paris isn't sourced.)
Having read through the Eurostat stuff, I'd be happy for you to replace the figures given for city level with the Eurostat numbers. The LUZ numbers are interesting, but I'm not sure where they would fit in on the articles currently dealing with major European cities. — mholland 18:47, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

If you look at the notes tab on the ONS spreadsheets, they say that they don't really recognise city boundaries but they do give a figure for the 'traditional' city limit "because people like to see it". (I noticed this because Milton Keynes never had a 'traditional limit', so the ONLY data they provide is for the "contiguous urban area" (is that the same as LUZ?)). --Concrete Cowboy 13:28, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

see also List of English cities by population --Concrete Cowboy 13:31, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Where to start?

This is really interesting. Being new to this site, but love thinking about economics, geography, urban and rural society in Britain, etc, wondering where to start. In a few sentences, where would people suggest I start editing - pick a county or city where knowledge is strong, or roam around looking for errors, or do something around a specific theme? Suggestions appreciated! Thanks from a total newbie. CreativeLogic 22:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia. Chose a subject you know well, and jump right in. I would suggest a good one is the Town/Village where you live. Read the talk page, see whats been happening, is there a project associated with it. Add a paragraph, sit back and wait for a reaction. MortimerCat 22:51, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

English Heritage

There is a small edit war occurring with English Heritage in Cornwall. A Cornish protest group is putting a biased (in my opinion) section in all of the Cornish sites, see list here, and a section in the main English Heritage article. Could a few independant people pop along, and express their opinion please. Putney Bridge 00:24, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest that the sign-removal case is notable in the context of those sites actually involved (i.e. those mentioned in the BBC report), but probably not notable in the wider context of the article English Heritage itself, and bordering on totally irrelevant to those articles dealing with sites which were not targets of the group's campaign. Is there anywhere in particular you'd like me to express this opinion?  :) — mholland 02:12, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

The latest edits were at Tintagel Castle, this would be a good place to join in the debate. MortimerCat 07:54, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Tintagel Castle. If we can come to an agreement here, we can rollout to the rest of the articles if necessary. However, I think all the sites in Cornwall were attacked, the news stories do not list them all individually. Putney Bridge 13:06, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Writing about areas which aren't settements

On the project page there are guidelines for writing about countries & settlements, but there are loads of UK geography articles about other areas eg rivers, SSSIs hills, lakes, caves etc & we don't have any guidelines for these - does anyone think this would be useful? I was looking for these in the hope of getting some guidance to get Mendip Hills up to FA status & have looked at Wikipedia:WikiProject British and Irish hills but would appreciate other ideas.— Rod talk 10:11, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Amersham

I'm new to this, but I've had a go at improving the article on Amersham in Buckinghamshire. If anyone has a minute to pass comment on what I've done before I wade into it more fully I'd be very grateful. I would say that I don't regard the content I've added so far as necessarily the most important, merely the most accessible to me as a starting point.Milton25 22:28, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I've made many additions to Amersham now, mainly by taking ideas for elements of the article from other articles about British towns. Comments much appreciated. Milton25 09:28, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

England and Wales

Just bringing to everyones attention a deletion request for the England and Wales article. Please join in the discussion. MortimerCat 23:06, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Mentioned there its use as a statistical entity - which needs putting in the article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Totnesmartin (talk • contribs) 13:12, 11 March 2007 (UTC).

Mendip Hills FAC

Thanks to many of you for your expert guidance and edits of Mendip Hills. I have now put it up as a Featured Article Candidate & comments, support or opposition is being recorded at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Mendip Hills.— Rod talk 11:25, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

New Infoboxes

A new infobox has been developed for use on UK places articles. If you have any concerns or appraisals, please make them at Template talk:Infobox UK place. Regards, Jhamez84 01:55, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I have already made it plain that I do not support the dropping of the historic county field, but my objections have been ignored. If this is supposed to replace the existing templates it absolutely needs to provide the same information as the previous ones or a lot of editors are going to be very annoyed. Owain (talk) 13:58, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Consensus can change. It has. consensus has been assessed three times in response to your complaints, and in each case, the new consensus was not to your liking.  DDStretch  (talk) 14:07, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:EH icon.png

Image:EH icon.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 05:17, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

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