Talk:Bromley London Borough Council

Criticism section

I've twice removed some additions to the Criticism section, because in my opinion they violated WP:NPOV, WP:RS, WP:NOR and WP:SYNTH. This was first added by an IP a few days ago, and it's clearly a violation of the above policies. It was reverted soon afterwards.

Very similar material, expanded, was added by User:MrPhibbs here, and I reverted it. It contained all the same problems as the original.

Next, User:Ehrenkater made this attempt at compromise, but I thought it was still problematic. A private email is not a reliable source. The statement "This is contrary to some expert opinion and to the core message of the UK police's Speed Awareness Courses attended by motorists found guilty of speeding offences.{{fact}}" is unsourced. And the statement "The council has declared that it is philosophically opposed to standard traffic-calming measures such as speed cushions" is not supported by the cited source.

I tried my own compromise, to produce this, which is the only content with any reliable sourcing (I thought). User:Ehrenkater noted that what was left is not criticism (In fact, nothing that anyone has tried to add has been supported by any actual sourced criticism - the criticism has been pure OR/synthesis), and placed the material in its own section to be neutral, which seemed fair.

But then it struck me that the only source left was the map, and that is uploaded as "own work" by the uploader, User:MrPhibbs. MrPhibbs has since stated that it is not actually his own copyright to release, so I'll go and request its deletion as a copyright violation as soon as I've posted this.

My conclusion is that none of this material was supported by any reliable sources (even after all the POV editorializing is removed), and so there's nothing of it than is currently valid. I have removed what was left, and I now seek discussion and consensus on whether any of it should go back. Perhaps the statement about 20-mph calming would be OK in its own section (as suggested by Ehrenkater) would be acceptable if sourced to the original source of that map? Opinions welcome please. 823510731 (talk) 17:56, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

• As this is within the scope of WikiProject London, I've requested assistance at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject London#Opinions sought at Talk:Bromley London Borough Council please. 823510731 (talk) 18:01, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

OK, thanks for this. I have just now written to 20splenty to ask them for copyright permission to use this map... but I'm not sure how I would upload it, even then, because the question you get asked is "do you have copyright?"... do you happen to know what the procedure is?

Concerning the substance of the matter. I note that user Ehrenkater used this phrase about "minority of Labour-run councils". It's not difficult to characterise this as highly non-neutral, and indeed irrelevant, and therefore unacceptable.

It is perfectly plain to me that a description of aspects of the traffic policy implemented by BLBC, and criticism thereof, are of interest, and germane to the subject of the article.

As soon as I have permission to use the map I shall therefore feel it is reasonable once again to try to upload it, and display it in a large enough size to be legible.

I shall also attempt to draw attention to the statement of intent about speed cushions, etc. on the BLBC website. But perhaps instead of "Criticism" I can entitle the section "Policy relating to traffic-calming" or some such.MrPhibbs (talk) 18:24, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi. I think we can probably get together a section on traffic calming (Ehrenkater suggested "Traffic management philosophy", although I'd suggest "Traffic management policy" might be better), as long as we can source it properly. The copyright policy links I gave you over in your Welcome message should cover getting the map released - though we don't actually need the map itself to be released for upload, as I suggested on your talk page, we really only need a link to the site page that holds it (I couldn't find it myself, so can you tell us where the link is?) I've also explained on your talk page why we do not show images at full size by default - policy is to show them thumbnail size and you just click on them to see full size. As for criticism of the policy, we'd need actual reliable sources voicing such criticism. We cannot do our own research to deduce that criticism is warranted and cannot express any criticism in Wikipedia's voice. I'll be happy to help with it, but I don't have time now. I suggest we leave this discussion open for a while and I'll see what I can propose tomorrow? In the meantime, I would ask you not to reinsert the disputed content until we have a consensus here first - I know it's a lot of alphabet soup and it's confusing for newcomers, but please have a read of WP:EW, as I'd hate to see you fall foul of it and get blocked. 823510731 (talk) 18:50, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)First, figure 2.1 on page 4 of Review of 20 mph Zones in London Borough, a TRL report prepared for TfL, shows one or more 20 mph zones in every London borough except Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea in November 2002. I'm surprised at the claim that there are less now than there were in 2002 and would like to see that substantiated with a reliable source. Second, the "Criticism" section of a Wikipedia article is not a blogging space for editors to raise their own criticisms, it is a space in which we may describe criticism and as ever our descriptions are constrained by policies and guidelines on notability, sourcing and neutral point of view. NebY (talk) 18:53, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Good points. While I don't mean to doubt 20splenty's honesty, it is an advocacy site and something up-to-date from a more neutral source is probably what's really needed. 823510731 (talk) 19:04, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Focus

Remember this is an article about a council, not a borough. It should be focussed on the history of the council, not the borough for which we have a separate article. Wording should talk about the councils, not the boroughs/districts. MRSC (talk) 09:49, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Hello @MRSC - I see you have been partially reverting a number of my recent edits here and on a number of the other London borough councils. I am well aware that there are separate pages for the borough and the council and I quite agree that the focus for the council page is about its administration, not the borough as a geographical area. That said, I think your recent deletions take an overly strict view on deleting material that you deem to be about the borough from the councils' pages. I feel that a short overview of what came before is valuable context for the council page. The particular information I have added to the councils' pages to which you seem to take exception is only a couple of paragraphs (if that) and is focussed on the types of administrative bodies which were replaced and how old they were. Knowing that there was or wasn't an earlier council with the same geographic name as the modern borough, whether those predecessors were lower status urban districts or already boroughs, and whether they were already within the County of London or under some other county council, is highly informative for understanding how significant a change or otherwise the creation of the new London borough council actually was. Stortford (talk) 11:56, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Not to worry. I'm sure it can be fixed. But the point I'm trying convey (perhaps badly) is that those paragraphs I removed have been written entirely from the point of view of geographic areas, i.e. districts, boroughs rather than councils. So they need to be completely rewritten to talk from the point of view of authorities not geographic areas. I deliberately left the inner London borough council paragraphs as they are because more salvageable, although they flip between taking about councils and boroughs/districts. For the outer ones, however, the text was not about councils at all and duplicated the existing borough articles. My first thought was to move the text over to the relevant borough article, but typically it was a very similar copy of what we already had. It is my intention to work through the council articles to redraft some text written from the point of view of the councils rather than the districts, as I have done at Barking and Dagenham, although this will take some time. As I'd left the inner borough council articles in tact, perhaps you would like to have a go at improving those. I will continue with the outer borough council articles as time allows. I do worry that you might not have underlying point that the text was written from the point of view of administrative geography rather than from the point of view of a governing body, and if you aren't clear I can try to explain further if necessary. MRSC (talk) 12:22, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

I do understand the difference between the geography and the administrative body, thank you. The point I would like you to bear in mind is that the two are inextricably linked; the body would not exist unless there was an area where it had been given certain roles to play, and a geographical administrative area only exists because it has been defined as the territory where a body fulfils those roles. Whilst one can rigidly make every mention point to the council / board / vestry etc. rather than the area, that leads to quite stilted wording and contrived links to redirects like Vestry of the Parish of St Luke (that nothing else linked to). I think the historical background is more efficiently explained and easier to follow if it's explained in terms of both the geography and the type of body. That way we can also make clear the extent to which current boroughs cover a larger / smaller area than their namesake predecessors, which is also highly informative for understanding the context in which these councils were created.

I find it particularly harsh that you have struck out my carefully constructed and sourced paragraphs on the historical background to leave several articles, like this Bromley Council one, having the history section start in a narratively arbitrary place and miss the pre-1965 background altogether. I'm not saying my wording was perfect, but by deleting it you're effectively saying that it was so wrong and misplaced that it's better not to have it at all than to let it stand. I think that is only true if you see it in terms of the overly precise division of roles for each page that you have adopted, and I would urge you to reconsider.

The council and borough pages are clearly related articles per WP:RELAR and an element of overlap (and we are only talking about a paragraph or two) is therefore to be expected to let each page make narrative sense. A lot of the pages on the geographic boroughs stray into discussing the councils too. I'd say the bigger problem that needs addressing is trimming the discussion of the councils on the borough pages, especially when they start discussing current political make-up (as London Borough of Bromley does). It's hard enough to keep it reasonably up to date on one page, but when it's discussed on more than one page, many editors won't spot that it's on another page too, so will update one but not the other, turning that aspect into a WP:BADFORK.

It's worth noting that this issue of the division between geography and administrative body is now avoided for most districts across the country by having a single page which talks about both the geographical area and the governing body, following the discussion here. It was decided at that time not to merge the council / area pages for unitary authorities, metropolitan boroughs and London boroughs, although it seems some of them were never split; for instance, Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead and Borough of Hartlepool both cover the councils too. I hadn't thought to reopen the discussion on whether to merge the pages for the London boroughs and their councils, but maybe we should if the split is being rigidly interpreted to the detriment of both articles. Merging would also avoid the confusion of the fact that none of the councils are actually formally called "X London Borough Council", despite that being the name format we've used for all the council pages. If you think merging is a step too far, please be more accommodating in accepting a little overlap. Stortford (talk) 06:22, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

@MRSC and Stortford: I think it would be a good idea to merge most London borough, metropolitan district and unitary authority councils into their districts. If this article is an overview of both the council of the post 1965 London Borough of Bromley and pre 1965 Municipal Borough of Bromley then it could serve as an overview but if its only supposed to be about the post 1965 council then its redundant to that district. When the district like Liverpool is combined with a settlement then it makes sense to have an article for the council, see the "Except" ones at User:Crouch, Swale/District councils. When like Isles of Scilly the name is also used for another geographical entity then an article like Council of the Isles of Scilly also makes sense. In the case of Bromley we already have articles on the settlement at Bromley and the pre 1965 and post 1965 districts so the council article is likely redundant. Yes I understand London borough councils, metropolitan district councils and unitary authority councils effectively have county powers but unlike say Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely County Council they aren't really thought by people as councils and most readers won't really care about the difference. Articles like Cheshire East Council could easily be merged with Cheshire East. Crouch, Swale (talk) 22:06, 22 May 2024 (UTC)