Talk:List of bridges in Wales

Geographical areas

I created this page in August with division into the geographical areas which seem to me to be the most useful. The same areas are used on some other lists for Wales, with boundaries which are all aligned with those of current administrative areas. As the purpose is geographical division, I would argue that this division is preferable to that provided by the administrative areas, since these are a mixture of counties and county boroughs, some of them too small to be useful. A strict adherence to administrative areas is not followed for English lists, I see no reason why it should be for Welsh ones. If others disagree, I would ask that the issue be discussed here, and a consensus arrived at, before any changes are made. Paravane (talk) 16:29, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I attempted to split it up into the 13 geographic counties — you reverted it. I attempted a start at splitting it up into administrative areas — you reverted it. What you have now is a mixture of geographic counties, current administrative areas and obsolete administrative areas. In other words — a mess. I agree that a geographic rather than administrative split would be preferable which is why I attempted that. What I don't agree with is your current confusing mish-mash — something better than that is needed. Owain (talk) 15:24, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

It is a mystery to me why a wikipedia author who has made no contribution whatsoever to the content of a page should consider it either necessary or appropriate for him or her to intervene to reorganise it, without any attempt at discussion, unless it is evident that the page has been neglected. If such a change is to be made, then an argument should be put forward as to why that change would be an improvement. You have done nothing more than express your personal dislike of the current organisation of the page - with no evidence of an attempt to understand or appreciate why the current organisation has been adopted - and I wonder why you do not just ignore it. Paravane (talk) 18:48, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

There is no requirement for authors to enter into a discussion with anyone in order to improve a page. No-one owns a page and if its organization needs improvement then an improvement can be made unilaterally. I understand fully your desire to list geographically and agree with it. I attempted to rationalize by using the 13 geographic counties, but you reverted it to the mish-mash it is currently in. Can you justify the current mixed-up structure? Owain (talk) 13:21, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough, except that if you make a major change unilaterally, then - aside from matters of Wikipedia policy - it is only your view that your change will be an improvement. If the page is being actively maintained, you can anticipate that those who are maintaining it may disagree; and if the change is an obvious one they probably will, or the change would already have been made. Some of the thinking underlying the current choice:

• The aim is to find a suitable set of geographical divisions. Traditionally counties have been commonly used for this purpose. Sometimes the division is simply into regions, such as North and South Wales, South-East England etc. A suitable set of divisions is one which is easy to understand, so that if you want to find an item in a particular area, you know where to look within the set, given basic general knowledge.
• The historic counties have the disadvantage that, overall, they have fallen out of use and their boundaries are no longer in general use. Flintshire, Denbighshire and Monmouthshire have all been resurrected with changed boundaries, which would cause confusion. Any attempt to use the historic counties is likely to fall victim to another 'improving' editor before long.
• The preserved counties are mostly rather large, but with small subdivisions for Glamorgan. Gwynedd has the same name as the current administrative area, but differs in including Anglesey. To the extent they are neither historic nor current, they are less familiar and a less attractive option.
• The current administrative areas include regions which are very small indeed, and the same names are used for towns or cities and regions around them. In England, the distinction was always made between for instance Bedford and Bedfordshire: in Wales Conwy is both a small town and a region the size of a small county. Also, if you take for instance the historic county of Glamorgan, I doubt many people outside Wales could correctly identify all the fragments of it that are now distinct administrative areas, let alone have any idea where the boundaries are.
• The current choice of geographical divisions gets as close as possible to the set of historic counties, whilst conforming entirely to boundaries of current administrative areas. Of the 9 divisions, 6 are current administrative areas, whilst 6 are - with minor boundary changes - essentially historic counties. The 9 divisions are all current or former counties, so avoiding the division into a mixture of counties and county boroughs entailed in conforming entirely to current administrative areas.
• The question therefore, why would any reorganisation represent improvement? Paravane (talk) 18:55, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

The argument that readers may not understand a set of boundaries is easily refuted by including a link to in the opening paragraph. For example: "This article categorises bridges by the Historic counties of Wales". The current mix-up of areas cannot easily be explained with such a simple link as it is an arbitrary selection of different areas. Your choice of areas also suffers from the "same name, different area" problem as you suggest the historic counties do. You have Gwynedd and Clwyd but where is the boundary between the two? Is it the boundary of the preserved counties or the former administrative areas? Without using a well-defined set of areas this is an unnecessary ambiguity. There is not a single graphic that you can point readers to that shows all your selected areas on a one map. It is arbitrary and confusing and therefore unsuitable. If you truly want a well-defined set of purely geographic areas then the historic counties are your best bet. Owain (talk) 22:22, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

The current selection is well-defined and not arbitrary. Each of the 9 divisions comprises one or more current administrative areas. In order to generate a set of divisions which is as far as practicable balanced in size, the smallest of the administrative areas are grouped together. Clywd for instance comprises Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire and Wrexham. This approach could be explained in the lead. The boundaries between the preserved counties were adjusted to match the boundaries between administrative areas, so there is no ambiguity. It may be true there is no graphic available, but one could easily be produced. There is no reason why the only possible divisions should be the sets of historic or preserved counties or the set of administrative areas, if none of those sets is the most suitable. In England, regions such as SW, NW, NE etc. are often used, each representing a group of counties; and different sets of regions may be chosen in different cases, without leading to confusion. Paravane (talk) 00:25, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The selection is TOTALLY arbitrary! You just made it up yourself! You seem to have missed the italicised part of my point — that a well-defined SET of geographic areas is needed. What is absolutely not needed is yet another set of geographic areas and god forbid another set of maps! If any choice of geographic areas needs a paragraph explaining what they are then something is definitely wrong! You state that the boundaries between the preserved counties were adjusted, but you are not using a list of preserved counties are you? There is no way to infer that the "Clwyd" and "Gwynedd" in your list are the post-2003 preserved counties when the list itself is a mix of preserved, historic and administrative areas. It is a unfathomable arbitrary mess. As it happens, the main List of bridges in the United Kingdom uses no counties or county-style areas at all. If you cannot see that your random selection is nonsensical then perhaps that is the best solution. Owain (talk) 09:26, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

You lack objectivity, and are reduced to nothing more than a rant. The same divisions were used in the List of golf courses in the United Kingdom long before I adopted them, except that there Monmouthshire is erroneously substituted for Gwent. Paravane (talk) 22:10, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Since you have yourself edited the List of golf courses in the United Kingdom, and were yourself responsible for changing Gwent to Monmouthshire in that list, your claim that I have invented this set of geographical divisions appears disingenuous. Paravane (talk) 00:28, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

You are familiar with the Other stuff exists doctrine, right? Just because another list was badly organized is not sufficient reason for this list to be badly organized. You have correctly spotted that I like to keep list organization sensible. For this list you clearly chose a broken set of areas — whether you copied it from another article or invented it independently does not make my assertion disingenuous at all. It IS indefensible. Owain (talk) 16:01, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Owain. The names of the locations should either be the 13 Historic counties of Wales of Anglesey, Brecknockshire, Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire, Caernarfonshire, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Glamorgan, Merionethshire, Monmouthshire, Montgomeryshire, Pembrokeshire and Radnorshire or the 8 Preserved counties of Wales of Gwent, South Glamorgan, Mid Glamorgan, West Glamorgan, Dyfed, Powys, Gwynedd and Clwyd. I prefer the current 22 unitary authories of Blaenau Gwent, Bridgend, Caerphilly, Carmarthenshire, Cardiff, Ceredigion, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Gwynedd, Isle of Anglesey, Merthyr Tydfil, Monmouthshire, Neath Port Talbot, Newport, Pembrokeshire, Powys, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Swansea, Torfaen, Vale of Glamorgan and Wrexham. I am not sure what "In order to generate a set of divisions which is as far as practicable balanced in size, the smallest of the administrative areas are grouped together" really means??? SethWhales ^talk 18:43, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

The purpose of the divisions is to group items geographically, for convenience. The 22 unitary authorities in Wales provide a very poor basis for geographical division. For instance, grouping items into 'Glamorgan' is arguably more helpful for more people than grouping into Merthyr Tydfil, Neath Port Talbot, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Swansea, Torfaen, Vale of Glamorgan etc. Few people outside Wales will know where the boundaries are. It is likely that many people who could place an item in Glamorgan would often need to scan the whole list to find out which obscure local authority area it now lies in. There is also an inherent ambiguity, and potential confusion, in the use of the names of towns - Swansea, Wrexham, Conwy etc. - to refer to extended local authority areas. Lists relating to England on wikipedia do not generally hold strictly to local authority areas, why is Wales any different? Paravane (talk) 15:42, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

If no agreement can be found on the divisions, then simply get rid of them. I would say 99% of people outside of Wales have no idea what "county" Swansea, Cardiff, Newport or Wrexham is, or was in (Glamorgan, Clwyd, Dyfed....), however they would be able to see the list with those county names in (i.e. the 22 unitary authorities). The listing makes zero sense to me (and Owain). The listing used on List of golf courses in the United Kingdom is nonsense as well: Carmarthenshire (is OK), Ceredigion (unitary authority), Clwyd (Preserved county), Glamorgan (historic county), Gwynedd (Preserved county and unitary authority, not an historic county), Isle of Anglesey (unitary authority, not preserved county), Monmouthshire (historic county and now a unitary authority, not a preserved county. The unitary county is much smaller than the historic county was. It excludes Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Monmouthshire, Newport, Torfaen), Pembrokeshire (historic county and now a unitary authority, not a preserved county), Powys (Preserved county and Unitary authority). I have widened this discussion to put it in the talk pages of WikiProject Wales. SethWhales ^talk 19:32, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikilinks, or the lack of

I came across this list with the aim of finding out which important historic Welsh bridges could benefit from a Wikipedia article. Unfortunately many of these bridges are wikilinked to a village or community article, often one that doesn't even mention the bridge. In my opinion it would be more helpful to redlink the bridge names to encourage new articles to be written. Of course, if a section of an existing article describes the bridge in question, it makes common sense to link (or redirect) to that page.
In the meantime I've begun redlinking the bridges that have no mention of them anywhere yet. Sionk (talk) 21:55, 29 December 2014 (UTC)