Talk:Red telephone box/Archive 1

Archive 1

Out of Order

A picture of "Out of Order", the tipped domino like red boxes in Kingston would be nice. Jooler 11:52, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the T&C of the folling site allows use on Wikipedia.

• first image
• second image
• Jooler 12:10, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Blackpool Box's

Most of the Telephone in Blackpool and it's surrounding areas are Red Telephone Box's (abeit, with the original Telephone Equipment Removed) should we put something about this in the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.93.21.105 (talk • contribs)

Probably more appropriate in the Blackpool article. For the purposes of the phone box article, we wouldn't want an enormous, low-value list of the places they exist, unless there were far fewer of them, and I don't see much point in listing just a selection of those places either. The boxes remain, or were replaced, in places where they are visually appealing or in-keeping; enough said? – Kieran T ^{(talk | contribs)} 10:47, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Crown

The Scottish Crown was (according to the National Archives) brought into use as a symbol in 1952, at the same time as the (purely symbolic and abstract) 'Tudor' crown was changed for the (English) St. Edward's Crown elsewhere. It took several years for the changes to the crowns to come into place, and there were problems into the 1960s with Government departments not being used to the idea of having a different royal symbol in Scotland.

The Scottish Crown is for use "where the Scottish Crown is more appropriate than the English St Edward's Crown" - like Scottish flags, coats of arms, police emblems, and the Scottish part of government departments such as the Department for Transport and the Royal Mail.

It didn't necessarily have anything to do with blowing up pillar boxes, and wasn't a percularly Royal Mail thing.

82.153.111.141 23:18, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Sir John Soane

I understood that Scott based his phone box design on Sir John Soane's tomb? Should this not be mentioned?81.19.57.146 16:12, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

 Done Zir 15:02, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Phoney

The phoney box was on dragons den television programme the full story at www.thephoneybox.com full size lightweight reproductions of the classic red telephone box —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.31.35.62 (talk) 08:14, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

the first image

should the main image really be of phone boxes that are located in california, when the box is such a great symbol of the uk? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.157.54.106 (talk) 21:15, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

No it should not —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.67.202.20 (talk) 15:57, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Images available on geograph.org.uk

Geograph.org.uk has plenty of images UK wide of red boxes and contributor info. See here : [1]. Jeremy Bolwell (talk) 17:26, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Please discuss at Talk:Payphone#Merger_proposal. Biscuittin (talk) 16:51, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose the distinct significance of the UK's red box is as much architectural as it is about the basic function of payphones. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:52, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Darling Doris

The section on the song Darling Doris has been removed as "trivia". I thought it was worth keeping so I have moved it to Fat and Frantic. Biscuittin (talk) 13:36, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

is NOT a familiar sight anymore actually

Hi, I travel a lot, there are less and less phone boxes now and the sentence "is a familiar sight on the streets of the United Kingdom", would be better changed to 'used to be'. There are now only 12,500 left and BT are allowing them to be adopted [2] Veryscarymary (talk) 17:38, 25 October 2009 (UTC) Veryscarymary (talk) 17:50, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd say about 1 in 10 british phone boxes are red ones like these. The others are all incredibly ugly KX100s. However, unlike the pictures in this article suggest, the majority of remaining K6s are beaten-up, vandalised, and badly in need of re-painting. Sad reminder of how much times have changed. [Special:Contributions/2.102.81.45|2.102.81.45]] (talk) 18:10, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I have changed "is" to "was". Biscuittin (talk) 13:44, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Black telephone boxes

Surely worthy of mention are the Black K6's located around London, operated by a competitor payphone provider to BT. This will be particularly notable as the box is a famous tourist attraction and these boxes are found in the popular tourist spots of London.

I'm struggling to find any decent references on this via a google search, but various (potentially incorrect) stories I have heard are:

• The black boxes are black as BT claims a sort of trademark on kiosks painted red. Restored K6's operated by competitors must therefore use a different colour

• Westminster Council chose to mandate the use of the original K2 and K6 boxes for heritage / tourism reasons; to avoid this resulting in a monopoly of payphone provision being handed back to BT, competitor payphone operators would have to install restored K6 boxes in black (this could be hearsay)

Does anybody know any more or can help with clearing this up and referencing it? -- Fursday 03:52, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I have added an image of a pair of them to the gallery, but am still looking for a decent reference. Alansplodge (talk) 19:16, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

And yellow telephone boxes?

If I remember correctly, shortly after the creation of British Telecom, it was announced that all the red boxes would be painted yellow, which was BT's corporate colour. There was a public outcry, it featured on TV and radio programmes and the Daily Telegraph published a poem bewailing the demise of the red boxes. After a while, BT backed down but announced shortly afterwards that the K6 would be replaced by a more modern design. I can't find a reference for it though. Alansplodge (talk) 15:50, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

A closer look found enough sources to enable this to be added to the "Privatisation and the KX series" sub-section. Alansplodge (talk) 19:06, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Images?

Whilst agreeing that the vast gallery of tiny images if of little use, I intend to restore most of the in-article images. We need to have images for the K2, K6 etc. in their relevant sections. Following this recent change, it now appears as if the only design of "red phone box" was the K6. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:13, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

I have gone further and reverted to a version without the section breaks. Although there are a lot of pictures compared to text, I think we need an example of each type in its section at the very least. I think the point of the current gallery was to show a variety of locations. (Hohum ^@) 18:51, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

I moved them so that someone could come in and chose the most relevant images from the gallery to be used in the article. Now it just looks ridiculous again. There's way too many images and it's distracting. Atotalstranger (talk) 20:59, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

So remove some images from the gallery - which I think we all agree has too many very similar images overall. However we need to keep at least one type image with the major sections. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:27, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure how you can claim there are "too many" images when the four main ones all show something different: a K6, multiple K2s, K6s illuminated at night, and an imitation generic box in Cuba. The gallery shows K1, K2 prototype, K3, K8, and KX100 boxes, as well as K6s and others in a variety of different locations and liveries, both within the UK and across the world, but we have somehow lost the picture of the K4 with integral stamp vending machine and postbox, which is a ridiculous deletion (we still need a picture opf a KX100 PLUS). The plain fact is that although this page is called "Red telephone box" (singular), it actually covers a series of different designs, and I have thought for some time that it would be better renamed "British telephone kiosks." Nick Cooper (talk) 21:53, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

At present, the article has one far-oversized K6 image (encouraging the idea yet again that the only box was the K6), tiny images of K2 & K6 too small to tell them apart, a trivial fake box from Cuba and then a bucket of indistinguishable postage stamps mostly captioned "red telephone box".

We need in-text images of K1, K3, K4, K8, KX100 and an adjacent K2/K6 pair for size comparison.

We do not need repeated images within the gallery, especially not a pile of indistinguishable K6s that convey nothing extra. Even the overseas images, like the Valletta image, don't indicate any sense of the boxes being overseas. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:19, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Can we talk about this before making extreme changes to the article please. The current state is *awful*. As far as I'm concerned, the entire gallery can go, but there needs to be an image of each type within its section. I'm going to revert it back, we can discuss, then come to a accord per WP:BRD. (Hohum ^@) 16:56, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

And by doing so you returned the gallery to its previous random order, as well as removing three "new" images, one of which was previously deleted when it should have been kept (i.e. the K4), and another which we categorically do need that wasn't here previously (i.e. the KX100 PLUS). Much of the complaints seem to be that we have too many images that "look the same," so restructuring the gallery as I did will aid in making clear which ones genuinely are, and so can be dropped, i.e. most of the K6 images.

As to your suggestion that we should lose the gallery completely, I think we need to consider the wider picture. As noted above, this is actually a very broad subject that is somewhat constrained by the current title. If we took it literally, then we would only be covering the K2, K3, K4 & K6 in GPO/BT service, yet even within that narrow range it would seem bizarre not to cover the use of the K6 by the Hull Corporation, as well as abroad. The reality is that this page is really about GPO/BT British telephone kiosks in general, hence we need to give adequate coverage to the K1, K8, KX100, and KX100 PLUS, including non-BT use. It is also a fact that even in GPO/BT service, some boxes were not painted red, and if we can show examples of the variations, all the better.

I have to say that I'm somewhat mystified by Andy's claim that the overseas images "don't indicate any sense of the boxes being overseas," especially singling out the Valletta one, even though one wouldn't expect to see anything like the architecture behind it in the UK outside of Portmeirion. The Antigua, Cyprus, and Israel images are similarly clearly in non-UK settings, with perhaps only the two American pictures not being as obvious. We should consider that we need to show boxes where they were used on a widespread operational basis due to contemporary connections with the UK at the time (i.e. Malta, Antigua, Cyprus, and Israel), as opposed to one-off "heritage" uses as in the American examples. Nick Cooper (talk) 18:24, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

The one in Valletta could just as easily be in Bath. The trouble with these overseas images is that they're so closely cropped to show the box that they don't show any of their surrounding context. One has a palm tree next to it (by the taper of the trunk), so if only it weren't so tightly cropped, we might have seen some palm leaves as well and thus gained a useful image of red boxes being clearly overseas. We have none of this as yet. Given any of these overseas images, could you firstly tell where in the world they were, or secondly would you even suspect that they weren't in England, unless prompted?

I see little distinction between "colonial" and "adopted" use – both are valid, as would be phone boxes as village libraries and shower cubicles. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:02, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

I think anyone would be hard-pressed to think that the Cypriot or Israeli kiosks could be in the UK in general, let alone England specifically, and while I think I may have a wider shot of one in Malta from when I was there in 2008, I still doubt anyone would mistake the current one for somewhere in the UK. I'm still not convinced by the apparent objections to the gallery in principle. The kiosks - whether in GPO/BT use or not - exist and have existed in a variety of forms and liveries, both in the UK and abroad. In that context, "Red telephone box" is both highly restrictive and misleading. If this page is needlessly pared down to match the title, it will almost certainly be necessary to create British telephone kiosks to properly cover the subject as a whole, rather than just the "red icon." Nick Cooper (talk) 20:37, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Galleries suck. They always suck, not just on this article. If there are images here worth having, then they should be inlined to where they're relevant, and at least at thumbnail size. not gallery size. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:00, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Nick Cooper, what part of the BRD cycle don't you understand? Please put the article back to the previously stable version until we come to consensus here. We are still actively discussing it. (Hohum ^@) 16:22, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Which part of "restructuring the gallery as I did will aid in making clear which ones genuinely are [duplicates]" don't you understand? The previous version of the gallery had the different types placed completely randomly, and lacked some of the images that should be included, including some that had been previously deleted (i.e. the K4). Nick Cooper (talk) 21:52, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Decisions

To try and move somewhere definite, rather than circling with reversions, can we please see if there's any agreement on some specific points:Andy Dingley (talk) 16:55, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Inlined type images.

IMHO, there should be one (possibly more than one, if relevant, such as paired K2/K6) definitive type image inlined into the text sections for each major type. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:55, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Support Essential. (Hohum ^@) 17:15, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Types to be included.

We should include the K1, K2, K3, K4, K6, K8, KX100 as major types to be illustrated. Also a Hull (K6?). Maybe an early post-modernist Mercury. Any others that are strongly needed? Andy Dingley (talk) 16:55, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Support Seems reasonable. (Hohum ^@) 17:15, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, but we also need the K2 prototype, and the KX100 PLUS, the latter not least because it's a clear homage to the Soanian roof of the K2/3/4/6. In fact, a photo of the Soane tomb wouldn't be a bad idea, either. Nick Cooper (talk) 22:29, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Box contents

We should show the following: A Button A / Button B instrument, a '70s instrument and a modern vandal-resistant case. Phonecards ('80s and modern chargecard) systems too. Also the other box fittings, particularly the table of local dialling codes. Even London tart cards. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:00, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Support If there isn't enough room inline, these may need to go into a gallery. I don't think that "other fittings or table of dialling codes are essential. (Hohum ^@)

The "room inline" is largely a measure of the text discussing them. The A/B set was a significant aspect of UK public calling and warrants explanation. Likewise the local dialling codes table - this was a technical aspect of how pre-director phone number routing worked, which coincidentally happened to be only visible to most users when using phone boxes. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:28, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Overseas images

These are valuable, but they ought to convey a sense of being overseas, that the images we currently have aren't doing strongly. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:55, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Ambivalent Don't think they are essential, but if there is a good one to convey use abroad, then perhaps one - otherwise the commons gallery link will be enough. (Hohum ^@)

Essential to demonstrate that the British designs were used abroad on a systematic basis. Nick Cooper (talk) 00:04, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Post phone boxes

We should include some boxes that have been repurposed after retirement.Andy Dingley (talk) 16:55, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Support One or two key images if they are good. (Hohum ^@) 17:15, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Non-phone boxes

We should include topics such as themed art, and even biscuit tins. That said, I'm unimpressed by the Cuban fake box image. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:55, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Support The row of tilting telephone boxes is great for this imo. I don't think biscuit tins etc are required in the article. (Hohum ^@) 17:15, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

I like the biscuit tins because it conveys the iconic nature of the red phonebox as a design icon extending well away from telephony. A plastic desk phone shaped like a phone box is just skeumorphic tat. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:28, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

I think we need to differentiate between the kiosk as artistic icon (e.g. Out of Order and the Artboxes), and as memorabilia/product. Nick Cooper (talk) 22:42, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Gallery

I see no need for a gallery. Anything we need strongly should be inlined. Galleries should not be random dumps of tiny images. I see nothing much left inbetween that would excuse a gallery here. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:55, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Comment Only reason for a gallery is if there are images which are needed, but putting them inline makes it too cramped. I don't think the stable version was too cramped inline - it was close - but careful use of size and left/right kept it just about viable. (Hohum ^@) 17:15, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

As I have said previously, I don't think we can do justice to the scope of the subject with inline images alone. Although the page is "Red telephone box," red was not the only colour, whether in GPO/BT service, or by other telecoms (Hull has extant examples of - at least - the K1, K6, K8, and KX100 PLUS). We also have differences in detail, such as the two types of crown - or none - on the K6s. Nick Cooper (talk) 22:42, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Page name

I think serious consideration needs to be given to whether this page name is appropriate. Are we documenting the somewhat inaccurate foreign cliché of the "Red telephone box," or actual British telephone kiosks as a whole? Certainly if we get into including Mercury or other types, were more in the latter territory. Nick Cooper (talk) 22:42, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Stalled

Anyone fancy restoring the images and actually fixing this, as discussed above? As it is (repeated K6s and a tiny gallery) it's a failure as illustrating an article. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:50, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Ok. One point at a time? Put inline images back for each of the K models? (Hohum ^@) 17:56, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Move proposal

I suggest moving this article to something like "Standard British telephone boxes", as that's more specific, and clearer; and not all are red. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:47, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose (This proposal doesn't appear to have been advertised elsewhere.) As stated by Sian Wynn-Jones (heritage collections manager at BT), "They were a real architectural marvel," specifically in relation to the traditional style boxes. Perhaps a move to an alternative title such as Traditional British telephone box could be considered, although I'm not sure that's the most appropriate title. -- Trevj (talk · contribs) 07:40, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose red is crucial, even when they aren't. Whilst recognising some of the drivers to change the name, red telephone box is still about the best overall solution. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:48, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
• Strong support Insisting on the "red" aspect is constricting and - above all - misleading. There may be a place for a page dealing with the "red telephone box" as an enduring cultural icon, but this has to be counterpointed by an article that acknowledges that there is far more to British telephone kiosks than the red ones, which of course are very much the minority. Nick Cooper (talk) 11:35, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. We also need to take WP:COMMONNAME into account. It seems to me that far more readers are likely to search under "red phone box" or similar than the suggested alternatives. And the article is predominantly about the Scott design and its analogues, not about more recent models, and only incidentally about those which were painted in different colours. Agree with Andy Dingley: this is "still about the best overall solution". GrindtXX (talk) 14:29, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

If this page is "predominantly about the Scott design and its analogues" then clearly we need to restrict it to that area, and have an ancillary British telephone kiosks page to cover everything that became before and since. Either we have a single page that properly covers the whole subject - and is named accordingly - or we have one for the main subject and another for the subset. Nick Cooper (talk) 16:20, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose Per commonname and the current scope of the article. The typical "red telephone box" is the main focus of the article, variants and successors are only mentioned only in context. If there is enough content for another article about all kinds of British telephone kiosks without huge overlap with this one, have at it. There is no need to restrict this one to only the "Scott design" as briefly mentioning other colours and styles is relevant. (Hohum ^@) 18:06, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Other red telephone boxes

What are those other, more modern red telephone boxes found in London and other places. For a picture of one there is one identifying tart cards on the main telephone booth page. TangoTizerWolfstone (talk) 13:51, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

File:Phone box prostitute calling cards 1.jpg looks like some kind of non-BT booth. I can't read the logo on the telephone cover though. (Hohum ^@) 15:47, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks and I've just found out its a phone box of 'Spectrum Interactive' thanks to this page [3] although I'm still unsure on its introduction year.–TangoTizerWolfstone (talk) 00:54, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

File:Red telephone box, St Paul's Cathedral, London, England, GB, IMG 5182 edit.jpg to appear as POTD

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Red telephone box, St Paul's Cathedral, London, England, GB, IMG 5182 edit.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on March 20, 2015. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2015-03-20. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. Thanks! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:05, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Picture of the day

A 'K6' model red telephone box outside of St Paul's Cathedral in London. These kiosks for a public telephone were designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and painted "currant red" for easy visibility. Although such telephone boxes ceased production when the KX series was introduced in 1985, they remain a common sight in Britain and some of its colonies, and are considered a British cultural icon.Photograph: Christoph Braun