Template talk:TopicTOC-Covid19UK

British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies

Should we keep these in the title line? If so, how should they be abbreviated (or not)? Spelling it out fully takes up a lot of space, but people also object to various abbreviated styles as incorrect. Some people have questioned whether they should be in the title at all, and originally they weren't (and the Territories/Dependencies are a fairly small part of the COVID coverage on the wiki), but also it's not entirely accurate if they're omitted either. Any thoughts? Tagging those who have edited this aspect of the title; @Llewee, Arcahaeoindris, and Ave: BlackholeWA (talk) 17:20, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for opening the discussion.

I strongly disagree with having the Crown Dependencies subsumed under the title of "in the UK". The Crown Dependencies are not part of the UK, and their respective experiences of and responses to the pandemic have been entirely separate. The islands have their own legislature, healthcare systems, and vaccination programs, and report their case numbers separately. From both a technical and practical perspective, it is entirely inappropriate to simply subsume them within the "in the UK" category.

Futhermore, I firmly object to any abbreviations for the BOTs and CDs being used in the title line. One would not, for example, start naming articles to do with the European Union with novel abbreviations (i.e., not in common usage) as "... in the Union". As such, we should not start creating abbreviations such as "the Territories" and "the Dependencies"; moreover, the latter of these is problematic as it would imply that they are dependencies of the UK, not of the Crown.

I would, therefore, suggest that either:

(a)    keeping the full title of "... in the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies", or

(b)    opting for the more accurate and elegant "... in the British Isles",

would be most appropriate. —Ave (talk) 21:40, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to keeping the current title as is; the main objection being that it does make the title bar longer than perhaps it should be. The coverage of crown territories/dependencies with respect to the pandemic - and especially in the linked articles - is fairly marginal (edit: with respect to the broader content of the template category, which of which the majority concerns the mainland UK), and I can see an argument to the effect that including them in the title might amount to pedantry; for many other topics with comparatively marginal coverage on Wikipedia, such topics are allowed to be subsumed into a "banner topic" even if it's not an entirely accurate label. An example might be how the COVID-19 pandemic in France article includes small sections for French overseas territories, despite them not being in France proper. It should also be noted that the corresponding category for this template, Category:COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, uses the simple "United Kingdom" name despite also encompassing the pages and categories for the OTs and CDs - potentially we should follow this example/convention. I don't have a very strong opinion on this though - I share your concerns about accuracy, and I also think that the current title has the advantage of allowing quick hyperlinks to the relevant pages without having to open the locations tab. I do think it'd look nicer if we could somehow condense it to a single line of extra text instead of two, however.

I do have a slightly stronger opinion in that I want to keep the full text "COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom" in the title, as this is the direct article title for the template's main associated article, as well as the name of the category, as previously mentioned. Changing this to "British Isles" would confuse this matter as that is not the title of the article this would link to, and, perhaps more importantly, the term "British Isles" encompasses the entirety of Ireland and thus the Republic of Ireland, which is of course not in the UK scope. BlackholeWA (talk) 02:31, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for raising this. I don't have a strong opinion on this, I just thought that having such a long title on this small sidebar template looked a bit messy. Having said that, the new format looks much better and am fine with it. Arcahaeoindris (talk) 09:26, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

While I appreciate the attempt to find a comparative scenario in order to evaluate the available options, with respect, it must be clarified that the constitutional and practical relationship between France and its overseas territories is very different from that between the UK and the Crown (not UK) Dependencies. As such, I don't think it is appropriate to follow the precedent used there.

For what it's worth, I also strongly disagree with the Crown Dependency articles being categorised under Category:COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. As far as this being "convention", I don't believe (or at least I certainly can't see any evidence that) the decision to have Crown Dependencies under the UK has been given very much thought.

You're quite right with your point regarding British Isles being confusing in scope. I do wonder whether we can keep the full text for the reasons you gave, but if it can be formatted to look a bit better. —Ave (talk) 14:49, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

I wonder if it might be worthwhile raising a discussion on the name of the category, perhaps at CfD, and then maybe incorporating the consensus on the category name into our decision here? BlackholeWA (talk) 17:23, 13 December 2021 (UTC)