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Traditional Counties

There seems to be a bit of a campaign to get the Traditional counties of England enshrined in Wikipedia. Users User:Owain and User:Aquilina seem pretty keen on this. Nothing they have written convinces me that those counties exist any more. Saying X is part of a traditional county is meaningless.--IanDavies 16:27, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that the only one running a "campaign" is you. Proteus (Talk) 16:44, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
What? I corrected some factual inacurracies, removed some totally unsuported claims. --IanDavies 16:55, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
You could possibly attribute such a description to your initial edit, but trying to claim it also applies to your subsequent edits and arguments on the talk page is a bit of a stretch, to say the least. Proteus (Talk) 17:15, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
No it isn't. So far all you have done is say your right and that's it. You haven't produced a single bit of evidence. Your just trying to push your views. You may want there to be entiries known as Traditional Lancashire but they simply do not exist. Nothing is adminstered on the basis of them. Some private organisations just have not changed name. No matter how much you want you cannot change the fact that HMG has the right to order and arrange the UK and in 1974 it did so.--IanDavies 18:31, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Oh God, not again. That particular argument has been going on for more than 2 years. We thought policy had been settled on using current administrative counties back in late 2003 (see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places), but try to follow all the arguments in Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (places)). -- Arwel (talk) 18:54, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! I thought this rubbish had gone away. Please can we see a fast settlement on this issue, based on extremely lengthy previous debates? -- Francs2000 21:36, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is here to describe the world as it is, and was. The definitions of the counties most commonly used (in England at least) are the administrative and ceremonial versions, and these are the only with any official sanction. But traditional counties did exist officially (so did the Weimar Republic, we have an article on that), and the fact that people like the editors you mention have such strong feelings demonstrates they still have some relevance. They are certainly not as notable as the modern official counties, and these should be the primary use of "county", but for Wikipedia to describe the world in detail, traditional counties should be mentioned where relevant, and once the modern context has been established. Joe D (t) 03:49, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Were are the acts enshirine the "traditional counties"?. Somply because a group of zealots is staging a campaign ddoesn't make the subject relivant or real.--IanDavies 13:07, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
If three articles with a similar theme make a campaign, I'm certainly guilty of many campaigns!
From the traditional counties wiki article (link you gave above)
"On this basis, supporters of the traditional counties assert that they continue to exist. Indeed, the Government has made statements to this effect, and said at the time that traditional county boundaries and loyalties were not supposed to be affected by the 1974 changes."
"Successive governments have generally been quite happy to issue statements saying that the traditional counties still exist"
Traditional counties were never formally abolished (there was no need to), and so do exist in outside the legal framework. Administrative counties are used for administration's sake, traditional counties for tradition's sake, that's all that's being said. And where the areas of the two don't coincide, the distinction should be made - that's why people are adding the labels traditional, ceremonial and administrative where appropriate.
I do not claim that traditional counties are used for administration - it's obvious from the definition they don't!
This wouldn't be an issue if the use of the traditional county names wasn't so common - ie if everyone just used the new administrative labels, we could use them here too, exclusively. However, so many people still use the traditional county boundaries in their thinking - they have been around for a long time after all! - and until their use dies out, there's a case for their inclusion in the way described in the naming conventions, which include references to traditional boundaries and counties: these are listed as acceptable use
Coventry is in the West Midlands, and within the traditional borders of Warwickshire
Middlesex is a traditional county of England, now mostly covered by Greater London*
Southwark is a village in the London Borough of Southwark in Greater London. It is in the traditional borders of Surrey
There is an Wikipedia article on traditional counties. There are Wikipedia guidelines mentioning traditional counties. The Government refers to traditional counties. People refer to traditional counties. There is therefore no reason to remove all mentions of the phrase, as long as there is explicit statement of the type of county referred to. (By the way, modern and historic do not cover the terms accurately - these do not coincide with traditional, ceremonial and administrative).
Agreement on this can be found - we managed to agree on wordings in the Southport article, so that bodes well should anything similar ever crop up [hopefully not though!] Aquilina 14:01, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Where are these government statements? Were does you list of acceptable uses come from? Who deems them acceptable. The traditional counties never existsed as anything other than admin areas. When they admin areas changed the simply became the old set of borders. You haven't yet produced anything that actually lay's out the borders of these traditional counties.--IanDavies 14:22, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

This is all, of course, irrelevant to the current question: the issue IanDavies is reverting over is whether county cricket uses the traditional counties, which it obviously does. Proteus (Talk) 22:48, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

How is it obvious. Do you seriosly contend that because Warwickshire CC still calls it's self Warwickshire that it is using the traditional county, rather than just keeping it's club name? What other effect does this using of the traditional counties have. DOes it limit their player selection? Does it effect membership of the club. The problem is your clutching at straws.--IanDavies 23:03, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
The article said "County cricket continues to use historical counties", which it does, because each county cricket club corresponds to a historical county and there are no clubs named after non-historical counties. It didn't say "County cricket advocates the use of historical counties in all contexts", which is the statement you seem to be arguing against. Are you being deliberately stupid, or are you just a troll we can safely ignore and revert on sight? Proteus (Talk)
What does it use them for? Nothing other than names. I think it is you that is being stupid and arguing that the use a name constitutes use of the county. It doesn't. The clubs just have not changed name it doesn't signify anything. If you change it to say "retains the name of the county it was previously in" for say Warwickshire. Then you'd be getting at the truth. --IanDavies 23:47, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Much of the argument makes no-sense. These traditional counties are an important part of the history of various towns; it gives background to the expansion of London (eventually Greater London) and the disapeerance of Middlesex. There are many organisations (not just cricket) which still use historic and traditional county lines; and it's slightly more than saying that it's because they are too lazy to change the names. It is very important concerning the history of towns that previous county designations are mentioned. Y control 12:29, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm all for mentioning them in that sense, but that wasn't what was being put forward in the original discussion when it came up the first time round. What was being put forward was that the traditional counties were a current-day geographic designation, based on the wording of the act of parliament that changed the county boundaries over in 1974. I consulted local government experts with regard to this issue seeing as I work in local government in one of the counties effected by this act of parliament, and I was informed by the users pushing this point of view across that they didn't know what they were talking about. Eventually the discussion was dropped and no changes were made, and I would be very grateful if it didn't come up again. -- Francs2000 12:41, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

UK Collaboration of the Fortnight

The UK Collaboration of the Fortnight is dead. We've had the same article listed since November. Time for a resurrection or shall we let it die a natural death? Secretlondon 03:05, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Well I've not been involved with the project much recently, but if someone nominates an article I'd love to get involved. --βjweþþ (talk) 20:23, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Ok - I'll promote the current nomination with the highest support and lets start afresh. Secretlondon 14:46, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm game, too. I've only been here a couple of months and I didn't know there was a UK collaboration. --Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 15:07, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Censorship in the United Kingdom has been promoted. Please add new nominations to the UK Collaboration of the Fortnight page. Secretlondon 15:33, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I've created a fairly simple Wikipedia:Welsh Wikipedians' notice board (shortcut WP:WWNB) to try to get things started. Please have a look and consider signing on, adding it to your watchlist and helping to make sure any users with an interest in the subject know about it. Also please feel free to add things and to change anything you feel needs changing – I'm not under the impression that I own it! Rhion 19:56, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

On January 6 with this edit [1] this page was moved from the British and Commonwealth spelling of humour to the American spelling. This is firmly against Wikipedia policy and the page should be moved back immediately. Jooler 13:33, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I put it back where the article was created. See also Talk:Toilet humour. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:05, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I have asked Tim Starling to look into this. Just adding a signed comment seems to remove other contributors content. This is not my way of editing an article. So once again I apologize for a result that I never would have intended nor contemplated in my life. Dieter Simon 00:58, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Adding a signed comment — Ilyanep (Talk) 01:33, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Wow...the edit history looks weird though. — Ilyanep (Talk) 01:33, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I've also just tried a couple of tests: editing both the whole page and this section alone. I can't reproduce the fault. Tearlach 01:49, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

It's simple: The way to reproduce the problem is to view an out-of-date version of the page and click on "edit this page". ☺ Section edit links don't appear on old versions of pages. But it is unlikely that section editing was used, given the edit summary (which doesn't match the section title). Uncle G 02:36, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

FYI

A few weeks ago I began collating the results of the constituency of Lewes and visited the local library. In so doing I discovered that if you are a member of your local authority library, then you are entitled to use the "Times Digital Archive" for free'. This means that you can view every edition of The Times in searchable PDF format from 1795 to 1985. This is certainly true in East Sussex and presumably elsewhere. So all you need is a library card and a pin number (for online use) and then you can search The Times archive from the comfort on your own home. In addition you are also entitled to view for free any article on the Encyclopaedia Britannica site and the Dictionary of National Biography. I'm sure you'll all agree that these sites with free access provide an invaluable set of resources for Wikipedians. Jooler 22:20, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Excellent tip. Here in Hampshire the list is a little different. We have Encyclopaedia Britannica, XReferplus, The full OED and Oxford Reference Online. All available online from the comfort of your own home with nothing more than your library card number (no pin required). --MarkS 20:13, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Listed buildings

I have been looking at listed buildings. I think we should have articles on all grade I listed buildings (although some can at least start in groups - see for example Bedford Square where there are technically several listings, or Highgate Cemetery where different parts are listed differently - no need to split right now. There are about 6000 grade I listed buildings, and a similar number of grade II*, and very large numbers of grade II (eg pretty much everything 18th century or earlier). 6000 is very doable, lets go ahead and do them.

Finding them is not always easy. Some local authorities give you lists online, others only on paper (they are obliged to give you the information however). If you register on [Images of England] you can access most of them via the search - if you dont register you only get ones with pictures.

Can someone please take a picture to illustrate this article? The old images on this page which were there for quite some time were deleted because they were unsourced. Jooler 11:58, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Turton

We seem to have a Turton, Lancashire and a Turton, England. It's not clear to me whether that's deliberate to separate some administrative area and the settlement(s) or just an oversight. So I don't know whether they need merging or more clearly differentiating. Can some Lancashire types investigate and sort it out? From memory, in the area there are also North Turton (parish), some small settlements which have their own names as well as being Turton (Chapeltown and the like), Turton Bottoms, Turton Tower, Turton Moor, and a reservoir. (Although I don't think they currently all need their own pages.) Incidentally, a town? Even if you add up all the village/hamlets together, surely you still have a village size rather than a town? I have had a quick Google around and am seeing some very sizable population estimates, but I can't find anything describing what exactly these sites are taking Turton to be. String village, town, parish, or urban district?--Telsa (talk) 14:25, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you, Telsa, it certainly needs working on. However, it is the same Turton in Lancashire as the one in "England", whatever the administrative areas are. I have therefore merged the two articles, whatever little there was to be merged. If there are any subdivisions such as the various Turtons you enumerated, and they need to be treated separately then someone knowledgeable from the area should most certainly have a go at it. My main point was that "Turton, England" is really is quite meaningless, hence my merger.
As for the definition "town", again that needs local knowledge, why don't you have a go,if you know the area? Dieter Simon 00:32, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the merge, Dieter. Unfortunately I don't know the area terribly well myself. I shall add it to my "if no-one else does it, I shall go to the library.." heap, but I am really hoping it gets some attention before I do it. There seem to be quite a number of Lancashire settlements in the same boat, so perhaps it's just that we don't have that many people from that area editing atm. --Telsa (talk) 16:16, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Argh, Turton! I live near there, and I've never really understood it, it has a rather confusing history and geography. I'll look into it when I head home in a couple of weeks. the wub "?!" 12:25, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

This page has been around since November 2005, including large, redacted scan of Home Office e-mails (Image:ConcedeWeakness.jpg).

I'm sure it should not be there, but not sure what to do about it. It was even referred to in Parliament [2] (which is how I found it, and why it comes to exist I imagine). -- ALoan (Talk) 17:23, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I've tagged it as an image with no copyright information. If no information is provided within seven days, it can be deleted. If the Parliamentary attention is causing any problems, we could discuss deleting it sooner. Warofdreams talk 00:27, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
I've removed the Wikisource tag - it's not free content. Otherwise, wsas there a reply to Avebury's question? Shimgray | talk | 17:11, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
You could list it on WP:AFD. Warofdreams talk 17:24, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
There was a reply from Baroness Scotland of Asthal on 9 December 2005.
The first mention I can find of Wikipedia in Parliament comes from 2003 in a document called SN/EP/2086 (although it was updated in December 2005, so the reference may date from then) which refers to List of post towns in the United Kingdom (this can be found amongst 7 mentions in a search via POLIS). A search of the Parliament website itself finds 11 matches, most relating to Lord Avebury's question and this written submission from British Irish Rights Watch.
The first mention in a Parliamentary debate appears to be this reference by Anne McIntosh MP on 13 July 2005, referring to the section of Persecution of Christians on China. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:53, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Regardless of the copyright status of the image, this isn't an encyclopedia article, and the original contributor isn't around to make it into one. I can't see a reason not to AfD this. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:07, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
I needed a reminder of how I do that, but see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Concede Weakness. -- ALoan (Talk) 20:04, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Hmm, the timings are interesting; one could argue that the article was created to facilitate the subsequent asking of the question. I don't think the article was ever linked-to from anywhere. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:19, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Given the timing, and that Gcxziu (talk · contribs) has done nothing else, I am almost certain that the article was created and the image uploaded to facilitate the question. -- ALoan (Talk) 20:31, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Gaelic POV pushing

I'm currently noticing an increased level of Gaelic name POV pushing in relation to articles connected to the Outer Hebrides. It is going to take me a while to build up the energy to correct all this, so I'm looking for some help to sort it out.

The basic problem is that there are a couple of editors who are systematically changing the English place names in the Outer Hebrides to their Gaelic equivalents, on the basis that the Scottish Parliament and the local council there have recently adopted the Gaelic names for official correspondence. For example 'Outer Hebrides' → 'Na h-Eileanan Siar' and 'Stornoway' → 'Steornabhagh'. I happen to know a couple of people who live on Lewis, and whilst it is the official position of the council to use Gaelic names, it is not actually the common usage on the islands. And it is most certainly not the common usage in the wider English (or Scottish) speaking population.

If you check the recent page move request at Talk:Outer Hebrides you will be able to determine that several of the supporters are new anon editors with similar IPs. Several others are new editors and possible socks. I recall that when some of this brewed up before (Jan 2006?), one editor (can't remember which) was also involved in pushing Cornish Gaelic names.

Overall, there will probably have been many minor changes, over the past couple of months, to many articles related to the Western Isles. As a rule of thumb if the discussion is related to a parilamentary constituency, it is correct to use the Gaelic name, otherwise it should probably be in English. -- Solipsist 22:59, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Im not quite sure of what youre getting at here. If what youre talking about is the changing of place names used generally in the main body of an article from the Anglicized to the Gaelic then fair enough - this is the English wikipedia and English forms should be used. However the Gaelic, which frankly is to say correct, forms should also be provided alongside them if only initially. And btw theres no such thing as 'Cornish Gaelic'. An Siarach
I'm not quite sure what you're getting at either, but I will have a look at the Outer Heb articles. To say that the Gaelic form is "frankly correct" is not necessarily true in all cases. Some names of locations, towns, areas and regions etc actually have other, non-Gaelic, origins but have been 'Gaelicised' later on.. some of them from English names. I agree with Wikipedia policy though, that the Gaelic names, when appropriate, should be added at the start of the articles. --Mal 00:39, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, it looks like I've over-reacted. I was in part responding to this edit that I had just reverted. But I had previously noticed a duplicate page at Na h-Eileanan Siar had been created and seen several substitutions of 'Steòrnabhagh' for 'Stornoway' in other articles. I was expecting to find more examples, however, it looks like User:Warofdreams and User:Wikibofh have already been on the case and been tidying things up for a while now. -- Solipsist 09:42, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Brunel - FAC

Please give Isambard Kingdom Brunel your consideration on Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates - thanks! --PopUpPirate 00:33, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Northern Irish Wikipedians' notice board

I've added this notice board to Wikipedia, and call upon all interested editors to help with the refining and addition of articles related to Northern Ireland and the Northern Irish people. Spread the word around. --Mal 00:41, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Traditional counties revisited

In an attempt to stop a current spate of edit warring I am re-opening the discussion of traditional counties again. This time the victims are Template:Scotland counties, Template:Infobox Scotland place and Template:Infobox Scotland place with map. This dispute centres around the Scottish local government changes of 1975 and the current perceived status of counties in Scotland. There is a similar dispute in the Counties of Scotland article, but this has the added argument about the use of the word 'county' before the 18th century. There has been a fair amount of hostility thus far, so can we discuss this here in a civilized manner? Owain (talk) 10:07, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Most of it from you. Trying to use Wikipedia as a vehicle for promoting you views on "traditional counies".--84.9.194.234 13:39, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Not true at all. There is a campaign of vandalism by Sockpuppets of a banned user and contributions to a debate that add nothing. Thanks. Owain (talk) 14:42, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Hong Kong COTW

For info HSBC is the current Hong Kong COTW, posting here as seems relevant. Ian3055 14:06, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

English Wikipedians notice board

User:Y control created this and says "I have moved the exclusive England articles from the UK todo list there.". I'm not totally happy with this although I can clearly see that it follows the pattern of the other notice boards. The problems are deciding whether something is English-only or not, and that we must be careful not to put everyone born in England in the English category as many of us don't see ourselves as English, rather as British. Secretlondon 15:15, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Why can't we just duplicate what is already on the UK board yet clearly English on the English board? -- Francs2000 15:17, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Logically it makes sense - however practically and conceptually I find the idea of English-only topics hard. I'm struggling to see it in anything other than geographical terms. It's just not as clear cut as the existance of articles such as Culture of England would imply. I don't have a position on national identities within the UK except to say that it's complicated. Secretlondon 15:37, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand what the problem is. Did you have the same problems with the other regions when notice boards were set up for them? I think personally, that notable articles and projects etc, and those that are related to the whole of the country, be placed in this notice board, while articles that relate only to England or the English (or Scotland and the Scottish etc etc) should be placed in its respective notice board. Its a hierarchy, but there's bound to be some overlapping. To be honest, I wouldn't think too hard about it. --Mal 18:02, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
As long as these things do overlap, and things aren't removed for example from the UK to do list because they're already on the English one or Scottish one. That's just silly. -- Francs2000 22:44, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree. But of course, we might have the problem that someone might decide that ALL of the articles/categories in the todo list from ALL the other UK regions need to be included in the UK board. I think that region-specific work needs to be on the related region notice boards unless its particularly notable or large, or is in dire need of attention, or is definately a UK-wide subject. Added to that, I would suggest that one or two articles from each region be placed on the UK board and be rotated every so often. Thoughts..? --Mal 05:07, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Sorry but that just sounds like m:Instruction creep to me. This board was originally set up to be informal, the to do list has always been an informal list (and never particularly well updated) and I'm not prepared to start worrying about what's on which board. Please don't start setting rules for what should be on which board? If it repeats, it repeats. -- Francs2000 13:03, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, things are different now: all the regional boards have now been set up. Here are a couple of points from the Instruction creep page:
Instruction creep occurs when instructions increase in size over time until they are unmanageable.
Procedural steps are popular to add but unpopular to follow, mainly due to the amount of work required to actually follow the complex procedures.
  • Firstly, I am advocating this as an informal methodology - the question was brought up, after all - not as a hard and fast "rule".
    Its not exactly "complex", and doesn't require a lot of hard work. I don't mind occasionally updating it.
    It was only a suggestion - relax! Nobody is asking you to worry about it. --Mal 14:59, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

The above new article has been called "POV-ish" so I'd appreciate some outside views(I admit there is little on the government position, but have found very little support for the government position in the press). -- ALoan (Talk) 11:35, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

The reference to Hitler from the Times letters page makes it seem a bit hysterical. Needs a description of what it's replacing and less press commentator and more politician references - Hansard?. Would be good to have the Tory position. Secretlondon 12:01, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps; but Marcel Berlins compared it to Stalin. I have been beefing it out. The Tories approved of cutting "red tape" but are opposed to the bill as it stands. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:39, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

There is a new proposed naming convention for UK stations under discussion. Warofdreams talk 01:27, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I have finished expanding this article and I will now try to address Peer Review comments. I think it is sufficently content-rich that after some copyediting it can be a FA candidate. Comments and any help would be appreciated.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:29, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Anyone know what the copyright status is for the coats of arms of English counties, towns and cities? Somebody removed one from a dab template and I restored it as suggesting we can't fairly use the arms of our own county is copyright paranoia to me. (If the copyrights haven't expired through the passing of time, if they're not public domain, is Gloucestershire County Council going to sue Wikipedia for using the coat of arms to illustrate articles about the county?! Can there be any fairer use?). I would however like to know the actual legal status so I can retag any images if need be, hopefully tagging them with something less restrictive and more substantial than {{coatofarms}}. --kingboyk 19:44, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Whilst the copyright for the arms may have expired - a potential minefield of crown copyright, though - has the copyright of the image? Someone's gone and made that image, and they'll retain copyright on it... Shimgray | talk | 19:53, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
The ones I've uploaded have come from the county/borough councils' own websites (Yate and Cheltenham). I don't know about Gloucestershire as I didn't upload that one. --kingboyk 20:07, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't know about Counties, towns and cities, borroughs etc.. perhaps the copyright is owned by the Crown, or the relevant authority bodies. I wondered about coats of arms when it came to creating my Orr (surname) article. I found the coat of arms on a webpage, created an image based on it (read: I edited and cleaned up the original), and donated it to the Wiki Image namespace under PD or Free Use or something. I assume, being a descendant of the Orrs, that I own the coat of arms perhaps! --Mal 20:16, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Pretty much my way of thinking as a person born in Gloucestershire too. It's a sad day indeed if I can't put my county's coat of arms into a template which merely says "this is an article about Gloucestershire"! --kingboyk 20:25, 30 March 2006 (UTC)