Wikipedia talk:WikiProject London/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

AfDs of interest

Just thought I would bring these to your attention...

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/London Buses route 157
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/London Buses route 130

Regan123 09:30, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we could start a London-related 'afd watch' on the project page. MRSC • Talk 15:38, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. Is there an RSS feed of these around, as it would make it easier to keep track of. Regan123 15:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I seem to remember seeing something like this on another project. Can't remember where though. MRSC • Talk 15:51, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 21:13, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Rainham, London

I just thought you'd like to know that this article has been nominated for good article status. Are there any others nominated, or are there any aleady good or featured articles? Perhaps we should list them on the project page? I know the actual London article is at good status, but what about other pages? Max naylor 11:43, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:RM spree

Well, what can i say? I've proposed many page moves, although many transport

• Crossrail --> London Crossrail (see talk:Crossrail#Requested move)
• Custom House station --> Custom House DLR station (See talk:Custom House station#Requested move)
• West Hampstead railway station --> West Hampstead railway stations (see talk:West Hampstead railway station#Requested move 2) - relisted
• Hackney Central --> Hackney, London (See talk:Hackney Central#requested move)

Simply south 19:33, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I'm trying hard to work some of these out:

• Crossrail -> London Crossrail (a quick qoogle shows all but two entries of the first ten pages refer to the London scheme; there is a Glasgow scheme, but it's called 'Glasgow Crossrail'. Habitual usage suggests it should remain as is, change is going to cause more confusion than it resolves. Where (in official documents) it is called anything other than Crossrail, it's Crossrail London, or LondonRail.
• station->stations; again a recipe for disaster, as editors need to recall there are in fact two. See Edgware Road and Edgware Road for a further example of confusion. The confusion about W.Hampstead should go away with "West Hampstead railway station" and "West Hampstead overground station" in about twelve months, when the East London and North London lines are renamed to be part of LT's network.
• As for adding London to everything. It's also misleading - for instance Victoria Park, East London and Victoria Park, Finchley should be consistent. "Hackney, London" suggests an inheritance level above "London Borough of Hackney" to me; but that's a personal PoV. If anything, standardisation should be <<place, borough>> leading to instances such as "Bow, Tower Hamlets" rather than "Bow, London" - or perhaps "Hackney, Hackney"? (Hackney Central was actually the result of a previous rename about 15 months ago to distinguish the area from the boro', since Hackney is habitually used to refer to the whole borough).

I'd rather develop some sensible policy now (London wide), rather than a constant flip-flopping) between PoV's. Kbthompson 20:47, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Inspired by this, and performing a minor edit on Barbican Estate, I noted that someone had proposed (in talk) a merge with the Barbican towers (buildings within the estate). It being over a year, without any reply - and the tower pages having no substantive content, I incorporated specific information in the article and changed the pages to redirects. I hope this is non-controversial. Kbthompson 17:44, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

• Hackney, London was more as i was just following what i learnt to be naming conventions for other articles.

• LO will still be part of the National rail network so really railway station will still apply. I understand now that it will be a recipe for disaster. It has been proposed that eventually West Hampstead will also become a major interchange.

• which of LondonRail, London Crossrail, Cossrail London, Crossrail (London) or Crossrail i.e. when refering to London is more common?

• I have no objection over Barbican

Simply south 19:27, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

which of LondonRail, London Crossrail, Cossrail London, Crossrail (London) or Crossrail i.e. when refering to London is more common?

Since nobody here's likely to live to see any of them, I'd say it's a moot point - but I've never heard it called anything other than just plain 'Crossrail'. (Having 'London' in the name ain't gonna happen - Essex, Kent & Surrey councils - where most of the line would actually be - would scream blue murder.) Iridescenti 22:14, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

maps

I have some public domain due to age OS maps (mostly from around 1945) of london SW london NW and london SE. an example of the kinds scans that can be produced can be seen at Image:Wimbledoncommon1944.jpg. The problem is that I don't really know these areas so I'm not exactly sure what to scan. Could anyone help wit this?Geni 10:56, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Well that area's a good start. If you scan areas where you can see an area name - for instance Streatham, Balham, Tooting, etc, then if you link them to here other project members can add them to the relevant articles.

Thank you for your commitment to do this [if you carry it out!] JoshHolloway 22:59, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Image:Londonsw ne courner.jpg will n edd cropping before being used in articles. It's size means that some image tools won't handle it but The GIMP and photoshop should.Geni 11:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

No one interested?Geni 16:45, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I can handle that size file and will see if I can knock out a few. But isn't a 1944 OS map going to be a little misleading with respect to built-up areas? (It will be based on a prewar revision too, most likely. I have a 1946 Oxfordshire map and that is based on the 1930 revision.) But they make great historical docs, I guess... Tarquin Binary 20:16, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

yeah you put it in the history section if the article has one. The the next lot of maps that are fairly availible appear to be the series 7 lot but they are only about halfway through entering the public domain (some have some have not).Geni 15:18, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'll do some areas, probly on the weekend... Tarquin Binary 17:57, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

The other problem one is Image:LondonSE map 1946 nw courner.jpg.Geni 00:54, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Nearest Places?

I expect this is defined somewhere but I can't find it. Please can someone advise the criteria for a "Nearest Places" entry on a London place article? Is there a maximum distance for example? I personally don't see the point of a long list and need some agreed limitation on this. Thanks and regards --Rodge 11:04, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I've taken this to mean places and features that are adjacent to the place under consideration. At Borough level, this would be neighbouring boroughs, at districts in a borough, those places immediately adjacent ... (this has the advantage for large features - like Hackney Marshes, of having a wide area, or providing much finer detail for a place like Whitechapel.

The problem for me has always been 'nearest tube/rail'; some editors want to include everything, for me, anything over 1/2 mile away is to all practical purposes useless.

I don't know any place where this is defined in any operant sense. UK Geography doesn't suggest it as a heading, but it must have been included in the original London templates. Kbthompson 14:48, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that was helpful --Rodge 21:45, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I used "adjoining areas" as nearest places in removing some more distant places from Chiswick, but found a related problem. The list as I found it included Gunnersbury, which I believe is a sub-area within Chiswick - so I have made this clear in the amended listing. The problem is this: how is an area defined? Is there an official definition of every area within London? And what about sub-areas, and London itself? Is the London boundary defined somewhere? In some cities, there are several definitions - Bangkok is one where we found several versions of population, depending on the area taken, on a project I was involved with years ago. Patche99z 12:36, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Template:Infobox London place

new template

Hi. I've been doing some work on the Bloomsbury, London article, and I've been a little concerned with the size and contents of the infobox. I've been in and edited it slightly so the width is not so great. However, the length needs looking at. Because of the contents the length intrudes on sections below, displacing text and images. The template does this on all the articles I looked at. When looking at the contents, some of the information is relevant for a city wide article, but is not pertinent for articles on a place in a city. My feeling is that the Services section in its entirety and most of the Administration could be left out. However, a link to a London Administration page might be helpful for those who would like that information. What do people think? SilkTork 16:52, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I've put the fields back into the template for the time being. This brings it back into line with {{Infobox England place}} of which this is just a London derivative. I am not convinced of the reason to remove the info yet. Regan123 20:03, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I also disagree. It is good that every UK place has an infobox that gives like-for-like information (in the same size/style). Information about a place may seem redundant from those who live there or have experience of it, but in an encyclopedia we should assume no prior knowledge. Also, the administrative arrrangements of the UK are not well known to people and subject to huge misconception; the level of detail reflects that. MRSC • Talk 08:35, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I've had to undo that. The template is intrusive. I'd like to see a discussion and some consensus before a revert. We are not talking about vital information. However, we are talking about a situation in which the template is having a negative impact on articles. As such, until people have had a chance to talk things over, it would be inappropriate to revert back to a problem situation. Regards. SilkTork 08:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I've just had a look at other British geographic templates. While the others are also quite long, the information is at least more relevant, and there has been an attempt to make the templates look attractive and interesting. Kent is colourful, attractive and very informative. Same with England, Luton, and Dartmoor. Then look at Bloomsbury, London. Then when you take a look at the templates of geographic articles which has been Featured: Ahmedabad, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Australia, etc. These tend to be colourful, pertinent, and often shorter for a large area than the one for Bloomsbury, which is a small area. SilkTork 08:36, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Simply carving out chunks and restricting the width probably isn't the best way to advance the template. By way of improved design, there are possibly more economic uses of space. MRSC • Talk 08:43, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

That's difficult ... there's already a separate template for Boroughs. A place in London does have certain things uniquely associated with it. It is part of a borough, it has a postcode, it has political representation - for instance.

Now the whole of London has 020 as a phone code, is served by the London Fire brigade and (apart from the City of London) the Met Police ... there does seem an awful lot of duplication. Most of the US major cities don't include (for instance) their country, or sovereign nation and I wouldn't think these have a role at the place level. Knowing it's in one of the top ten cities in the world is sufficient for most knowledge levels. Maybe a small link below the map could call up those details?

The infobox needs to be pertinent, but also needs to be informatative ... If there is to be a redesign, it needs to involve many more people in the discussion. Kbthompson 10:35, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest, if there is a redesign, we look to creating a completely new UK-wide place template. MRSC • Talk 10:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I would think it a little ambitious, but why not be ambitious - I'll start reading up on the minutiae of unitary authorities ... Kbthompson 11:06, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

The current ones are getting a bit creaky and started life before we got all the nice 'if' and 'switch' thingies. We could come up with a mock-up and then gather input from the various projects and noticeboards. As a starting point I will try to map out the various permutations. MRSC • Talk 12:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me all, I am not a template person, so my editing was crude. Templates can be tricky things - they are less open to editing than mainspace, yet they can be imposed upon a series of articles with sometimes a negative impact on individual articles. I welcome a broader discussion of place templates - and an investigation of place templates used by other geographic projects might be useful. SilkTork 16:51, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I assume that by "UK-wide place" you mean merging {{Infobox England place}}, {{Infobox Scotland place}}, {{Infobox London place}} etc., and not trying to merge in unitary authorities and counties etc.? Sounds like a good idea, though it'll need some pretty complex code to cover all the necessary permutations, given that Scotland, England and London all have unique parts to their templates. DJR (T) 16:58, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

A question here - what is the thinking behind giving unofficial areas like Bloomsbury and Soho a template? They are informal, undefined spaces. There are roads, squares, gardens and buildings in London and beyond that do not have templates - yet at least the others are fixed and official. Buckingham Palace is a place in London - it's a featured article - it doesn't have a place template. Parks, woods, museums, etc are places with no template. Hills have a template, canals do not, and rivers have a different template. I can understand the uniformity of a London Borough - comparing like with like. But a "place" is rather vague. And there is a lot of inconsistency here. SilkTork 17:25, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Bloomsbury and Soho are both places, they have place templates to indicate where they are and various administrative defaults, most of which should be repeated textually. Buckingham Palace is not a place, it is a building. In this case, it does have a template, one for Royal Palaces, that straggles along the bottom. Did anyone notice someone put up a specific template for Moorgate - have a look .... Kbthompson 17:45, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Should we define a Place so that there can be some standards as to when to use a Place template and when to use some other template. Would a "place" be streets rather than a green space such as a park, garden or square? Except when the green space is a hill? Hmmm. Is a group of things a place - several buildings or streets? If we don't have some guidance then there will be uncertainty as to when and where a place template should be used. I sense that an already defined geographical regions such as a London Borough or a Town or Village has a template? The Places template is for any large area not already covered by a geographical template? SilkTork 20:11, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

A 'place' is a town, village or a 'city district'. Its just convenient to use that word as its more inclusive. 'Settlement' would be another synonym. Official administrative divisions use other templates. MRSC • Talk 20:30, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I've created a Template:Infobox UK place . It was created using a copy of template:Infobox City. Tests for London, England, Scotland, Wales. It all seems to work. All are definitely smaller than the previous ones but the London ones gets expanded because of the map. MRSC • Talk 18:49, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Very nicely done - all look very good. I reckon it would be quite nice to keep the lat/long figures displayed in the box underneath OS grid position, as they are universal locators and OS is pretty irrelevant for those outside the UK. But otherwise that is a spectacularly well done job. DJR (T) 20:43, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

See comments at Template talk:Infobox UK place . DJR (T) 20:51, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, nice one. I notice there's a way of posting co-ordinates on the top of the page - would this solve Djr_xi's dilema, or is using one template to generate another dodgy? Any comments yet from other geographically inclined groups? Kbthompson 20:59, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Given the nature of the new template, I think it would make more sense to move this discussion away from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject London and to Template talk:Infobox UK place . DJR (T) 21:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

The new template doesn't appear significantly different to the old one. The test template has been placed on towns and on non-official areas so there is no consistency. The contents are random. The template is ugly. The grey map is unhelpful. The size is intrusive. Would it be helpful to take this step by step? 1) Define where the template should be used. Towns are different to unofficial areas. 2) Agree the content. What is important? What information do people feel is important: A)For towns. B)For unofficial geographical areas which have no appointed officials. 3) Agree the sort of mapping that could be used. 4) Decide if a visual image would be more appealing and helpful to people than a map. Or if a visual image could be used in addition to a map. Take some of the randomness out of this and work our way to a solution. SilkTork 22:29, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure how you can say the contents are "random" - what information would you expect to see in an infobox? Secondly, the grey map is unique and informative in that it provides an accurate representation of where a place is in London without having to create numerous individual images. I personally don't think it is ugly in any way. Thirdly, I have no idea how the size of the template is "intrusive" - perhaps you are using a low-resolution monitor? In direct response to your points:

1) Towns are different to unofficial areas, but both need templates. This way both can utilise the same one.

2) This template has been the result of about 3 years of development, so to suggest that this information is irrelevant or unimportant is not really justified.

3) The mapping used at present is the only method of locating any London location within a single dynamic image - an alternative would require individual static images.

4) A visual image could indeed be used in addition to a map, but given that the primary requirement for small London entities is likely to be location, a map is integral. Images can appear anywhere else on the page.

As for "randomness"... I fundamentally disagree. DJR (T) 22:39, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree with all the above. There is no randomness at all in the information. Perhaps you don't like infoboxes. Some people don't. But that doesn't mean they should be cut down to only a few elements just to please those who are more interested in other parts of the article. The UK infobox is a direct copy of template:Infobox City which is a popular and long-established/refined template. MRSC • Talk 22:52, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I have to confess there is perhaps an emotional edge to my association with this template which is clouding my judgment and my communications on the issue. However, I do feel at the heart of my outburst there is some genuine and serious criticism and comment which could be addressed:

1) What is the definition of "place" being used here?

2) What is the intention of the template?

When looking at the nature of "place" I think we can agree that an unofficial area which has no defined boundary and no legal or political status is at least different to a town which is an official area with a defined boundary, a legal and political status and services. An area which is largely a popular concept does not - as far as I can see - have the sort of status that grants it a service of Police, etc, any more or less than a building, river or garden. Bloomsbury does not have a police force or station. There is a fire station across the Euston Road, but not in Bloomsbury itself. University College Hospital has an ambulance service I understand. While the Met Police force will attend to a reported crime in Bloomsbury, they will also attend to reported crimes in every other London location mentioned on Wiki. Do we put a service template on every square, garden, street and building in London? I don't think so. I think we consider carefully what the intention of the template is, and what information is needed to go in it that people will find helpful and pertinent. I think we need to be a little more selective. As part of that selection process it might be helpful to look at those two questions. What is a place? And what is the intention of the template? Then we might address the question of what content needs to go in the template. SilkTork 08:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

A 'place' is a settlement, town, village, hamlet, city district etc. There has been no suggestion at all in the last few years that this should extend to squares, gardens, streets or buildings. That word was picked as it is an inclusive term for settlement, town, village, hamlet, city district etc. It can cover informal areas, but I prefer it if it turns up on a search here. MRSC • Talk 08:52, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

The equivalent of places such as Bloomsbury and Soho in America appears to be Category:Neighborhoods in the United States. I've taken a look, and there appear to be no templates on those articles. SilkTork 19:30, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Bloomsbury and Soho are ancient parishes, not informal neighbourhoods, or areas, and so form a part of the patchwork quilt that makes up London history. Their current articles may not reflect this relationship, and so may require attention. Kbthompson 19:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

That's interesting. Where are you getting your information from? I thought Bloomsbury was part of the parish of St Pancras. And I wasn't aware that Soho was ever a parish - which was the parish church? SilkTork 20:42, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

The parish of St Pancras has not existed for quite some time, being superceded by the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras and the London Borough of Camden. In the UK relatively few places are now parished. Currently or historically forming a parish is not an indicator of being a 'place'. MRSC • Talk 20:47, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

We are agreed on that. What we haven't yet got though is a working idea of what constitutes a "place". I've noticed that articles on the places in London that we are talking about are usually termed "area". I also notice that there is a Category:Neighbourhoods of Camden which is in line with the USA categories. It goes deeper - Category:Neighbourhoods in England, Category:Neighbourhoods in the United Kingdom, Category:Neighbourhoods by country. The phrase "districts" is also used. Are are communities. Districts, neighbourhoods, villages, towns, communities, etc are then gathered under Category:Settlements by region - which contains this interesting sentence: "Categories for some countries combine different types of settlement because no official distinction is made locally." So there is an awareness that there are "areas" or "districts" or "neighbourhoods", etc that have no official distinction. What we don't have across Wiki is an agreed term to cover these non-official areas. There has been some dispute about the settlement category, but it did survive the debate. It may, however, come under question again because the term "settlement" is understood to mean either something new or something small - and at the moment the category contains towns and cities - which is clearly wrong. Mmmm. This is quite interesting. And much larger than at first appears. SilkTork 22:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

No, we're not agreed on that. That'd be St Anne's, Soho and St George's, Bloomsbury ... This is an encyclopaedic entry on the place, not a gazetteer of modern places. Historically, in the UK parishes were the organisational districts until 1899, some areas in London were replaced by Board of Works as early as 1854, but the parish still administered the Poor Law.

The places you're discussing owe their existence (as places) to the parishes. So, it's a nonsense to say it's not important. In London, they're of paramount importance because they reflect the important earliest settlements.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that only modern political structures are important, start from the ancient parishes, build up to the modern boroughs. It's the only taxonomy that makes sense. Kbthompson 23:49, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I think I was agreeing with MRSC in that a parish is not an indicator of place. And in the case of Soho and Bloomsbury there are several churches in the area, so there are several geographical and historical overlapping parishes - both Catholic and Anglican. Neither of the areas has been known as a parish - nor has there been a parish which defined the boundary of these areas. There is already a Category:Parishes of England, and I think that will work in a complementary manner to places/neighbourhoods/communities rather than as a substitute. SilkTork 19:42, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

unnecessary infoboxes

Coming back to WP slowly after a long leave of absence, I'm glad that SilkTork has taken issue with what I also consider the ridiculously overpadded infoboxes for 'neighbourhoods' or 'districts', I added many grumbles about them a while back.

First, they render the layout of the article inflexible, even interfering with its readability, as a result of their sheer size (they seem to have, ludicrously, got even bigger since).

Secondly, almost all the information in them, that is when it is correct, already exists at a higher level or levels, for example Services, Post Office, Administration.

Thirdly, that info that has the virtue of seeming unique to the district possesses an accuracy that is spurious to say the least. To what point in a London District like, say Dalston - which cannot be accurately geographically defined anyway - do the grid reference and lat/long refer? Has someone run a point-in-polygon algorithm on some agreed border to determine the centroid? I doubt it. These are meaningless.

Fourthly, if this redundant and inaccurate information really must be included, then there is not reason not to simply dump it in an infobox at the bottom of the page. I doubt anyone ever reads these boxes anyway.

Might I note that my personal view, registered many times, is that London sub-divisions below the level of borough simply can not be and never will be pinned down exactly and their chaos simply must be lived with, unencyclopedic as that may seem (in fact, ironically, I'm not sure that this subject does not warrant an article in its own way, but this might likely invoke the cry of 'original research'). Ward boundaries are at the behest of local authorities, prone to political whimsy and demographical change- their names are almost never used outside a narrow administrative and political context. Postcodes are notoriously meaningless with a very few exceptions and, most telling, two people who live on the same street may feel they live in entirely different districts. In my view, in most cases Wikipedia does not have the right to tell either of them they are wrong.

Just as a side note (no personal animosity intended) I would cite my personal view as the entire opposite of KBThompson's: 'Don't make the mistake of thinking that only modern political structures are important, start from the ancient parishes, build up to the modern boroughs.' Rather I would state: 'Don't make the mistake of thinking that the ancient parishes are of any importance whatsoever to most modern seekers of information, start from the modern districts and boroughs and build back to the ancient parishes where you can.' This is frequently derided as promoting a 'gazetteer' not an encyclopedia, I know, but it seems to me, that when people type in 'Shoreditch', the vast majority, in the first instance, will want to know about contemporary reality.

Adding that we have districts that do not show any particular descent from old administrative or ecclesiastic parishes (examples, arising for different reasons: Leamouth, Dartmouth Park) and others that have functionally, in some cases even nominatively, disappeared (Cambridge Heath, Kingsland - only one of which constituted an old parish anyway), and some that are rapidly vanishing (Shacklewell), I'd argue that a taxonomy that proceeds backwards through time from modern facts on the ground is the only one that makes sense. It does have the annoying need to be updated regularly - but that's London and that's WP...

Tarquin Binary 23:20, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

None taken. I'm not an absolutist Finn, a little pragmatism goes a long way with these things. I just have a tendency to get caught up with the idea that 2000 years of history have maybe a little more significance than a club that opened yesterday, and will get zapped tomorrow .... 8^). Somehow between us all, I'm sure we'll strike the right balance. Kbthompson 23:44, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, there's the issue of the infoboxes (partly my fault, we've slightly digressed). But never mind that, I think your comparison is entirely spurious. Past="2,000 years of history", Present="a club that opened yesterday" is setting up a strawman to knock down. I could as well be entirely encyclopedic and come up with the ridiculously skewed "Accurate realtime information about a modern locale has maybe a little more significance than 2,000 years of dusty records, only the last few centuries of which have any claim to great accuracy, but which in any case are for the most part partial, incomplete and highly specific in their intent."

That's not my view, but you can see how the strawman game can be inverted. Tarquin Binary 23:59, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I rather like dusty records, you know where to find them, and around here, they don't shoot back ... Infoboxes, Finn, or we can chat on our own talk pages. I think it's an interesting argument, but not one for the current topic.

1. slight agree - they can aid structure
2. damn right
3. don't care, suspect someone took this from an authoritative source map, (say) OS placenames, but as you say it is likely to be spurious
4. why not use show/hide for such details

Unnumbered points. Yes, chaos. Some organisation can be implied from the old parishes - but (as you say) I might just be fooling myself. Prgmatically they're not the be all and end all. Leamouth has always been there, otherwise the water would have backed up! It's current name is just a way of looking at that. Trinity Buoy wharf only achieved importance through it's historical association with Trinity House for being responsible for providing navigation lights along the Thames, it's still a part of Stepney's historic association with the see. Your friends at Dartmouth Park wouldn't be there but for a speculative Earl of Dartmouth; and I bet it was in a parish! Everything has a reason, and it's all relative. Kbthompson 00:30, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

My points 1 and 2, glad you mostly agree. I personally do not find the idea that they aid structure too convincing, because I think it is logical/literary structure that counts (after accurate factual reporting, of course). Quite simply, they stand in the way of the 'narrative' (not to be taken in the fictional sense of 'narrative'). Basically, the Infobox would be acceptable (if not very good) layout on paper, but it is annoying on screen. On paper it could more easily be ignored.

My point 3 - no such authority can conceivably exist - because no agreed boundaries exist. Appeal to authority does not in any way work in this case (obviously it does in the case of entities with formally assigned boundaries like London Boroughs.) Unfortunately you have now stuck me with the interesting exercise of trudging through the apparent 'centroids' to demonstrate their absurdity. I maybe will do this for some of one borough. I have a strange feeling that whoever the 'authority' was, they simply took the locale names from the London A-Z and put in the Gridref and latlong from those, no doubt from the leftmost point of the first letter - it would have been something obsessive but ultimately pointless, I'm sure.

My point 4 - usability standards suggest that you do not dump the onus for the basic layout (you should have a higher-resolution screen etc) on the user - and they are the ones who decide whether to show/hide. The default should be as sensible and readable as possible.

My other wimblings. Naturally (yawn) I am aware the mouth of the Lee has been approximately in the same place since about the start of the Holocene Epoch, but Leamouth as a district of London has not, it's a new district in most respects and supercedes the previous TBW (In my opinion it is likely to prove Lee-transpontine in future, possibly absorbing part of east Silvertown.) In any case, a district name is not merely a geographic description. Please elucidate the geographic determinism behind, say the 32 borough names in London. (Oh, and by the way, before 1965, the now-Leamouth was in the Metropolitan Borough of Poplar, not Stepney. In previous periods you might have argued between Bow and Poplar, but Stepney wouldn't have been in it.)

Your point on Dartmouth Park merely confirms mine. Being geometrically enclosed by a parish does not indicate that an area enjoys some sort of administrative lineage from that parish. And there are plenty of cases, London being London, that areas and districts cross two or more of these vestry/parish boundaries.

Finally, you are wrong to think that I disrespect 'dusty records' - in fact I consider primary sources far far far more important than Wikipedia for all its wonderful fun-loving discussions. (I really would urge you to re-read my comment, it was aimed against strawman arguments, such as the one you deployed, not against primary sources, which I too have a great regard for. I added plentiful caveats.)

An encyclopedia is not a primary record. Its duty is to serve up to its readers (In a well-ordered editorial sequence) the most important salient points about the selected term. In the case of almost every Inner London district (Central London is the hole in the doughnut [heh, not very old itself], I am talking about the C19-early C20 ring surrounding it), the prominence of the area arises almost entirely through its role in the history of the Capital itself - this is the very first salient point, so that they cannot be treated in the same way as a tiny Oxfordshire village - a primary resort to some sort of ur-parish organisation as a start point would have some validity there.

[Sadly, I think this renders about 1,600 of the 2,000 years history you referred to relatively insignificant with respect to Inner London. Some might argue that *architecturally* only the past 200 years or so are of any real consequence at all here. Central London, the hole in the doughnut, is, of course, another matter.]

Sorry, gone on a bit, but there's my general philosophy on this, I guess. I'll certainly never make a Medievalist, that's for sure :)

Tarquin Binary 04:57, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Eloquently argued, re:Leamouth==Stepney, so was Hackney, in 1068 ... A sort of ur-East London, if you like ...

I think wiki doesn't respect usability guidelines in any form whatsoever, no allowance is made for the unsighted.

You could argue architecturally, only the last 10 years matter, as this is the modern replacement cycle of most building. Nothing like London Wall around these days.

Ignorance is bliss, and the world delivered in a 200-word factoid (that's possibly the executive summary, of which you speak); I still assert that the backstory is important to the understanding of place ... it should be relevant, but it has a place - and often you will find it is defining of that place. Kbthompson 10:19, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, in fact, being as how Stepney is no longer a borough - it is now a district not a borough with highly debatable borders in its own right - even if Leamouth has been in Stepney from 1889 to 1965 it still would be true that Leamouth!=Stepney. (Leamouth!=Tower Hamlets && Leamouth!=Bow...)

Yes, I find the wholesale avoidance of usability issues by WP irksome. The sentiment, just as with legal/libel issues (a certain major problem last year) seems to be to blame the user. Distasteful and elitist in this case. It's to be noted that columnising the body text, which the Infobox does (although it all goes to pot afterwards), is a good thing in terms of usability, but not when you use a distracting, inaccurate and redundant box to do it. The irony, when I have attempted the use of whitespace or images to facilitate readable layout, this usually gets wiped out and the text run right across the screen! There is no actual understanding of the role of whitespace on WP - it's not like we're wasting paper, after all.

Now that is quite extreme, the 10-year figure, and once again misses my point, I suspect another strawman. Inner London (again I stress that I am not referring to the City, Westminster and Holborn) is a creation largely of the Victorians and Edwardians with some great Georgian survivals, and so, except for a major intervention by the prewar LCC, it largely remains - in spite of the efforts of property developers and the Nazis alike, hence the figure of 200 years (the Victorians demolished more of the old settlements than either). The most important events for many of the districts in Inner London we are discussing were the coming firstly of the canals then the railways, including the Underground later on (Tower Hamlets is more complicated of course). If you extend the figure to 300 years, you then encompass the Enlightenment delights of Westminster and Holborn of course. Not a long space of time, London is basically a modern city, it is not an Oxford.

Ignorance in an encyclopedia is not bliss, and again I'm sorry to say that I think you have missed my point here too. I emphatically do not approve of the world delivered in a 200-word factoid for those with ADD (another aspect of my dislike for the ridiculous district Infoboxes), but there is no reason why the first few paragraphs should not be a quick summary of the salient points - this is Journalism 101. And I completely agree, as an Inclusionist, that any or all aspects of the back story should be retained if people choose to add them. But my points are twofold, as you can see from the above. Firstly that an historical thread rooted in the present and reaching backwards in time is likely to engage the reader more deeply than the reverse and secondly that when seen from a modern perspective, some periods of time are usually greatly more seminal to a London district than others. This is a matter of prioritisation and of course varies depending on the locale. Tarquin Binary 14:50, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Back to pragmatics, I really don't think we disagree that much. The target is a readable page, and I'm all for that. I would like the reader to engage with a little bit of history, there is a lot of it about in London, and it fascinates me that individual locales do carve out a bit of history for themselves. Sorry, if sometimes I take an absolutist stand against what I believe to be absolutist positions. I can be reasonable (and fallible) too.

The ten years is not plucked out of the air, it's actually something that an architect pointed out to me, and something that he now ruefully teaches his wannabe architects. East London, west of the Lea being in the manor (and parish) of Stepney is not made up, either. I guess I'm trying to rail against the Millennium Dome view of the world, and that dominated by that uber-dome, the Olympics! Kbthompson 15:08, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, OK - with the final caveat that your architect friend must be living on a different planet! I'm about to pop out for a quick walk round Hackney and very little I pass will be as recent as 10 years old, about 5% tops (and largely rubbish). Most buildings I pass will be approx a century old with older survivors and swathes of postwar development, the latter 40-50 years old. I suppose he regards Canary Wharf as the whole of London. It's the kind of blinkered thing architects get into, I know a couple too...

Oh, I did not say anything about the manor of Stepney one way or another, I was concerned with the borough, and I am correct about that. But bizarrely, it would seem that we are sort of on the same side, except for the sad wretched Infoboxes, but there seems to be a huge gulf of misunderstanding here. I certainly hope you are not accusing me of having a 'Millennium Dome' view simply because I find the period of London history after about the late 1600s to be its most interesting - and formative - period. Tarquin Binary 16:27, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, let me state that despite my best efforts to re-read all of your recent comments, I'd be lying if I said I totally understood exactly what's going on. From what I gather, Tarquin Binary basically disagrees with the idea of infoboxes in general, and specifically with their usage in areas that cannot be proven to exist. In contrast, Kbthompson appears to disagree, and advocates the use of infoboxes for these "areas" that form an integral part of London's historic makeup. I feel like weighing in myself, so I;ll begin by agreeing that certain aspects of infobox may well be unnecessary on such a local level - it can fairly be assumed that the Met police all locations that use the infobox. However, given that this infobox is soon to be incorporated within a pan-national standard under the powerful {{Infobox UK place }} framework, many fields can be added or eliminated on an individual basis based on requirement. Finally, I would not agree with the suggestion that infoboxes are largely unused by readers. It terms of accessing relevant information in a quick and seamless manner, there are fewer easier methods. DJR (T) 01:37, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Necessary infoboxes

So what do people feel should be included in a London places infobox? Given that these areas are not official, the info will be different to that which goes into a London Borough infobox. None of the higher level info need be repeated. None of the current Administration, Other, Services, Post Office and Telephone information, as that will be covered by the Borough. A link to the Borough (or Boroughs if the place covers more than one) would be enough for that. The Politics information is often down to small scale areas so a case could be made for that. A location map is useful, though I am not in favour of the current one as it is not aesthetically pleasing, nor is it that helpful to a general reader as it is difficult to identify the shape of London. I would also favour the facility to drop in a picture. A good location picture can often identify a place quite readily. SilkTork 21:22, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Much of this discussion is taking place at Infobox UK place . Kbthompson 23:55, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think you can assume that people will also look at the borough level. It might be more appropriate to think along the lines of what would be the core borough data which should be known to people who just want to look at the local level. What would be most useful to them? For example who the local MP is maybe?

I'm with you on the notion of having a much clearer link to the relevant borough. But could this go across the top to indicate that it belongs to (say) London and the London Borough of (whatever)?

Is this the debate re infoxes? Is it happening elsewhere as well? (In other words these are exactly the same issue as will apply in all metropolitan areas across the UK) Who's producing the infoxes? Cosmopolitancats 16:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Co-ordinate accuracy - spun off from (Infobox London place)

Infoboxes! (to stay on topic). OK, forgot in this day and age that we have the grids linked to Google maps, so have gone through the exercise I listed with the districts listed on the Hackney borough piece. (Some do not have boxes, but I shan't ID them in case someone slaps one of the damn things on).

Dalston: The top boundary of London Fields? What? And see Hackney Central for more hilarity. I would try to plot this midway between old Dalston (which is a section I keep meaning to write) and Dalston Junction ('New Dalston').

De Beauvoir Town: On the square, this one is acceptable.

Hackney Central: Ah ha ha. This maintains that Hackney Central is in exactly the same place as Dalston, top of London Fields. of course, this is wrong for both of them.

Hackney Wick: Oh grief. The point far to the east given is not even in Hackney borough.I would place this in its historical position just north of the top point of Vicky Park (and quite close to the station).

Haggerston: Not too bad, I surely would consider moving it a tad to the east to centre on Queensbridge Road. But see Hoxton!

Homerton: The point given is just exactly where Homerton becomes Lower Clapton. And, ha ha, see Lower Clapton. Move it to the High Street.

Hoxton: Ah ha ha. This actually points to the same place as Haggerston. No justification. Utterly wrong - it would be understandable if it were confused with Shoreditch.

Lea Bridge: Yeah, that one will do. Only because there is not a lot left of poor old Lea Bridge.

Lower Clapton: Another little WP Infobox joke. Points to exactly the same spot as Homerton which is in reality where the two areas meet. Move Homerton down to the High Street and LC somewhat north and you could make it stick.

Shoreditch: Too close to Bunhill Fields. Move it east and a tad south.

South Hackney: This points to part of Hackney Wick. Should point to a spot south of Well St/Cassland Road. The area between these roads and the park is traditionally regarded as South Hackney.

Stamford Hill: Could be worse. I think I would consider moving this to the crossroads, though.

Stoke Newington: Could be worse, I think I could make a case for moving it a little way down Church St, but the junction of the main roads is a good enough location.

Upper Clapton: Points to Springfield Park which at least is in Upper Clapton. Could be worse, but I would move it closer to the Upper Clapton Road.

Some extremely silly results here, particularly Dalston/Hackney Central, the ridiculous Hoxton/Haggerston and the Hackney Wick entry that isn't even in the borough (that in itself is not an issue, there are places that cross boprough boundaries, but not in this case, the pointer is way to the east.)

Now multiply this buffoonery by 32 London boroughs. It seems clear that no-one has ever looked at this from a top down basis, I suspect that they have indeed copied the location of the labels on the maps in their greataunt's Almanac of London. I would reckon that the boxes are simply there to give an impression of encyclopedic knowledge, not the substance. Spurious precision, nothing more. Tarquin Binary 15:48, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

(Spun this off into a separate discussion to make sure it doesn't get lost in the miasma of other argument).

Couldn't agree more, lose it! Unless someone wants to go through them all and correct them, then I regard it worse to put something in with a 30% accuracy than not to mention it at all ... Kbthompson 16:04, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, spurious accuracy is far worse than nothing, but anyway I would say the best thing to do is to change the whole template, lose the grid and lat/long and add a link to Google maps that says 'Approximate location only' - and make that optional, only reasonably verified and sensible locations need apply. I though about corrections, but since I hate the Infoboxes anyway, my heart isn't in it.

Also, shrink the ridiculously large map to a very simple outline of Greater London with a red dot on it. Which means that the entire Infobox can be shrunk widthwise, maybe to half its size. Then prune all the redundant info from it. One should then have a petite decorative little box, or one that at least can be worked around. (As a final step I would shove it right to the bottom of the page, but compromises...) Tarquin Binary 16:35, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Inaccuracies are not necessarily due to incorrect co-ordinates - it is possible that the latitude/longitude values that define the border values for the map are not quite accurately calibrated. For what it's worth, I think the map is an incredibly useful and powerful tool as it gives the reader an immediate idea of where abouts in London the place is - something that cannot be achieved in any other way that I can think of. It is hard to replicate a function like this without things getting very messy, and in any case there is an upgrade to the map in currently in development. DJR (T) 01:24, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

No, Djr_xi, they are entirely due to incorrect coordinates (though I'm prone to argue that there are no absolutely correct coords*, approximate ones would be OK, but these are just plain barmy). It's easy enough to verify that without even resorting to a computer, take the Grid Ref for Hoxton - TQ335835. Simply using the good old paper OS map for North London places it smack bang in the middle of Haggerston. But it's even easier than that - it takes one second to see that the Haggerston ref is identical with the Hoxton one. I've since taken a very brief look at neighbouring boroughs - Islington is slightly better, Tower Hamlets is every bit as bad, heh, poor old Shadwell has been sunk in the middle of the Thames.

Please note that the lat/longs are faulty in exactly the same way. I'm guessing that they have been derived by simply reading off their values from Google Maps after the grid ref has been input.

I did not suggest dropping the map, I just happen to think it far too big and clumsy as is the Infobox. Anyway, I've dropped in my 5 cents worth, had to speak up in support of the original poster on this topic. I hope someone will run with this, though. (I mentioned 32 London boroughs, but in fact I would recommend that such coordinates be verified for every UK location on WP that carries a box - or dropped entirely.)

[*] For a London district with no formal boundary that is. For an area with a formally assigned boundary like a borough, a centroid could be arrived at that would at least have some mathematical credence.

Tarquin Binary 09:04, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I think this makes clear this infobox needs to be a 'new start' and the contents should be revisited by editors as the syntax is updated on each article. MRSC • Talk 09:44, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Yep. OK, I didn't intend to do this given my dislike of the huge Infobox we now have, but I will try to fix the coordinates on the Hackney and NE London boxes when I have a bit more time. It seems daft to have gone through the above exercise and not remediate it (and I have a good idea where the NE London grid and lat/long links might point so that they're not totally stoooopid). But there should be somewhere that the list can be tallied off by borough to stop people duplicating the work.

<musing>You know, this is where one really wishes for interoperability. Kind of wish that the geotags that I have on Flickr images (many of which are on WC too) could be carried over here to generate a Google Map link in the caption. In some cases pics are mere window dressing (necessary window dressing, IMO, articles look dreadful without them), but reasonably accurate geotagging would add a sort of visual encyclopedic component. Can't see the tech here supporting it easily. Though it could be done manually, that really lacks technical appeal - and it wouldn't catch on...</musing>

Tarquin Binary 10:16, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

History of London

Hello. I was wondering if anyone could help splitting the very long History of London page into sub-pages. A start has been made on this with Londinium and Saxon London. But there's still masses to go.

Incidentally I have been debating at Talk: Londinium whether Londinium should be moved to Roman London. I think it should, in order to be consistent with other periodised sub articles, but someone else disagrees with me. G-Man * 21:40, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Well nobody seems interested in this. Anyway I have created this box:

I intend to create articles to match the above and put this box on each article. Does anyone have any comments or suggestions? G-Man * 22:09, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a very good idea. I wonder if the two postwar periods should be broken down differently. 1965 is a big watershed year, with the creation of Greater London - the whole definition changes at that point, and of course we just about get to the Swinging Sixties right there. I guess 45-65 would then be the Postwar Recovery period. (2000 isn't as much of a watershed year, I think, as 1900, because 1900 saw the creation of the County of London, just 12 years before, and the creation of the metropolitan boroughs just one year before). Anyway, could be:

1945-1965: Postwar Recovery

1965-Present: Greater London

A thought, anyway. Will see if I can help breaking it down, whatever you go with... Tarquin Binary 23:40, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for not replying earlier, other things to do ... Thank you for considering this matter, and also TB makes a good suggestion. I wonder if 18th and 19th shouldn't be Georgian and Victorian - that would fit in with the previous eras. Major changes occur in the period 1840-1880, when London becomes the Great Wen, before about 1850 you still have fields separating the inner villages, by 1880, it's one big stink ... I'm happy to go with what you decide, and will be glad to try to give a hand.

Maybe also create 'minor navigation boxes' for each period, to get you round (say) details on the early reigns, or for major events (and articles) in the later periods. Kbthompson 09:39, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, I agree, as regards the 19th century - 1880 is also generally regarded by London historians as a very significant year in terms of public awareness both of the inadequate infrastructure and of human deprivation, which led directly to welfare reforms, replacement of the MBW with the LCC and the boroughs etc. We've kind of opened a can of worms here, though, because if we're looking at critical epochs, then the two most important post-Renaissance watersheds, I think, are WW2, (correctly identified here) and The Great Fire - besides the rebuilding of the city, this was followed by the rapid growth of the West End. I would perhaps characterise the period from 1666 to late C18, therefore, as 'Enlightenment London'. You then have a slight problem with the brevity of 'Stuart London', consisting only of James I, Charles I, the Commonwealth and a bit of Charles II (Oh, I don't know, that's 1603-1666, quite substantial). As before, though, I am happy to help with whatever is decided when I can. Tarquin Binary 14:23, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Went off and thought about my earlier idea. I now think that if that were used it should be:

1939-1965: War and Recovery

1965-Present: Greater London

I know that postwar recovery could be said to continue well after that - some might argue it is still ongoing - but by 1965 a lot of London was looking more personable again (though the airing of Cathy Come Home in 1966 rather undermined any complacency about the housing situation). In any case 1965 remains a key date because of the enlargement in strategic plans involved. I think we are too close to the events to come up with the next key dates, by the way - maybe the gradual redevelopment of East London and its extension along the Thames Corridor will be seen as the next important phase by future historians. Or maybe not... Tarquin Binary 16:34, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, well I certainly think that WW2 period needs an article to itself, as it was undoubtedly the most dramatic period of London's history since the great fire. The other problem is that I'm not sure that enough happened from 1939-45 to 1965 to justify an article in itself. I might be wrong. But what we have for this period is post war re-building, the olympics, the festival of Britain, the great smog, and not much else. In a 1945-2000 article we could break down the article into decades, presumably devoting much space to the eventful 1960s. 21st century London is of course a work in progress, and might risk becoming like a newspaper of recent but unsignificant events. So whether it deserves its own article, or not I'm not sure. There doesn't seem to be any perfect way of breaking it down, each has its drawbacks. I will think further. G-Man * 19:56, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

It's certainly true that no way of slicing history is perfect, convenient at best, usually. (And I agree about WW2, just thought I was multiplying periods a bit.) It's the same with broader history, too. I guess I was trying to go with the 'significant year' theory - you know, British History is often broken into 1688-1815, then maybe 1815-1901 or 1815-1914 or the date of the Reform Act or whatever (1815-1914 also works for European History, 1688-1815 doesn't...) But separating out the postwar decades as sections is a good approach, I like it, though I have the same concerns with C21 London as an entirely separate page (just not history, somehow). It's your call, I think, I hope to help sort the pages out whatever you decide... Tarquin Binary 20:16, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the intention is to divide up the existing (12-15 page) article into manageable chunks, so that it creates an easily read summary for each period. When an individual subject within that summary gets too large - (say) London at War, then spin it off into another article. The existing task is to impose some workable structure on the existing unwieldy page, and then allow editors to blossom within the new pages. Our task is to create a flexible structure, not (at the moment) write the history, beyond what already exists.

I'd say you have two ways to approach that, either purely chronologically, or by topic as per (say) East End was done. The former can be made to work, but the latter actually tells a more coherent narrative, if we pick our periods right.

One idea I'd like to see is a section on what it was like to live in each of these periods (a bit like The Geoffrye Museum). Kbthompson 23:42, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Well I'm not really sure how writing by topic could work in this instance. All of the other city history articles I've seen are by chronology, such as History of New York City or History of Paris. Anyway I think I'll stick with the present structure but without the c21. If it doesn't work out then it can of course be changed. G-Man * 21:51, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I've created Norman and Medieval London. It could certainly do with some work. G-Man * 22:46, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

FAR for London congestion charge

London congestion charge has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Gzkn 02:28, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Anyone interested in collaborating on articles about the London theatre?

Hi, long-time Wikipedian here, moved over a year ago to London, very interested in London theatre, but find it sorely underrepresented in Wikipedia. Which is a pity because (like its financial district) London's theatreland is now acknowledged to be the finest in the world. If anyone else has an interest in this, I would be very happy to collaborate with them on theatre-related articles and to keep WP updated with details of the latest productions (at least the important ones anyway - there's so much going on here that you'd need a team to keep track of everything.) Please drop a line here or on my talk page, if interested. Much obliged, thanks! --Peripatetic 11:03, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, there's already Elizabethan theatre which deals with the early history of (essentially) London theatre. Moving forward, there's some good stuff on the Patent theatres, and Colin4C and I have collaborated (or, is that disagreed?) on some articles about early Music hall theatres in London. I agree a lot of currently active theatres need to be brought up to the standard of Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and Theatre Royal, Covent Garden; and even they have important aspects missing. I tend to dive in where my interests take me, examples Britannia Theatre and Theatre Workshop. I would suggest you do the same, but it's always good to get an extra eye to look things over, so feel free to be in touch if you need any kind of help. Kbthompson 11:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Just to add that the list of bygone London Music Halls is incomplete, and that looking at the Strand, London article one would never guess it was THE entertainment Mecca of 19th and early 20th century London...Marie Lloyd could do with a complete revamp as well...Colin4C 11:35, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I've been cleaning up, and applying structure to List of London venues - which is the main list of current and historic theatres in London. Surrey Theatre needs loving care and attention, and I will try to get to it. All critiques and collaboration on both pages welcome. Kbthompson 17:19, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Venues? That sounds very vague. Separate lists of London theatres, music halls, cinemas, clubs etc might make more sense??? Colin4C 20:50, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes it is, I also think lists themselves are more a cross to bear, than useful (why not use categories?); but it was there, and in need of tidying up. Next thing is to go through the list, checking that each theatre has something more than stubbiness ... I think cat:Theatres in London -> cat:West End theatres + cat:Beyond the West End (although you end up with some major theatres in the 'fringe' category would make a start; cat:former Music halls?). But that's another day, and another argument. Kbthompson 21:54, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Cybersquaters ...

I notice that a small township in S.Africa has now taken over the principal reference to East London, which is now East London, England. While I appreciate a few hundred thousand people in a township founded in 1917 might have a fondness for the name, I still think we got there first, and the 3 million inhabitants who habitually call their home East London might actually appreciate finding their locale when they type it in. (not that sheer weight of numbers make for anything).

Just thought I'd whine about it ... Kbthompson 13:43, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

How about Wikipedia:Requested moves. I agree that it is not the primary meaning. Regan123 14:19, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

There's also a bunch of people messing with London editorials to add 'England' to every compass point reference, (East London is bad enough, but East London, England is worse). See Hammersmith for a West London example - that has no rationale, SA does not have a West London. I've rv'd a few but they are a whole consortium of persistent anonymous editors - I don't know if they are connected with the SA people. Either of these dubious policies 'official'? Tarquin Binary 14:48, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that it must already be the result of a requested move, as the changes are popping up all over my watchlist now. No, checking the moves page, there is a requested move on 2nd March East London → East London, South Africa; apparently because all the East London references point there now. That seems to have been instigated about January 28th. I cannot see if and when our East London changed to be qualified, West London does not have the same problem.

There's an extraordinary madness in wiki, where the tiniest places can suddenly take over the world, with no regard for consequence. I think the keenest of editors must baulk at typing out something like Victoria Park, East London in East London, England, England is near Bow, London ... etc, etc.

Probably best to just hunker down, let the 'edit storm' pass, and then whinge about it. As for adding England on every possible occasion, I think I've made my thoughts clear on it! Kbthompson 15:04, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'm waiting for things to calm down before changing any editorial references back now. Edit wars don't really help, and I think proper Londoners can afford to be a bit magnanimous. I doubt the editorial changes I commented on are well-intended, though, as opposed to the SA one, which at least has a rationale. A most amusing proposal along these lines: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:London/archive2#Disambiguation_page Tarquin Binary 15:15, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Ha, London, Ontario is also in Middlesex! ... and describes itself as the City of London. Maybe we could just number them, perhaps version numbers? The propensity for the British people to move, but not want to change address is frankly astonishing .... Kbthompson 16:22, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm an east Londoner, but I'm also a contributor to a worldwide encyclopaedia. East London, South Africa, a city of some 1,000,000 souls, has on its side the fact that it is a city all on its own whereas East London could refer to any amorphous area between Shoreditch and Upminster. The fact that East London, S.A. was named in reference to east London isn't a particularly helpful guide, nor is comparing population (which I suspect would be difficult given the imprecision). What is relevant is that, having looked at the links, approximately equal numbers referred to the South African city as to the east end of London. I think East London should be to a disambiguation page. Sam Blacketer 17:04, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, since all the links seem to be resolved. But that is absolutely no excuse for adding the editorial 'London' to London UK pieces when East London would do fine - and as for doing it to West, North, South... I intend to revert as much of that nonsense as possible soon...

Sorry, I know you're not doing that, Sam, but it is a little coincidental. I'm prone to wonder if some overzealous East London(SA)ers are behind it... Tarquin Binary 18:36, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I didn't give it much thought because the key thing in disambiguation is to tell the differences between fundamentally different links. If you want to move East London, England to a more appropriate name - say, East London (UK) or East London (London) - then either propose it or 'be bold' and do it. However I do note that one obvious alternative, East End of London, has a separate article. It might be case of merging the two. Whatever is decided, when it is settled, it's a simple matter to run AWB over all the links so they point at the right article.

What I don't think will happen is that East London, England will be moved to East London. If the South African city was some tiny hamlet then that might be reasonable, but it is too big for that. As with the Judgment of Solomon, the only fair solution is that no-one wins. Sam Blacketer 19:51, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The East End is not conterminous with East London; maybe if you want to be really off the wall, you could make it London East, and change all the other London geographic references!

I didn't hear that wiki was fair, merely that (a) usual usage and (b) consistency wins. I'm happy to go with a consensus, but this is probably the wrong place to establish that (unless you want a predictable answer). Kbthompson 20:21, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure consistency is quite the guide you seem to think it is. It's unlikely to impress an outraged South African to hear that as North London, South London and West London are in their proper places, East London, England must go to East London in line with them. I note that Wikipedia:Consistency is marked as inactive. Sam Blacketer 20:28, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's exactly what I don't get - why are they remotely bothered about West London etc - they don't even have any of those. Well, will continue to rv, along with rving East London, England to East London. Oh, by the way, conflating East End with East London would start a wiki war of appalling magnitude. Tarquin Binary 20:38, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid you've lost me there. Who is "they"? So far as I can find no-one has objected to the naming of West London. The only problem is with East London, because it happens to have the same name as something else. The Wikipedia page about East London has never been located at East London because the South Africans got there first. Sam Blacketer 21:03, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Like Welsh is the new grey, you have unleashed a demon into the world, by changing all refs to East London, England; you are causing masses of editors to attempt to enforce an (apparently) non-existent consistency across the rest of the structure. The SA should never "have got there first" because of the rule of habitual usage. Is there a suitable forum to put this out to rfc? I don't have anything against the SA place, but the current solution appears to be having consequences that inconvenience a lot more people than it provides resolutions for. Kbthompson 10:33, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

One thing does get missed from all my whining, and that is thank you for trying to address this tricky problem in the first place. I think, given time and agreement, there might be a better solution; but you tried, and at least it makes better sense than the previous situation - which nobody else had apparently noticed. Kbthompson 10:49, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Photographer for tomorrow? (Saturday 3 March 2007)

Are there any available photographers for tomorrow? Wikinews has received invitation to a Disney-run event, of which I don't have details right now, but I want to keep the option open should it be a good event, worth sending someone to. -- Zanimum 18:12, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I might be able to help out if I get some more details... Am heading back to London now anyway, I'll make sure I have my camera just in case. Do we know where or anything like it? Driller thriller 18:45, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Driller Thriller for the offer. I got the info too late to be useful, but it was a celebrity red carpet launch of the Peter Pan DVD. Can I keep you in mind for any other London events in the future, if I have better notice? -- Zanimum 20:54, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

High in London

I'd really like to create an article List of highest points in London, to consolidate the various "one of the highest points" claims that appear on articles such as Shooter's Hill and Crystal Palace, London. Does anyone have any suitable sources? MRSC • Talk 20:38, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

No, but I always thought that the pub Jack Straws Castle near Whitestone Pond, Hampstead was situated on the highest point in London. (that is the EX Jack Straw's Castle - it having recently been demolished by evil financiers and yuppy flats erected on the site). Colin4C 20:58, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I was always told the highest point was in Highgate Cemetery, but looking at my OS map, I think you're right. The area round Jack Straw's and a patch just north of Highgate Cemetery are above the 125m contour, but a little way north of the Vale of Health a spot height of 134m is marked, no spot height for Highgate though. Tarquin Binary 20:05, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

The highest geographic point (eg, not a building, mast etc) is the Whitestone Pond, next to Jack Straws Castle. - iridescenti (talk to me!) 13:45, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

List of blue plaques

Following events at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion, I have started working on a list of blue plaques. I would like to make the list look similar to the lists at [www.english-heritage.org.uk] and [www.blueplaue.com]. At the moment, I have created a preliminary tabular format for two people (Matthew Arnold and Lord Ashfield) at the top of the page. Please comment on the table's layout. I will wait for feedback until 12 Mar 2007 and then continue tabulating the people. (I anticipate that the page may need to be split into multiple pages at some point.) Dr. Submillimeter 19:22, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I would think it needs to be split down by region, but otherwise I'd be happy to help out - this link on the English Heritage website shows there are 800 in London alone. RHB ^{Talk - Edits} 19:24, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking of splitting alphabetically, although I have also thought about splitting regionally. Maybe an alphabetical list can be created first and then regional lists can be created afterwards? If people are split by region, I suggest splitting people in Greater London by borough. Dr. Submillimeter 19:52, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I was going to wait for comments on the format, but other users started editing and filling in the list, soI am just going to use the original format for everything. Feel free to add entries. Dr. Submillimeter 15:44, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

There are also local authority heritage plaques, often Green, or Brown. I went for a meander through Hoxton, Shoreditch and part of the City today, hoping to photograph some and the location. After walking for what seemed like 6 miles, but was probably more like 2, I managed to find 1 in the place it was supposed to be. Couldn't find either for The Theatre or for The Curtain; I have a suspicion that they are no longer a local council priority, and with rebuilding and such are disappearing fast. I will try to find out the situation for LBH and report back. Kbthompson 14:33, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Unnecessary England links...

Please be advised that User_talk:Raptornet seems to be haphazardly changing London to London, England unnecessarily on many London pieces. Even worse, they have also replaced the precise City of London in several places. (I've also caught one bit of vandalism and an attempt to impose US spelling, so I'm not sure this is at all well-intentioned.) I've undone a number of these but there seem to be a fair few more. There also seems to be an ongoing campaign by some anons to do the same sort of thing. Tarquin Binary 22:29, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Possibly make it a policy to refer to it as London or London, England uniformly. This seems to be what they are trying to do, just taking it into their own hands. Suggest you (and I shall help if a third person agrees that it should be done) revert all edits and possibly add to WP:AIV? JoshHolloway 21:31, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Someone may want to explain the difference between the City of London and London to Raptornet. He does not seem to understand the difference. Dr. Submillimeter 22:01, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Before you posted that, I think I'd already reverted all his London edits. But, as I speak, all the Englands are being put back by anons - quite a concerted campaign. Tarquin Binary 22:08, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I wonder if I inadvertently triggered this by doing the disambiguation of East London? To me, East London is where you get to on the District Line, but there is also a South African city of that name. The page on the Eastern part of London was never at East London, but at East London, England. Recently the South African city was moved from East London to East London, South Africa. The disambiguation involved changing a lot of links from East London to East London. Sam Blacketer 00:01, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah, illumination! (see above) Kbthompson 01:18, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I saw that User:Raptornet is still changing City of London links to London, England links, so I left an explanation on the differences between London and the City of London at User_talk:Raptornet. I also asked him to stop his edits and to discuss the changes with people first, or else we would need to go to WP:AN. This seems harsh, but this already looks like it may be beyond the discussion stage. Does anyone have any additional comments? Dr. Submillimeter 20:32, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

As I've said elsewhere, the user also seems to be making whimsical deletions of copy and images (in the latter case refers to them as 'illegal' when they are blatantly Commons or public domain). Suggest they be cut a bit more slack given the comments you've made on their Talk page, but not much more... Tarquin Binary 21:14, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

New infoboxes

A new infobox has been developed for use on UK places articles. If you have any concerns or appraisals, please make them at Template talk:Infobox UK place. Regards, Jhamez84 02:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Navigation box (London theatre)

Template:West End Theatres has been added to West End (and Beyond West End) theatres, it appears at the bottom of the page. I doubt the benefit to roll out to all the Fringe and Suburban theatres, but they are listed. Pls let me know if you have any comments. The idea came from a 'linked to' in someone's user area, but the code for this was nicked from WWII! When I have sufficiently recovered, I shall consider doing one for former theatres of London. Kbthompson 00:21, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

In case you blinked and didn't notice, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane made wikipeida FA of the day on Mar 17, 2006. Well done. Kbthompson 18:59, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

London Rivers

I'm new to this topic so excuse if this is covered elsewhere - but I can't find any reference to London's Underground Rivers - which are not going to get tackled at the locality levelCosmopolitancats 19:37, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

They're not easy to find - being underground - Subterranean rivers of London. They are mentioned in a number of the Hackney articles, in respect of Hackney Brook. River Fleet is mentioned in Farringdon Without, amongst others. HTH Kbthompson 20:04, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

That's because they are down as 'subterranean'. There is a list here Subterranean_rivers_of_London that does not look complete to me. I would imagine that some were added at locality level, for example , I added the Hackney Brook locally (but then expanded it to an entry) and the Moselle as part of expanding NE London pages (though the latter is only somewhat subterranean, actually). Tarquin Binary 20:03, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Another bit extra. It's a valid point that (particularly non-Londoners) may use 'underground' (ambiguous to Londoners) rather than 'subterranean' so have added a couple of redirects to help, as in London's underground rivers. Tarquin Binary 23:12, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't 'Lost rivers', be a better heading? These rivers were not always subterranean. And isn't it assuming a lot to suggest that they are actually still there flowing underground and have not been diverted long since down Balzalgate's drains or have completely dried up???Colin4C 20:36, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

In the case of Hackney Brook, it is Bazelgette's sewers ... I think Subterranean Rivers of London and London's Lost Rivers are both book titles. For form's sake they should probably be avoided. Kbthompson 00:50, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, unlike the Hackney Brook, they are not all lost, and in most cases we know for certain they are still flowing, albeit in pipes and culverts. The outlet of the River Effra into the Thames is well known, there's a pic of it on its piece (the Tyburn empties close by on the other bank) - and the course of that river has been traced underground. The legendary case, of course, is the River Westbourne that can seen on its way through Sloane Square station in pipes. I think the Fleet is partly lost but can be traced in a few places, including its Thames outlet. Tarquin Binary 20:32, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

The length of this article and seeing wood for trees

I'm commenting having come to this article very recently have done some work on 'places' elsewhere om wikipedia. A few comments

• It strikes me that the article is getting very, very long - as is this Talk Page and of course the subject is big so there is a lot to document.
• It doesn't appear on first reading as if much use is being made of sub-pages for the masses of detail. Lots of detail on one topic tends to obscure that the article might be lightweight in other areas. It's looking like rather a lot of history and not a lot of geography at the moment. It would be nice to see a structured evaluation of what needs doing where - and what needs to be retained in a main article and what could be subsumed into a sub-page or go to another locality page.
• I find it very difficult to identify what needs to happen next - and what sort of priorities exist /have been 'agreed' - and that need to be carried forward if any archiving occurs. Also whether one is working on one's own in an area which needs tackling - or whether others are hard at it as well

I've seen the format used for some other areas (eg Cheshire) and I think there are aspects which could be usefully used here. Cosmopolitancats 19:37, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Going through your points.

1) I don't know which specific article you mean by the 'article' that is getting very very long exactly. Maybe this talk page is overdue for an archive though...

2) This seems an odd point. The usual criticism of London as a topic is the amazing plethora of sub-pages. Personally, I don't mind that, but I know it irks some. As it stands we have London->boroughs->districts->individual streets (in some cases). The first three steps are slowly being catered for (though on the borough and district level some boroughs need a lot of work, for example, I'm trying to get more work done on Islington at the moment). Street entries are fairly neglected, though it could be argued that this level has attracted a number of non-notable entries. Besides these, there are a lot of building, parks and specific historical entries, entries for just about every tube and railway station, an awful lot of lists and more. Incidentally, I consider that in some cases there is too much geography at the expense of history - but the balance varies widely.

3) I know a number of people like to concentrate on London-wide issues. I like to focus individually (when I have time) more on my own rough locale - about 5 or 6 northeast London boroughs - we have a lot of stubs. I also think coverage of art galleries is very poor, below the obvious ones, so may have a go there some time. But there's room for both approaches IMO... Tarquin Binary 20:17, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Bit extra - have you looked at the London Portal, which was created as a collaborative project from late 2005 onwards? It's a good jumping-off point if you are looking for specific categories - and you can see that it has a geographic entrée as well as a categorical one... Tarquin Binary 22:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

London postal areas

User:MRSC has converted all the articles about London postal areas to redirects. Can someone help me to restore them please.--Osidge 19:05, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

It looks to me like there was a consensus. Not saying that was rightly done, because I think the proposer should have mooted it over here. I can think of arguments pro and con, myself - for example the existence of a London N16 (for example) piece is a standing temptation for someone to start creating a duplicate Stoke Newington article. On the other hand, it does look like we have lost some useful info there. I think I would have voted to keep them, on the whole. Tarquin Binary 19:42, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

The implemented system actually seems very sensible to me. SW5, for example, leads to a discussion on SW postcodes with links to the specific areas covered by each of the SW postcodes. If each postcode had its own page, then it would indeed probably result in the creation on articles with duplicate information. SW5, for example, would probably duplicate information on Earl's Court. Dr. Submillimeter 20:20, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that's good with me on reflection. The last thing we need is duplicate district pages, half of those we already have are still just stubs... Tarquin Binary 20:24, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. For example, I just added a couple of warnings to Earl's Court. That article needs references and some major clean-up. It currently reads like someone walked through Earl's Court and determined who lived there based on the cars that he saw parked on the street. (Really.) Dr. Submillimeter 20:30, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Ouch. That's pretty bad for such a famous district. The problem is, I think, that people tend to work on their own manors, which is very understandable - I tend to stick to the fields I know. But it leads to very skewed results overall. Perhaps a district clean-up priority list is in order... (I now have to go and, at least, paragraph that Earl's Court piece). Tarquin Binary 20:40, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Part of the key is to find referenced information on these places. A lot of newcomers do not fully understand how to do this or how important this is. On the other hand, finding referenced information can be frustrating for some of these subjects.

I will see what I can do with a few places in Southwest London when I have the time. Dr. Submillimeter 21:59, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I know. I'm afraid a lot of Hackney stuff I added last year is well short on refs. Hope to go back and fix that. But, yes it can be tricky at district level, on the other hand, a lot of time, with stubs, some info is better than none. It offers a starting point, at least. Tarquin Binary 22:21, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I took a tour round LBH filling in some of the gaps, and Colin4C has had a hand in it too. Most of that material is referenced. I think it's probably best if we take a Borough a week, and blitz it? A mental fog comes over me, sarf of the river, though. The main thing for those early articles has always been the chatty style, it seems to attract editors with no regard for anything other than PoV. In LBH it's always someone popping at the council, in TH it's boundary disputes caused by the ill fated neighbourhoods, and in Newham, it seems to be a queue of people getting ready to diss it (crime ridden, hope lost, etc). I think we should try to find something positive to say about everywhere (unless it truly is hopeless!). (... and I think reducing the postcode pages to pointers to local articles will stop acres of duplication, and more confusion about boundaries). Kbthompson 01:00, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

A good job you did on those pieces too. I think I resisted going for LBH council tho, tempting as it is. I do make a point of treading the streets looking for positive things to say and to photograph in even very unglamorous places, and there is usually something, even if it is only historical. (Bit sick of all these crime footnotes about Newham, I agree, lots more to the borough than that...) One approach, which I have done on Stoke Newington and Islington Central, is to Pevsnerise it. i.e. maybe a listed building section for each district? This allows relatively easy citations from English Heritage, local listed buildings sources and, of course, Pevsner himself. And, of course, there are also interesting non-listed structures in Pevsner too.

Bit unfortunate to talk about blitzing an area of London :) but maybe there should be an automatic 33-week borough rotating schedule... Don't think I'll be doing a whole lot writing-wise till after Easter, though... Tarquin Binary 01:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

If we do this, may I suggest using inline footnote citations? This will allow everyone to identify where information comes from. (I looked at a few articles on areas in southwest London, such as Fulham and Hammersmith. They do not use this system, so it is difficult to identify what is made up and what is referenced.) Dr. Submillimeter 09:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Yep, point taken, sounds good. Tarquin Binary 12:27, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

That would be my preference (I think it the gold standard in referencing), but I don't think you should constrain editors too much. In half the places, it's still a case of getting people started; once they're off, try to nudge them into an encyclopaedic view. It's been quite difficult to persuade some people that we can't say the council are a bunch of shit-bags; but need to say there is controversy and indicate that there is a website that says the council are a bunch of shit-bags. I'm also trying to put some sense into London theatres, and write up some of the defunct ones, but I guess that's my default mode, rather than doing useful work.

There are a lot of districts where there isn't much to say beyond the fact it's there - examples, Haggerston, and Shacklewell. I too have a mental list of photo's to take, but that relies on good weather, a time when I feel like walking there, or a Sunday when the parking is off! Kbthompson 10:29, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

There's a bit more to say on Shacklewell, I think - but one of the main problems is that it used to be a much bigger district, extending way north into what is now seen as Stoke Newington (N16). But I just scribbled a few brief notes on the current article. Haggerston is a bit of a pig, though, precious little in the HCM or anywhere else, given that it has such a ringing name. I'm sure that is just a question of sources, though... Tarquin Binary 12:33, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

If anything else, you could at least look at a map and state what the map shows for the location (and cite the map). I am thinking about starting an article on Baron's Court that takes this approach. (Note that Baron's Court is currently a redirect to Baron's Court tube station.) Dr. Submillimeter 11:05, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I have nominated the postcode stubs that were recreated for deletion. IMO it is much better to have 124 referenced and useful articles about the UK postcode areas than 2,480 postcode district stubs that do little than repeat the geographic district articles that they relate to. MRSC • Talk 12:56, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

2,480 is irrelevant - this is a discussion specifically about London postal districts, not the whole of the UK. There is useful information in many of these articles, which would be lost if they were deleted. Why did MRSC not move this useful info into the other article?--Osidge 00:29, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a random collection of information. Look at Stoke Newington, N postcode area and London N16. The information was already in the other two articles. Nothing has been lost. MRSC • Talk 07:47, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The result was keep in the AfD. Should we link to these pages from the main postcode articles? Regan123 13:11, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

London farmers' markets

An article (London farmers' markets) exists on this, but it appears to an advert for a company called London Farmers' Markets. As a company, it's a bit non-notable, but as to cybersquatting on what might be a topic of interest it's spam. (There are many other Farmers' Markets in London). Kbthompson 18:33, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I think we should have a wider List of farmers' markets in the United Kingdom article, rather than focus on individual companies providing markets or on just London (although it would be a section in that list). MRSC • Talk 06:33, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Sud-dividing categories

Category:Neighbourhoods of Camden was split out of Category:Camden some time ago, I intend to do this for all the other boroughs as the categories are getting a bit bloated. MRSC • Talk 12:40, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Category:Camden looks like it could use more diffusion and additional subcategories. I would guess that this would be true for other categories on London boroughs. Dr. Submillimeter 13:04, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes some work was started but it didn't get very far. Category:Croydon also was sub-divided (I think a little more thoroughly). MRSC • Talk 13:38, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The subcategories also need to be named consistently both with other boroughs and with Wikipedia in general. For example, either Category:Education in Camden or Category:Schools in Croydon should be renamed so that they both match. Dr. Submillimeter 13:54, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Didn't I see somewhere - probably all those innumerable cast lists - a determined effort to cut down on cats/sub-cats and listify? In which case, most boroughs already have lists of (say) neighbourhoods (which don't change), the problem (eg schools) is to keep them up to date. I've noticed the cat Grade I theatres appearing, and of course it appears with Grade I buildings in London and Theatres in London. Categories can be a nightmare. Kbthompson 16:13, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The effort to listify is primarily aimed toward situations where individual articles would accumulate many similar categories, such as multiple "actor by cast" categories. The cast categories were listified because individual actors could have been in many performances (over 100) during their careers, so the cast categories would form very long, difficult-to-read lists in the individual actors' articles.

Looking through the articles in Category:Camden, it does not look like they suffer from overcategorization problems. Most of the articles contain less than five categories. At the moment, I also do not see a problem with some articles posessing a "Grade I theatres", a "Grade I buildings in London", and a "Theatres in London" category (although the three could potentially be combined if enough articles share all three categories.

For examples of articles with categorization problems, see Winston Churchill, Zebra Waxbill, and French language, each of which has over 40 categories. I do not see any articles in Category:Camden or Category:Croydon that could accumulate as many categories as those three articles, even if we did expand the category tree. Dr. Submillimeter 17:24, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Key Statistics and Census 2001

Does anyone agree that it would be useful to add a "Key Statistics" section to London Borough pages? This information is readily available from the [National Statistics] website. If it works for London, then it could be spread out to other areas of the UK. Rogwan 15:19, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Could you be more specific as to what types of statistics you want to add (or does "key statistics" already mean something more specific in British English than in American English)? Dr. Submillimeter 16:05, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I just meant things like population, age, race, religion Rogwan 16:47, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

This seems sensible to me. However, Hammersmith and Fulham and City of London, for example, both already have most of this material. Is this information missing from some other borough pages? (I also suggest referencing the information in the infoboxes using footnotes. See NGC 4594 for an example of how this is done with astronomical objects.) Dr. Submillimeter 16:56, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Some do seem to include this. Yours are good examples, then there's Barnet which has a less complete section and Enfield and Islington with none of this information. I just thought it would be nice to have this information in a consistent format for all boroughs. Rogwan 17:28, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

You may have been looking at the pages for the localities within the boroughs and not the boroughs themselves. London Borough of Barnet, London Borough of Enfield, and London Borough of Islington seem to have all of this basic statistical information. If you are going to edit these pages, I suggest checking that the pages are for the boroughs and not other locations with the same name. Dr. Submillimeter 17:35, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't paying attention to the info boxes where it is all listed. Noticing that though, it seems odd to duplicate some of the information in the article and this text isn't consistent throughout the boroughs. Rogwan 17:45, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

You'll find there was also trojan work done on applying the 1801-1965 Metropolitan Borough population data across the board. It doesn't make particular sense to duplicate the details in each locale article, but at the borough level there should be a link to statistics about each borough - select one of borough info, direct census data, or GLA diversity data. Maybe that link should be incorporated into the template? Kbthompson 09:30, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Is it possible to have clarification of what statistical sources are to be used for these key statistics? The 2001 Census data is now quite old, and there are more current sources of statistics, such as the annual Mid Year Estimates from the Office of National Statistics for population counts, or their Ethnic Estimates. The GLA produce population projections for the London Boroughs, and these are often preferred by at least some London boroughs because of problems with the ONS estimates. The Density statistic in the InfoBox needs to be defined - what population source is used/preferred? Mivona 22:32, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Key statistics should be added as indicated by the current guideline on writing about local places Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements.

Demographics: The guideline suggests that Demographics is an appropropriate section to include when writing about a place.

This section should generally be used to breakdown the demography of a settlement. It should include total population figures (in cities with their own councils include population of the administrative city, metropolitan area and catchment area), population change, age structure, ethniciy, religion, etc etc.

Demographic data for each ward of a borough is generally available on the borough's website. Look under the Community Plan for the Borough and/or the Local Strategic Partnership for starters as ward profiles of key stats are generally used as the baseline data for the development of this plan. Summary level 2001 census data should be available as part of the ward profiles - but may be available in different files. nevertheless it should be on the council's website somewhere and if you can't locate it then just ask them where it is. Economic and employment profile: Again the guideline suggests that articles about a place should make reference to its economic profile.

Economics -including major industries and employers (including agriculture and tourism - include statistics on tourist numbers and revenue if available) and, where available, statistics such as GDP and unemployment.

Similarly the council's website will generally have data about its economic and employment profile - again this is generally linked to pages associated with the Local Strategic Partnership and the Community Plan. The level of disaggregation may vary and you may need to search to find it at below borough level - check the site map for likely places.

Ranked scores re wards: The local government community produce ranked scores in relation to specific indices and these are frequently quoted in other places when describing a place. For example, it would be a significant qualititative improvement to all London Boroughs and the places within them if any wards which fall into the top or bottom 10% of wards in the country were to be identified. This sort of data ia also very frequently cited in the Community Plan - by ward.

Please note that the Local Strategic Partnership which is responsible for the Community Plan is linked to the Council but is not part of the Council - although they very often host and support it. As such many of them have websites which are independent of the Council and you may well need to go there to find stats.

Caveats about the quality of data should be noted. Notions that data may be considered to be inaccurate and/or deficient are relevant but should only be noted if referenced to a reliable source. London Councilis a body which may provide authoritative commentary - from its perspective - about eg census data. This is a link to their key facts page on their website

It's unlikely that you need to go outside this framework for the level of detail which is appropriate for the profiles of local places - however all such data is of course also recorded in other places eg OPCS. Cosmopolitancats 10:08, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Bethnal Green

Bethnal Green seems to have lost its talk page. It automatically links to the wiki London article - which effectively means there's no scope to make progress with the article on Bethnal Green - which needs work done.

Would somebody who knows about these things please reinstate the 'talk' page for the Bethnal Green article Thank you in anticipation Cosmopolitancats 00:57, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Infobox flag straw poll

Hello fellow editors. A straw poll has opened today (27th March 2007) regarding the use of flags on the United Kingdom place infoboxes. There are several potential options to use, and would like as many contrubutors to vote on which we should decide upon. The straw poll is found here. If joining the debate, please keep a cool head and remain civil. We look forward to seeing you there. Jhamez84 11:46, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Poplar, Tower Hamlets and sources / referencing standards

Poplar seems to have the same problem as Bethnal Green ie talk page has been removed. Could somebody either please add it back in or leave a note here re how to do it. I;d do it myself but don't know how.

I'm trawling through articles relating to places in Tower Hamlets at the moment. While a lot of good work has been done around historical matters, there are quite big chunks in most articles where no sources are being identified. I'm not disputing the text - just indicating that it needs a source to be stated. I'm using the unferenced tag to indicate all those where there is a fair bit of work needed re citing sources. Cosmopolitancats 00:23, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can see Poplar is linked in to the biological sciences ... Poplar, London has an early version of the WPLondon template, it should be replaced. Otherwise, looking at the history, no talk there ...

You'll generally find it easier to reference an unreferenced fact yourself. There is rarely anybody around to do it for you, and the tags just sit there. Its best to place FACT by a disputed point, as I demonstrated in Wapping, rather than tag the whole page. It looks messy and no-one ever knows if enough has been done to warrant removing it. I will help where I can. Sometime vandals remove the ref section, just add the reflist template, and there's the refs. Do try to cite reliable sources and not secondary websites. Kbthompson 00:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually no I disagree - where there is a lot of unreferenced material it's just easier to use the unreferenced tag. It's the reason it exists. And so long as it sits there then it will hopefully also remind new people coming along in the future not to make the current situation any worse - it's just so much simpler when material gets referenced right from the off. It can come off again when the referencing deficit has been cleared up. I know bits about the history but it's not my main field and I think it's a more efficient use of my time if I leave the referencing to the people who originated the material in the first place while I get on with filling in the gaps with the stuff I'm better at. If nothing gets done then I'll have a go when the rest of the article is sorted if the history stuff is not sorted by then. Otherwise it'll need to come out if the articles are to be assessed as to the standard achieved. Assessment is very hot on citation! But as the problem is endemic right across all the Tower Hamlets articles and the point needs to be made I think the best policy is to just remind people that it's not good editing to leave out references by tagging the whole article. Incidentally I've not done it on all of them - shorter articles have been left for the moment.

BTW - I've also found it unwise to rely on the fact that a place/individual/event exists elsewhere in wikipedia - the problem can be just as bad on that page. The place for referencing is on the page which states the fact. Cosmopolitancats 01:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I generally encourage people to use inline citations (e.g. footnotes) so that readers can identify exactly where specific information comes from. Also, it is not too difficult to cite the same reference on multiple pages. This can be done by simply cutting and pasting the reference. Dr. Submillimeter 09:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree, inline citations are the preferred method, many of these articles already have reference sections to particular books - but in bibliography form. Not particularly useful when confirming fact, IMO, but within Wiki standards of referencing. You should take care not to discourage new editors by applying too high a standard of proof (old hands should know better!).

I would tend to accept good faith in relying on other articles in wiki, if it's not true it should be corrected at source. Kbthompson 09:23, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

One of the Wikipedia:Administrators has commented on the Talk:Bow, London page re use of other wiki pages as sources as follows....

Another Wikipedia article is not a reliable source. If the information does not have a reference in that article, then it is still unreferenced when included here. If a source is cited in the other article, in most cases that source can be included here. JPD (talk) 09:24, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

and subsequently

Good faith is not the same thing as good editing, and assuming it has nothing to do with accepting unsourced material. The key point is verifiability. Whether this is done inline or not is not as important, but footnotes do make the citations easier to follow in many situations.

Cosmopolitancats 10:20, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi read and inwardly digest WP:ATTFAQ, particularly In reality, not all material must actually be attributed, but attribution is required for quotations and for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged. - which I would say is fair enough. That is the standard to which most editors have been working. In what few history sections I've been working on, I've added inline citations - which I think to be the gold standard in citing sources. However, many of these articles depend on information in published books - and call it laziness, if you will - the editors have been working to a consolidated references standard, that is acceptable to WP:ATT. One of the outcomes of trying to set the bar too high is WP:BITE. Kbthompson 16:55, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Just to add that in my opinion Kb is one of our best editors of the London articles wheras Cosmo is just a pedantic and ill-informed pest whose idea of improving the wikipedia seems to be to harass other good faith editors and bludgeon them with his idiosyncratic interpretations of wikipedia policies. Colin4C 11:43, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Colin, that sort of comment/personal attack doesn't help anyone. Stick to the issue being discussed, not the people discussing it. I agree that Kb is a good editor, and apart from his linking of "good faith" with accepting material as true/verifiable, I agree with just about everything he has said here. Hopefully we can get back to actually adding information and sources to the articles. JPD (talk) 12:20, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Point taken, but I just get tired of wading through the often meaningless verbiage of those who imagine they are upholding wikipedia policies. Call me simple-minded but I thought that the wikipedia is about knowledge and information, not the chance to bamboozle people with ones supposed knowledge of wikipedia rules. If I read a book for instance, I am interested in the information it contains, not whether its contents conforms to the interior politics of the publishing house who published it. IMHO the wiki-pedants have a policy to aggrandize themselves at the expense of other editors rather than add anything useful to the wikipedia. I will continue to write REFERENCED positive stuff on London for the wikipedia, without getting into the higher nonsense of wiki-sophistry. Wiki-sophistry is just time-wasting plus personal politics, it has nothing to do with knowledge about the real world. Colin4C 09:37, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I think Col is a good editor too (8^))... he and I have had previous disagreements about his referencing style - but it goes back to an academic argument about footnotes, some universities will have no truck with the devilish things, others insist on chapter, page and edition. The books Col has used are reputable peer reviewed material, often the quick and dirty refs to websites end up with some vanity page that is not a fraction as much use. So, while you may not agree (and I don't actually) with the way Col refs. They are ref'd and ref'd to better quality sources than most other people use (see my note about the FAQ above). Ultimately, I prefer to see quality material, based on quality references, and if the editor chooses to ref in a consolidated reference section, I think (after Col beat me up a few times) that is essentially their business. The current level of foolishness about refs is likely to drive editors away from writing about the area, and the best outcome is to get many people contributing rather than one person who just knows they're right. The outcomes of collaboration are better articles, with a wider breadth of vision and knowledge.

Cosmo has performed one service and that is to challenge everyone to raise their game in respect of the articles. There are however, few points of agreement between he and I on how this should be undertaken. On the subject of refs I thought he initially used some very dodgy refs to start with, although this has now improved, and we even managed to chase down some interesting and confirmed information about Bow that surprised me. If he wants to impose a high standard of confirmation (even not accepting other wiki articles - which I still think relates to good faith - if they are wrong or unreferenced, they should be corrected), then a better way of going about it is to actually spend 5 mins chasing down a reference, or something that disproves a statement, rather than 30 mins (seems more like days, sometimes) of talking about it.

The key issue is about achieving consensus, not about trying to bludgeon a group of unpaid volunteers into a specific way of working that they are uncomfortable with. If people see an article which is improving, they will jump in, if they see constant squabbles, they will demur. So, just fact for things that are contentious - in accordance with policy, let's be civil, lets back peddle on the prostletizing about particular guidelines and get on with writing interesting and relevant articles. Kbthompson 10:43, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Just to say that I have fairly consistently referenced my contributions to the London articles. My main headache has been knowing what reference style to use: Harvard refs or footnotes or hyperlinks in the text itself. Breaking the habit of a life-time I actually looked through the wiki-guff trying to find out if there was one mutually acceptible way of referencing articles, only to find total confusion...Therefore some of my refs were a compromise between Harvard refs and footnotes: i.e. I provided a list of books and articles I had used at the end of the article and assumed it was fairly obvious how these related to the text. I admit to a fondness for the Harvard system and it is apparantly allowable according to the wikipedia 'rules', but I don't want to upset anyone who has the fond delusion that footnotes are de rigeur on the wikipedia. However despite all that, some people here seem determined to be upset or try to fool us that this only one acceptible referencing style on the wikipedia. So far I have let sleeping dogs lie, but if someone wants a full scale debate on which referencing style they imagine is the right one - go ahead. Just don't try to bamboozle me with sophistry - cos I'm not easily or willingly bamboozled, by anybody...I except Kb from these remarks cos he is a sound man who is willing to debate issues rather than hectoring or lecturing or threatening to get the Admins (gawd bless 'em!) involved. Colin4C 17:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I have no doubt that articles have been written with proper reseach in the appropriate way. It's just that when I'm looking at them I for one really can't tell which bits of an article have been researched and verified and which haven't. To clarify - it is not in the least bit obvious to me which references at the end of an article support which points made in the text. I'd add that I've seen an awful lot of articles written like that - across various subject areas - rated as B class articles by a variety of different assessors.

An editor may be a good editor but that editor does not own any article on wikipedia and it will always be the case that in future others will want to contribute - potentially on any and every article on wikipedia - that is the nature of the process and one encouraged by wikipedia. New contributions may also not be referenced in a transparent way and may be complete twaddle. Anybody coming along to look at the article would then not know what is good verifiable material and what is complete twaddle. Any editor may take the view that he or she will be around forever more sorting out any 'vandalism' on any of the article that he or she has written the instant it happens - and good luck to them if they really think that.

From what I've read I think the reason why in-line referencing is increasingly preferred and recommended might be to do with the way in which external organisations and the press are commenting on the quality of wikipedia articles generally - sometimes in a very negative way due to the lack of verification and the amount of twaddle which is present in some articles (note I'm talking generically here). I think I'm seeing more interest and effort going into formal quality assessment and rating of articles. It seems to me that in-line referencing makes judgements about how soundly based an article is much easier for both the ordinary reader and whoever assesses an article. I'm guessing but I assume it probably also makes it easier to see if there have been any breaches of copyright. In-line referencing also offers the individual who is interested in a topic an opportunity to identify and follow up on the source used for verification. Within the context of what wikipedia is trying to do and how it is trying to do it those seem jolly good reasons to me for in-line referencing and I can well understand why I see its active promotion around Wikipedia.

Personally I'm getting pretty tired of the level of misrepresentation and distortion of what motivates me to improve articles and write about referencing. It's very, very simple. I'm interested in people having access to excellent articles which provide relevant content about the subject which interests them and which offer readers an easily accessible and transparent indication of the quality of the content on offer, preferably in the form in-line referencing backed up by a quality assessment which has been conducted with appropriate rigour - that's it, period. Cosmopolitancats 23:05, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I support Cosmopolitancats's viewpoint. As a specific example, look at Hammersmith, which was mentioned in a previous discussion. Hammersmith contains very few inline references, so it is difficult to verify where the information comes from. Consequently, this casts doubt on some of the passages, such as the entire history section or the short paragraph on The Dove. Even assuming that the editors were trying to be accurate in these situations, it is difficult to distinguish whether they were transcribing information from reliable sources, transcribing from poor sources, or trying to recall something that they had read or heard but did not have information on at hand. The inline citations would help solve that problem.

As to the style to use, I suggest footnotes. Footnotes have been endorsed by several science WikiProjects (and scientists tend to use the Harvard referencing style for citations in their publications). Footnotes are relatively easy for the average reader to use and understand, and they work well as inline citations. They can also be used to reference infobox data relatively easily.

Finally, see Shaw and Crompton, cited in another discussion as an example of a good Wikipedia article on a place in the United Kingdom. Shaw and Crompton uses footnote inline citations, and the footnotes work very well. It is easy to look at the article and identify exactly where all the information comes from. It is very difficult to dispute the information (or at least dispute whether the information is referenced) in most of the article. With the "bibliography" style of references, it becomes unclear as to whether individual passages are referenced, and some information could be disputed. Dr. Submillimeter 07:31, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, no doubt footnotes could be regarded as good practice. However don't lets fetishise their use! I've seen some really dumb examples where say page 17 of (say) Wally's 'History of Enfield' (1803), is cited 20 times in 20 sentences. If all the info in the article is derived from the same page of the same book it seems dumb to keep on citing it. All I am saying is that we should use 'common sense'. The Harvard system seems better to me cos you don't have to duplicate the references in the notes with another list of the same books in another references section. So using Occam's Razor I think the Harvard system is best. However I am willing to compromise, as long as you don't start hectoring me or making spurious claims that footnotes are the only thing permitted on the wikipedia in the way of referencing cos they ain't - and that's a fact! Colin4C 11:29, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Though I hesitate to mention it in front of the textual perverts here, in case they get too aroused, this is my favorite example of hard-core wikipedia footnote fetishism: Robert Hubert. Very illuminating yes? Or maybe not..... Colin4C 12:53, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

And in case you are thinking that I am making up the absolute permissability of Harvard referencing on the wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Harvard referencing. Do you dispute this? I too can act the wiki-pedant if I want...Not that I wish to make an issue of it: just to say that different systems of referencing ARE permitted on the wikipedia and whether we wish to use them should be established by discussion rather than minatory notices and spurious claims. Colin4C 13:27, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Anyway this is all nonsense and a distraction. The important thing is that a pedant, or mildly interested person can confirm for themselves the validity of the statements made in the text. Harvard is OK, Chicago extended is preferred - but none of you ever properly reference a web page in any case. The proper form is <cite><''website_address_page''_''Title of Page''_-_''Whose is it''_''date created (it should be in the HTML''>_date accessed : xx-mon-yy (where _=space and <> are brackets; or the equivalent book form, with ISBN, publisher and edition. There is a citation template that does the whole thing for you, but inserts a 10 line section of template code at every ref point!

The important thing there is who created the website (or publication). That dictates the authority of the reference. Would you prefer Colin to change 'references' to 'sources used in this article'. Remember the whole point is to verify contentious facts; not things that are generally accepted.

I cannot quote my conversation with the Vicar of St Leonards this morning, but I can publish it in the Guardian and then cite myself! By your lights, I can even publish it in my vanity website and then cite it.

One last point, although both Colin and I have been trained in scholarship, and attempt to keep to those standards in our writing (and I'm sure others are too). A reference is exactly that, a reference however it is put; it has authority behind it. A footnote can be any old thing you happened to find on the internet that happened to support your PoV, and it would still be just that a PoV, unless you keep to the authority standards whatever way something is referenced, it might as well not be. Kbthompson 14:26, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe the Vicar of St Leonards can bring us divine help to resolve this issue as I'm getting more and more confused...As far as I can see there is no one right way to format things on the wikipedia - just some sort of primordial Darwinian/Nietchzian struggle or 'will to power' between competing ideas of what is right. In most academic journals and hard copy encyclopedias I've edited or contributed to there has always been a 'house style' or agreed way of referencing things. Unfortunately the wikipedia has grown up like 'Topsy' and there is not much we can do...except pray...I guess...Colin4C 21:33, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Citing relieable sources is much more important than the format, however nice it might be to have a house style. As Cosmo says, inline citations of some sort can be very useful to those trying to check the references. However, Colin is also correct in saying that this is not always appropriate, and common sense needs to be used. I quite like the "bibliography" style in articles sourced from one or two books, but it does have its limitations, as on a wiki, material is added after the bibliography section, and there is no indication of which material is actually backed up by the sources. This raises the question of how do deal with potentially unsourced material, and while there is a policy somewhere that says that if something is generally accepted it should be easy find a reference, Kb is right to say that challenging the contentious facts is what is actually helpful and that it is authoritative references that are needed. Having said that, it woudl be good to see at least a bibliography for articles like Whitechapel and Steve Marriott (which now says he was born in Upton. JPD (talk) 10:53, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

... and now he's born in Stepney - East London history, usually a reasonably reliable source ... his poor mother .. travelling from one hospital to another - a finger here, a toe there, and the placenta probably came out in ... You logged out and changed it as 172.189.27.13 on 1st April! Claims it was at East Ham memorial, in Upton (probably means Upton Park) - while East Ham memorial was in Manor Park. I'll try to trace something reliable - you'd expect the BBC sleeve notes should at least be reliable. Can't trust anyone these daze ... His parents lived in both Bow and Stepney (as far as I can ascertain). Kbthompson 11:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Copyright and the use of national/local government statistics

I see on the external resources page there is a note about not being able to copy statistics from the Neighbourhood Statistics site. I think there is a misunderstanding here which is probably worth highlighting and discussing further.

The wikipedia injunction against violation of copyright opposes the wikipedia requirement that all content is attributable to a reliable source. The only reliable source for data collected by public bodies are their own publications. However, there is no intention by government that statistics should not be used - but there is a requirement to use them responsibly and within due process and with proper attribution.

Neighbourhood statistics - as with other government statistics - are supposed to be copied and used in appropriate documents. In other words they are in the public doman and permission can be granted for their use so long as proper attribution is given - as occurs every time every other public body, academic organisation or other organisation with a justifiable reason uses them. Just as Wikipedia does, for example, every time Wikipedia copies and quotes their data each time mapping co-ordinates are identified and published or population data is quoted within any of the settlement templates for any of the UK places with articles.

'Copyright' does not mean 'do not copy'. It means observe the copyright restrictions. The wikipedia injunction to not violate copyright does not mean 'do not copy' it means do not infringe copyright restrictions. So long as proper attribution occurs within the context of specified qualifying use and permission then it should be OK.

Given the extensive current use by Wikipedia of goverment statistics (see examples quoted above), I'm assuming that Wikipedia (somewhere in this vast set-up but I have not a clue as to where - but it would be nice to know!) have dealt with the following - which comes from the copyright notice of the Office for National Statistics

Reproducing National Statistics

Customers wishing to reproduce National Statistics material, other than for the purposes of research or private study, require a Click-Use Licence (details on how to apply are below) and whenever such material is published must accredit the material as being from National Statistics website, including the URL, as follows:

Source: National Statistics website: www.statistics.gov.uk Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO

Additionally, by way of example, the statistics from the London Councils website has the following copyright notice.

The Association of London Government retains full copyright of the material contained within its website(s), unless otherwise stated. Users may download printed copies of the material displayed on an ALG website provided that you maintain all copyright notices and other proprietary notice. You may not permanently copy contents for commercial gain.

Thus the main article for London - if it uses statistics from the London Councils (which it will need to do) - needs to ensure that the references section cites their copyright over the stats used. I would think it adviseable to do this every time they are used given the various sources for data within the article. This can be done as a footnote.

Any questions or comments? Cosmopolitancats 14:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Which is why you link richly to and quote sparingly from government statistics, with full attribution. There is a FoI campaign at the moment to have these materials, and mappings released into the public domain. If in doubt contact an admin, and they will pass the query up to the wiki-foundation. Kbthompson 16:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Please... admins are basically just normal editors. Any action on legal queries beyond normal discussion should go straight to foundation lawyers or whatever. But yes, the stats can be used quite a bit without excessive quoting. JPD (talk) 14:34, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I wasn't wanting to discuss legal action - just trying to identify where on earth this debate about use of census statistics has been had in the past on the basis that it's such a basic question it must have been asked and answered. (And it's so flippin' difficult at times to find things on wikipedia) Presumably this means the note on the article page about not being able to use the census stats could be removed? Cosmopolitancats 16:14, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Quality Assessment of articles about London

Going by the headings alone (ie I've not read every last word) it would appear there is no reference either in this project article page or within this talk page to the quality assessment of London articles against the standards set down by Wikipedia. Indeed I'm actually wondering whether everybody working on articles is familiar with the standards.

Following on from that, there is the question of where priorities ought to lie and effort ought to be applied in terms of getting articles from stub to start to B to GA to A to FA. (As per Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment )

The front page needs to be changed to set up a process for this - and to advise people about the good habits which make the process speedier.

Comments? Thoughts? Suggestions? Cosmopolitancats 16:30, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I have worked a little on quality assessment with Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomy and Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects. (Do not ask why astronomical objects are divided from astronomy in general; I do not understand, either.) In terms of prioritizing, that can be a tough choice to make, and it may depend on the perspectives (e.g. personal biases) of the individual editors. Note that many articles will probably always be stubs and will probably be perfectly reasonable as stubs, so trying to bring all stubs up to start status may be difficult.

London is so vast and contains so much stuff that prioritization may be tricky. The easiest things to list as a high priority may be London itself and the obvious highly-visible tourist attractions (Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, and Westminster Abbey). After that, prioritization becomes very difficult. Are the articles on individual boroughs or neighborhoods a high priority? What about local landmarks that are not necessarily major tourist attractions, like the Albert Memorial outside my office window? Some historical events and people Dick Whittington and the Great Fire of London are clearly high priorities, but how can we compare Dick Whittington to Ealing or Liverpool Street Station in terms of importance? Dr. Submillimeter 17:04, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I think basically what I'm saying is that setting up a process for qualitative assessment is the top priority. Then, if hit rates are available, we could consider the 'popular' sites in order of popularity. However I'd argue that the articles for the boroughs should take precedence over the articles for individual places - and come way ahead of Dick Whittington!

Here's an example of an article for a place in Greater Manchester which has been assessed as a "good article" Shaw and Crompton. This isn't even a metropolitan borough. This is just one area within the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham. Cosmopolitancats 17:17, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I've been working slowly on the Tower of London article for the past few months. Nobody else seems much bothered with it apart from the vandals. I make no heroic claims for it, but it was a remarkably shoddy piece of ill-digested plagiarised tourist leaflet information to start with. Our one major omission is no mention of the Mint yet. Hopefully we will get round to that. Our only major controversy so far is to do with whether the Ravens really saved the monarchy during WW2. The current concensus is that a bird called Grip single-wingedly defied all the Luftwaffe could throw at the Tower in the way of doodlebugs etc, thus paving the way for the Coronation of Elizabeth II...That latter info is referenced by way: in case Cosmo has another of his fits of terminal pedantry and sends the Admins round to beat me up... Colin4C 12:41, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a good article to work up. For your information I added in the Old Royal Mint site into the Tower Hamlets landmarks section yesterday and agree with you that the two really ought to be included about what is broadly speaking the same area. Cosmopolitancats 16:17, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

FYI:there were at least two separate locations for Royal Mints in LBTH. The Old Royal Mint to which you refer, is actually, eh, the New one - 'cept there's now a yet newer one. Kbthompson 08:52, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Cheshire has a substantial section relating to quality assessment here Wikipedia:WikiProject Cheshire/Assessment. (It's accessed from the front page of Wikipedia:WikiProject Cheshire via the box in the top right hand corner which provides the links to the important pages within the project). I think this was developed from the basic policy/guidelines that exist for application across Wikipedia. As a result of developing it they seem to have some sort of system for identifying, prioritising, reviewing and getting articles up to featured standard - or whatever is deemed appropriate for a particular category of article.

Might this offer this project some sort of template for developing a quality assessment tool for reviewing the articles which make up Wikipedia:WikiProject London? I'm sure there are others (I know I've seen at least one other) but I seem to recall this one is the best presented. Cosmopolitancats 18:42, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Category:Squares in London and Category:Streets in London

A proposal to merge Category:Squares in London and Category:Streets in London is pending at WP:CFD. Please go express your opinion. (I wonder if I could write an article on Prince Consort Road...) Dr. Submillimeter 16:56, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I had trouble finding this proposal, it has been sensibly withdrawn, with a further request for standards to be applied. Kbthompson 12:29, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Moorgate FAR

I have put this up on WP:FAR. It has been a featured article for the past 1 1/2 years. Simply south 21:45, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Moorgate has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

East End GA

Having not seen the process in action, I was emboldened to put East End forward for WP:GA. It hasn't been forward before, and was substantially improved by a group of us last year. If we can take it through the process, we can try for the giddy heights of Moorgate.

The process is similar to the FAR, but a lower hurdle. Past editors can attempt to meet any criticisms after the first stage of the process, but one aspect of the review is that the article is substantially stable, so no fiddling in the meantime. Tx Kbthompson 12:19, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

East End made GA with no changes. Next step, West End -> GA? East End -> FA? Kbthompson 19:14, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject London/Assessment

I've set up Wikipedia:WikiProject London/Assessment and related pages. Please join in assessing articles for quality and rating for importance so we can better prioritise our resources. MRSC • Talk 20:25, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

AfD on Portland Road

Someone's nominated Portland Road for deletion; in my opinion it's totally inappropriate for deletion given its history, but - seeing as people here are likely to know more about the pros & cons of keeping it - I'd urge any WPL members to go to the AfD discussion page for it and add their opinion either way. If nothing else, this might set a precedent as to which street entries are/aren't 'notable' enough for inclusion. - iridescenti (talk to me!) 19:13, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Locate me tag

A number of articles relating to London have been tagged with a template requesting geographical coordinates (Example: [1]). While I've got no objection to this information being added, I think the tags should be removed from the articles (I'd have no objection to talk-pages being tagged). As it stands, a number of articles have a big ugly splat at the top, requesting information which is not of critical importance. I've removed the tags from some articles where it was clearly inappropriate, but I am tempted to remove the lot. I thought I'd bring it here for discussion before doing so. The list of tagged articles is here: Category:Articles_needing_coordinates_from_April_2007. Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 09:23, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

At first, I was expecting these articles to be about neighborhoods or boroughs within London (e.g. Earl's Court), in which case the tag may be important. However, most of the articles tagged with this template are about buildings, parks, and streets, (e.g. Electric Ballroom, Royal Strand Theatre, Wandsworth Common, Soho Square). Exact geographical coordinates are not needed for people to find these locations; for example, all the article on the Electric Ballroom really needs to say is that the place is on Camden High Street in Camden, London. Precise latitude and longitude would be overkill. If other people agree, feel free to remove the maintenance tags. I would also suggest not even bothering to put them on talk pages.

Note that the tags were added to these articles by User:SatyrBot, a bot operated by User:SatyrTN. I will contact him and ask him to at least read this discussion here and possibly to restrain his bot. Dr. Submillimeter 14:25, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I was asked by WP:GEO and User:Pigsonthewing to put the tags on articles. Some reports are that it's been effective. But since other people disagreed (to the point of unnecessarily blocking my bot), I've stopped working on this. Thanks, -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 15:31, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Upon further review, I have to say that the geographical information may be very useful. For example, Gunnersbury Park includes the latitude and longitude of the park. By clicking on the coordinates at the top right of the article, it is possible to go to a page that lists multiple links to webistes such as maps.google.com that will display maps of the given coordinates. Still, placing the maintenance tags so high up in the articles seems highly inappropriate, as they imply something is horribly wrong with the articles (much like Template:Unreferenced or Template:Original research). Maybe they can be shifted to talk pages? Dr. Submillimeter 16:20, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Investigating this further, this appeared to be an ugly incident that eventually led to SatyrBot being temporarily blocked. See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive81#LocateMe bot. Apparently, WikiProject Geographical coordinates wanted to encourage everyone to use their templates, which is fine. However, they added they were ready to add these maintenance tags to tens of thousands of articles without any discussion with any other WikiProjects, which is not good. I'm not really sure what to do about the maintenance tags in all the articles, editors working on individual articles could either move the templates to the talk pages or add the requested latitude/longitude template. (I'll do this for Electric Ballroom now.) Dr. Submillimeter 16:37, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Could a bot be set up to move the template over to the talk pages? MRSC • Talk 17:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Coordinates enable premises - such as hotels, and areas/ regions, to be found on on-line maps, or using GPS devices, and including them in articles will soon also present a Geo microformat and add them to the Google Earth Wikipedia layer. See WP:GEO. Andy Mabbett 21:00, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that including the geographical information is useful. However, do the articles really need such large maintenance notices? The warning imply that the missing geographical information is as aggregious a problem as original research or unreferenced information. Could they be moved to the talk pages? (Looking at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive81#LocateMe bot, it looks like most people want this maintenance notice on the talk pages.) Dr. Submillimeter 21:26, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how {{LocateMeBot}} is any different than, say, {{tl:ISBN}}. Andy Mabbett 13:11, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I found a few examples of where Template:ISBN is being used: Heather Angel (photographer), Eric Ennion, Phil Drabble. In all of these cases, the maintenance template is placed in the middle of the article (at the tops of Bibliography sections). In contrast, Template:LocateMeBot is being placed at the tops of articles, which is where more serious messages (Template:Original research, Template:Unreferenced) are usually placed. Moreover, the geographical coordiates simply are not crucial to these articles, although I still agree that it would be nice to include the data. If you just moved the maintenance tags to the talk pages, I think everyone would be happy. Dr. Submillimeter 13:30, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I left a notice at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Victims of the LocateMeBot (the saga continues). I have asked for help in finding a way to remove the tags from the articles and put them on the talk pages. Barring that, however, I may be able to use the AutoWikiBrowser to systematically delete the tags. Other people's thoughts would be welcome. Dr. Submillimeter 21:40, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I notice that you (and others) ave been removing the tag from articles like Camden parks and open spaces (moving them to talk pages) . London Borough of Camden has coordinates, so the former should use the same data. Andy Mabbett 13:11, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

The Camden parks and open spaces article covers multiple locations. A single set of geographical coordinates would be inappropriate. A few of the other articles where I removed the templates are very similar. For example, Yo! Sushi is a chain of restaurants. A single set of coordinates is inappropriate. Dr. Submillimeter 13:22, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I removed the tag from the ...parks and open spaces articles for that reason. These articles link prominently to articles on the appropriate borough, which is a better place for the coordinates. The tag was causing confusion to the people who work on these articles. Finally, the bot was only authorised to add the tag to talk pages, which would not have caused all this kerfuffle. Tags at the top of article pages are only justified if casual readers need to be warned of factual errors, POV issues, or poor quality. Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 13:57, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Automated transfer to talk pages possible

I figured out how to use the AutoWikiBrowser to transfer these templates to talk pages. The solution is not graceful, but it works. Since the consensus in every discussion on this template has been to place these templates on the talk pages, I will do so as soon as possible. Dr. Submillimeter 20:16, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

SatyrTN appears to be trying to automate the transfer of the templates to talk pages. I suspect that his solution will be better than mine, so I will wait to see what he does first. Dr. Submillimeter 22:26, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

London Inner Ring Road Merger

We seem to have a lot of articles all over the place, that refer to sections of the London Inner Ring Road. I have made a merger proposal there to try and consolidate the articles into something more meaningful and complete. I would welcome your thoughts. Regan123 13:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure you know my opinions on the matter... I'd support doing the same to all the various sections of A23 road, A1 road etc as well. - iridescenti (talk to me!) 13:42, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Discussion is at Talk:London Inner Ring Road#Merge in... Regan123 13:51, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Roads / Streets / A roads

Further to my comment above, I would like to see if we can agree some guidelines on streets and A roads. There are many articles describing streets that are also sections of A road articles already in existence. What I would propose is that we keep all the information together with appropriate redirects. Two examples of what I suggest are:

• Park Lane (road) is the article with A4202 road redirecting in.
• South Norwood Hill is a redirect to A215 road.

If we take the principle of the primary meaning, then this would seem to be logical and keep all the information together. What do others think? Regan123 14:29, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

My proposal would be:

1, 2 or 3 digit A-number - A*** road is the primary article and the road name redirects to the appropriate section (eg, Piccadilly redirects to a section in A4 road);

4 digit number - A**** road redirects to the road name (eg, Brecknock Road would keep its article with A5200 as the redirect);

B road - only keep the road name and delete the numbered article altogether

aside (possibly) from a very few cases such as Oxford Street, where the entry for a single stretch of the otherwise dull A40 would swamp the article. - iridescenti (talk to me!) 14:49, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Out of interest what would happen with 4 digit roads that have two or three named sections? I think we would need to treat all the same. As for B roads there is List of B roads in Great Britain which came from a consensus that they would (with some very rare exceptions) never be notable. Regan123 14:59, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd say with the 4 digit roads, keep the named articles only with notes/links re the preceding/succeeding sections - eg "Woodford Road is a part of the A1199 road. To the south it becomes Hollybush Hill and to the north it becomes High Road Woodford Green", with the names wikilinked only if the other sections actually have named articles. - iridescenti (talk to me!) 15:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Further to the above, if more than one section of the 4 digit road had its own article, make the A**** article a disambig page. - iridescenti (talk to me!) 00:13, 12 April 2007 (UTC)