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Portal:Somerset

Portal:Somerset has been nominated at Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Somerset since November and hasn't received many comments. Would you be willing to take a look and comment on whether you feel it meets the Featured portal criteria?— Rod talk 20:31, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Great North Road, once only

Proposing a split from A1 road (Great Britain). See Talk:A1 road (Great Britain)#Great North Road (Split?). Simply south...... 19:10, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Weatherbox templates

Just a note that all Weather box templates are currently up for deletion here. I thought I would raise it here as this affects a number of UK settlement and geography articles (as well as many worldwide - 118 templates are up for deletion in all), however, it appears the nominator has omitted to inform anyone - the only way you will notice this is if one of the templates in question is on your watch list Pit-yacker (talk) 20:09, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

The article Boreham

I'd be more than happy to spend lots of hours improving the article Boreham, But it would be greatly appreciated if somebody could review it and tell me what needs to be done to improve it. Would this be possible? Thomas888b (talk) 20:42, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Take a look at WP:UKCITIES for information on writing about UK settlements. Keith D (talk) 22:42, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
At a glance, the article could do with quite a bit more on the history of the place, more on the governance as well as details on demographics, education, transport etc. The guide mentioned by Keith is a good place to start. Also, read through some of the articles in Category:FA-Class UK geography articles and Category:GA-Class UK geography articles to compare to well-developed articles on settlements. You'll also benefit from using quite a lot more sources, like books on the village or on the surrounding area that mention the village. When the article has a bit more content, I'd recommend listing it at peer review where you should get some detailed advice. If/when you do, feel free to post back here to let project members know in case they are interested in giving a peer review. --BelovedFreak 22:53, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
Ok, thanks, I'll start on that. Thomas888b (talk) 16:25, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Angel

I am also proposing the move of Angel, London to Angel, Islington, as the latter full title is commonly used when it is not shortened to London. See Talk:Angel, London. Simply south...... 20:43, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikiproject Essex.

Hi, I noticed that most of the UK's counties had a WikiProject. There is a proposal for an Essex WikiProject Here. Everybody's views would be greatly appreciated. Thomas888b (talk) 17:15, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

UGH !

Hi,

I'm partly interested in the project - having submitted updated coords for a geofeature. Being able to correct the coords like normal wiki would have been nice.

Noting the hunt for new contributors, I suspect a review of your marketing strategy would help. Adding one's name to the bottom of a 'random list' just doesn't do it for me.

'Member' is a bit off-putting. Referring to people as '(collective) contributors' may be more friendly.

Some explanation of what contributors are likely to be doing might help entice newbies.

The wiki interface isn't the most user-friendly but WP is an excellent project.

The signing with four tildes is another wikiwonder. I use googlemail - so feel free to e-mail me - or use Skype! I do have a WP account and I may even have the login details recorded somewhere and you may be able to find me. Other than that, you'll be left with a randomly expirable IP address - and it might have expired by now.

-- Mike.

pmailkeey —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.141.47.162 (talk) 21:23, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

River Lea and Lee Valley Park

Please see my request at WT:UKW#River Lea and Lee Valley Park. Simply south...... 16:34, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh and see Talk:River Lee (England) for the main move request. The previous discussion was never concluded. Simply south...... 16:22, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
That's not the end of the Lea moves. See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 February 2#Category:Weirs of the River Lee. Simply south...... 23:42, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

In case it's not on watch lists - I have started a Lea Valley article to replace the redirect. Please help to expand this. Notably missing is anything on the geological background. I'll put something together in a day or two. Pterre (talk) 10:37, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Photo requests

Is it alright if I post some photo requests here? There are some photo requests I have for Cheltenham, Manchester, and London. WhisperToMe (talk) 12:05, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

You may find it more productive to put a message on the local wikiproject pages where there is one. You can also tag the talk pages of article which need pictures using Template:Image requested which can be customised eg I use {{reqphoto|in=Somerset}} for Somerset articles needing photos which automatically adds them to Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Somerset.— Rod talk 16:53, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
Have you tried the Geograph project for images. There is a project in progress to load all of their images on to Commons so any you find may already be available for use. Keith D (talk) 17:55, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your suggestions! I have used Geograph before, but I decided to check it to check for images of my requests. Unfortunately I haven't found any of the requested locations on Geograph
I have used local projects and the reqphoto tags, but a user at WP:London suggested possibly trying this page too to see if I get lucky.
WhisperToMe (talk) 04:14, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

"Anglesey" or "Isle of Anglesey"?

There is a page move discussion taking place at Talk:Isle of Anglesey which may interest you. BencherliteTalk 08:05, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Somerset Levels FAC

The article Somerset Levels has been nominated at featured article candidates for a while and has recently been moved to the "Older nominations" section. It really needs more reviewers to examine whether it meets the Featured article criteria, so please visit Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Somerset Levels/archive1 and contribute.— Rod talk 16:09, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

United Kingdom Census 2011

The United Kingdom Census 2011 is topical at the moment. Obviously it will be a while before the results start to become available (particularly the detail down to parish or ward level) but is there a coherent plan anywhere of how the thousands of affected articles on wikipedia will be updated with the new data, perhaps involving county or regional wikiprojects, or is this left to ad hoc editing?— Rod talk 20:32, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Notability of Grade II listed buildings

Is there official guidance on the automatic notability of listed buildings? My gut feel says that Grade I's are automatically notable, a good slug of Grade II*'s will be notable (but you might have to work for it a bit) but that in general Grade II buildings aren't, at least not because of the listing. I ask because I've stumbled into what seems to be a longrunning dispute at Talk:Order of Women Freemasons on splitting out the HQ building, which is one of 40-odd similar Grade II-listed buildings in a street in Notting Hill Gate. The argument for the split seems to be that it would be notable in its own right, thanks to the Grade II listing, but that would imply we have an article for each and every separate building in the street, which just seems a bit unnecessary. Thoughts/guidance appreciated. Le Deluge (talk) 14:43, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

  • Without looking at this in detail, I'd say that anything below a Grade I listing does not confer automatic notability an a building (and even Grade Is should be merged of the listing is for being part of a group). In this case, the building is not showing notability on its own - although given how many buildings in the street are listed as part of the "unified scheme" I'd say there was a clear case for the street being notable. The other possibility would be to treat it as a breakout article, but neither the section on the building nor the main article are large enough to warrant sub articles at the present time. Thryduulf (talk) 16:36, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Help request

Hi. I've been struggling on and off to do some work on the article on Lowestoft - which seems to have been the focus of varying degrees of attack and other "helpful" editing for two years or so. I could use a hand getting the message across just now. Not sire if this is the right place to stick such a request, but there doesn't seem to be any other space. If anyone would care to add it to their watchlist to keep an eye on it it'd be much appreciated. --Blue Square Thing (talk) 23:49, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I see what you mean! I have added it to my watchlist too. Putney Bridge (talk) 00:09, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks to both of you. I've been working on a sandbox version - it just makes it simpler as otherwise reverts keep on happening just now... It'd be great if someone could take a quick look at it. It's nowhere near perfect and needs other editors to contribute to it, but I think it'll get over some of the immediate cleanup issues. Blue Square Thing (talk) 20:55, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

"Major Settlement"

Looking at templates for different counties, it is interesting to note that there seem to be different definitions for major settlements. For example, in {{Hertfordshire}} this only applies to all towns and cities, whereas with {{Cumbria}} it seems to be any settlement over 1000 population, plus towns and cities. What therefore define's a major settlement? Simply south...... trying to improve for 5 years 19:51, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest:-
  • Any former county borough, municipal borough or urban district which is now unparished, or has a successor parish
  • Any civil parish or community with "town" or "city" status
  • Any civil parish with a population over 10,000
  • Any significant settlement (under the definitions above) that is in a civil parish that combines settlements (for example, Midsomer Norton and Radstock, which were combined in the parish of Norton Radstock)
Ultimately, it was always be subjective, and a bit of common sense is needed, but I think that gives a good idea of what people are most likely to be looking for when they use the template.
Skinsmoke (talk) 11:27, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Kennet and Avon Canal

The Kennet and Avon Canal article, which is tagged as being of interest to this project, has been a Good Article since 2006. A few editors have recently been expanding and improving this article in an attempt to get it up to Featured Article standard. Could you take a look and help to improve the article?— Rod talk 13:33, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Merge discussion for Winterbourne, Gloucestershire

An article that is in the remit of this project, Winterbourne, Gloucestershire , has been proposed for a merge with another article. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Skinsmoke (talk) 11:14, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Spelthorne - help wanted

I came across these edits to the Spelthorne article, by somebody who is apparently very uncomfortable with the idea that the area is no longer in Middlesex. From reading Wikipedia articles and talk pages, I've got the impression that the changes in 1965 (and 1974) were more thorough than the article currently concedes, but I'm not familiar enough with the source material to just revert it myself, and besides the references to Surrey during the Domesday Book era from previous versions of the article seemed indeed a bit daft. Can anybody help out? //Essin (talk) 21:41, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Middlesex doesn't exist, either as a county of local government or a ceremonial county, and Spelthorne is in Surrey. I've removed the incorrect reference to the Surrey map - it was a dead link, so I couldn't check whether it had anything about Middlesex. Peter E. James (talk) 23:34, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Eastbourne is going through a GAR

Details here: Talk:Eastbourne/GA1. SilkTork *Tea time 23:10, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

River Parrett on front page 7 July

I've just found out that River Parrett will be on the front page of wikipedia on 7 July. Any help beforehand with ensuring it shows off our best work and then watching it on the day for vandalism etc would be great.— Rod talk 16:50, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Kennet and Avon Canal at FAC

The Kennet and Avon Canal article has now been under review at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Kennet and Avon Canal/archive2 for some time but has not received many comments. I am worried that it will be archived soon unless more comments are received, therefore can I ask anyone interested to participate in the review.— Rod talk 19:25, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Hundreds

I just moved Brixton (hundred) to Hundred of Brixton as that is the common name used by most sources. Then I noticed that all the other articles on Hundreds are titled Foo (hundred) rather than Hundred of Foo, even though the cats are Hundreds of - as in Category:Hundreds of England. As this is fairly widespread I should imagine there has been some previous discussion on this that it might be worth looking at. However, I think it is also worth looking at what the current consensus would be on the naming. Hundred of Foo is a natural usage that can be used in an article as well as being a form that one frequently encounters in reliable sources. Sometimes they are written Foo Hundred, and I think that if that is the main usage then that is what the article should be called. I'm not sure at the moment what the advantage is of having the articles called Foo (hundred), as all links have to be piped, and the usage is not natural. Though I expect there are advantages. SilkTork ✔Tea time 22:11, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I would assume that some of the articles on an individual hundred are titled Foo (hundred) due to the need to disambiguate the title from an article that already resided at Foo, following the guidelines at WP:DAB (an example being Kerrier (hundred)), then other editors followed this standard. Categories and overarching articles for groups of hundreds do not need to and cannot follow this format, as, for example, Cornwall would not be refered to as a group of hundreds (so not needing to reside at the dab page of Cornwall (hundreds)) and would only be refered to as Hundreds of Cornwall. So there is a distinction there.
Although there are a few articles where there was no original need to make the disambiguation (eg Triggshire) - do these require further disambiguation or name change? Also some exist where the name of the hundred is a redirect to a larger article encompassing many historical features (eg Nassaburgh). These need a little thought. I think that if Hundred of Foo is the common name used in the majority of individual hundred sources this is what should be used consistently for all articles of hundreds. Zangar (talk) 11:08, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I suspect the disambiguation bracket was chosen initially to disambiguate from a Foo article, and that spread. Though I wondered if there had been a deliberate move to use the disambiguation brackets as it appears to be fairly consistent. Archives aren't throwing up much - there's this, but that's about writing the articles in the past tense, and about merging the stubs into parent articles.
Following common usage as shown in reliable sources is our normal way of selecting titles, and as Hundred of Brixton is clearly disambiguated from Brixton then there is no need to go down a false and awkward route of using Brixton (hundred). I'd like to get some more consensus on this before making any more changes, as this effects quite a few articles. SilkTork ✔Tea time 11:34, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
But why Hundred of Brixton rather than Brixton Hundred, which some sources (e.g. Vision of Britain) seem to prefer (although you do see both, even on the same page in VCH)? Seems shorter, aids sorting, and I would not have a problem if you dropped the "Hundred" in cases where disambiguation is not needed, e.g. Ossulstone or Hormer.--Mhockey (talk) 13:40, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
More sources use Hundred of Brixton than Brixton Hundred, though - without remembering which ones -there are some Hundreds which are more commonly referred to as Foo Hundred than Hundred of Foo. In general, Hundred of Foo is the more common usage, and it wouldn't produce confusion if they were all named that, though I personally would prefer that the most common name was used, even if that results in a lack of consistency, so, yes, sometimes Foo Hundred, sometimes just Foo, and mostly Hundred of Foo. SilkTork ✔Tea time 17:28, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
The convention to use Foo (hundred) is consistent in Wikipedia with the use of brackets to designate other administrative divisions such as Foo (borough) and Foo (district). Bear in mind when using the search facility typing in the name of the location, 'Foo' will bring up all the derovations of 'Foo' making it easy to identify the one you are after, and drawing attention to other related articles using that name. Reversing the naming convention to 'hundred of Foo' will not assist the casual user and the naming of articles ' x of y is strongly disencouraged in the MoS and in guidelines on article naming conventions. For what ever reason the convention to name hundreds as Foo (hundreds) arose it is now well established. There are enumerable examples where the Wikipedia house style used for naming articles differs from what one finds through a Google search so this is not a good reason for reversing the current naming convention of this group of articles. Tmol42 (talk) 18:02, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for that. It is such opposes that I was looking for. Could you clarify the MoS issue because the main requirements in Wikipedia:Article titles, which is the naming policy, is that "Article titles are based on what reliable English-language sources refer to the article's subject by." The main reason I have raised this issue is that reliable sources use "Hundred of Foo" or "Foo Hundred", but don't use "Foo (hundred)". Changing an article title from the common usage to a disambiguation title (the brackets are used when there is a need to disambiguate between two similar titles) only applies when there is a need to disambiguate - we don't add disambiguation brackets for additional information purposes. And when deciding to disambiguate a title, consideration is first given to alternative forms of a title rather than going straight to disambiguation brackets, as per WP:NCDAB.
As regards the other issues you raise. Searching by title will turn up Hundred of Brixton as readily as Brixton (hundred) - see search result. That something already exists is by wide consensus not a reason to keep it per Wikipedia:Other stuff exists and Wikipedia:Consensus can change. The argument needs to focus on the usefulness of the thing under discussion rather than it is just there and has been for a while. What I am looking for is the reason why that disambiguation form was decided, and to see if the rationale will still apply today. It looks like an error as it doesn't comply with our policies and guidelines and is awkward to use because linking requires piping. As for using brackets to designate administrative divisions, the guideline on that, WP:NCCS, says to "do what English does" (which is "Hundred of Foo"), and as it is encouraged to use a consistent format, if a change is being considered, then open a discussion (which is what I have done). SilkTork ✔Tea time 09:07, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
I think what Tmol42 was referring to with the search facility was the automatic suggestions that drop down - and generally you would always see Foo (hundred) in that list if you typed Foo, but would not see Hundred of Foo if you typed Hundred (you'd get a lot of the other Hundreds as well as other definitions). But we shouldn't overlook the use of redirects, which can aid in navigation and searching. So I don't think the searchability is a concern for discussion here, as whatever the consensus, we should create Foo (hundred), Hundred of Foo and Foo Hundred as redirects to the title format decided upon. I must admit, I haven't seen this discouragement of using "x of y" either.
Obviously the sources wouldn't use Foo (hundred) in reference, it has just been used here as a disambiguator. What we have to look at is: do the sources on the hundred refer to Foo over most other ways? - if it does then by Wikipedia:Article titles it should reside at that title, but generally it couldn't because of an already existing primary topic at that title (therefore needing a disambiguator). Zangar (talk) 11:23, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. Redirects for credible searches are useful and should be done. I've not previously encountered advice to create a redirect in order to push a name forward so it appears in the drop down list - it doesn't appear in Wikipedia:Redirect. In this case, most of the hundreds are already named Foo (hundred) so they would turn into redirects when name changing. As that is the case it might be acceptable to create a Foo (hundred) redirect when starting a new Hundred of Foo article, though it appears of limited use as the drop down doesn't go beyond ten names, so Edmonton (hundred), for example, doesn't appear in the drop down, but does appear in the search list. SilkTork ✔Tea time 12:02, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
As an anaolgy, it was common to refer to "the County of Devon", but the Wikipedia article is at the simpler name Devon. JonH (talk) 08:37, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
I don't think the analogy goes very far, because Devon is not usually ambiguous, so even in the past everyone would know what you meant by "Devon". Brixton Hundred is different - I suspect that you would not have usually referred to the hundred as plain "Brixton" because of the risk of confusion with the place. A better analogy is "County of Oxford", which is at Oxfordshire, not Oxford (county).--Mhockey (talk) 08:54, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
Shouldn't that be at Oxon? Agathoclea (talk) 09:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
Also, I do not think that Foo (district) is a good precedent. I have said elsewhere that it would be better to use Foo District. People do not normally use "Stroud" or "Dover" to refer to Stroud District or Dover District, because it would probably be understood as Stroud or Dover. Moving the district articles would be a big job, but there are not so many articles on hundreds, so we have a chance to get them right.--Mhockey (talk) 09:12, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. Guidelines, as linked to above in my previous comment, indicate that Foo District is to be preferred over Foo (district). If there is an adequate way of disambiguating using standard English that is much better than using brackets. If people are writing an article and wish to mention Foo District, they will write "and Foo is part of Foo District", and are able to link easily by [[Foo District]] rather than [[Foo (district)|Foo District]]. SilkTork ✔Tea time 09:25, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

The question is: What was it called in reality ie would the entitiy been refered to as FOO? Then the disambiguation of Foo (hundred) would be corect. I suspect that sources write Hundred of Foo just the same as they would write City of Foo. We still would not have a title at that name (with some rare exceptions they all redirect to FOO). Agathoclea (talk) 09:20, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Our guidelines refer to naming articles by what they are called in reliable sources. That is why I have raised this issue. Sources use Hundred of Foo. So in reality the places are called Hundred of Foo (and sometimes Foo Hundred). And even if the place is called Foo in reliable sources, our guidelines do indicate that if there is an alternative way of presenting the title in English, then that is preferable to using disambiguation brackets. So even if most sources said Foo, then because the article is about the Hundred of Foo, that it is preferable to disambiguate by using Hundred of Foo than by using Foo (hundred). SilkTork ✔Tea time 09:30, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

A1 road (London) is going through a GAR

Details here: Talk:A1 road (London)/GA2. SilkTork ✔Tea time 00:38, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Knowle West, Bristol

I have nominated this for peer review at Wikipedia:Peer review/Knowle West, Bristol/archive1 as I would like to take it to WP:FAC. Any comments that would help achieve this will be most welcome. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:39, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Openhouse

This year's London Openhouse is happening on 17/18 September - it's a good opportunity to take some interior pics of notable buildings, as well as just being an interesting opportunity to nose around places you're not normally allowed in to! I presume that there may be similar events outside London? Le Deluge (talk) 20:45, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, we have Bristol Open Doors day on Saturday, 10 September. Jezhotwells (talk) 23:27, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

The deprecated infobox category in the to-do list...

I thought I'd start trying to take a crack at these. Discussion started on the category talk page here. NORTHUMBRIAN SPRǢC 19:41, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Progress; input requested

Making slow but steady progress. Almost done with the non-metropolitan districts but could use some input on nomenclature for other types of district. Please feel free to drop by the category talk page to provide any perspective. Cheers, NORTHUMBRIAN SPRǢC 19:18, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

County categories and historical articles

It's my understanding that the county categories usually refer to the modern-day county boundaries, unless there's a compelling reason against. So articles with a geographical location are categorised according to where they are now, not where they were before 1974. And it's my understanding that this applies even to historical entities which ceased to exist by 1974. So what to make of Lancashire Coalfield? Most of this lies within modern-day Greater Manchester, with a much smaller part in modern-day Lamcashire, and a smaller part still in modern-day Merseyside.Therefore, by my logic, this article should be within all three of Category:Coal mines in Lancashire, Category:Coal mines in Greater Manchester, Category:Coal mines in Merseyside. I think this is useful for readers who are interested in the history of geographical areas which are in modern-day Greater Manchester (etc). Another editor disagrees and thinks only Lancashire is appropriate, on the grounds that most mines had closed by 1974. By that logic, there is no need for the Manchester and Merseyside coal mine categories to exist at all. Any thoughts?

(Note: the only prior discussion of this topic has been within the edit summaries of Lancashire Coalfield.) -- Dr Greg  talk  21:00, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The coalfield is not a colliery so why would it be linked to a colliery category? Very few collieries lasted until reorganisation in 1974. The colliery articles are all linked to the appropriate modern settlement and the historic county.--J3Mrs (talk) 21:36, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Oops, it seems I misunderstood J3Mrs's actions, so the issue does not require further resolution. Nevertheless, any comments on the general principle (not this specific article) are welcome. -- Dr Greg  talk  21:55, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
The current guidelines are that we should use current counties - see WP:UKCOUNTIES. This must include locations, structures etc which changed their nature or use before 1974, otherwise there will be inconsistencies between articles referring to structures in the same locality if that locality changed counties in 1974, depending on whether they ceased to be in use before 1974. In the case of coal mines in the historic Lancashire, where the site is now in Greater Manchester, if they are categorised in Category:Coal mines in Lancashire, they end up in a category tree headed by Category:Lancashire, which is a category for the present county. There is a similar issue with coal mines categorised in South Yorkshire and South Gloucestershire (and probably other places) which closed before those counties/districts existed.
But it would be worth putting coal mines in the Lancashire Coalfield into a Category:Lancashire Coalfield (which could be a subcat of the 3 modern counties, and also of Category:History of Lancashire).--Mhockey (talk) 23:10, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Nomination for merging of Template:UK ward

Template:UK ward has been nominated for merging with Template:Infobox UK ward. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. –Temporal User (Talk) 08:01, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

A discussion which may interest members of this WikiProject has been stated at WP:ELN#eastkilbride.co.uk regarding an external link currently in use on an article within scope of this WikiProject. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:34, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Ely, Cambridgeshire

I am working on improving the article Ely, Cambridgeshire, as set out on the talk page here. I had considered submitting it to WP:PR but on reading the submission guidelines, particularly "Peer review ... is intended for high-quality articles that have already undergone extensive work", I decided to submit the article for feedback first. I am just looking for community feedback on how to take this further. I have discussed this with the Worm That Turned (talk · contribs) on his page and on my page. He recommended I ask you for advice. How should I proceed?--Senra (Talk) 19:40, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Discussion about the use of abbreviations in lists of monasteries, abbeys and priories etc

I have started a discussion about the use of abbreviations at Talk:List of abbeys and priories in England#Use of abbreviations which applies to all of the "List of monastic houses in X" (where X = counties) articles and the main list at List of abbeys and priories in England. The contributions of any interested editor would be welcome.— Rod talk 14:04, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Your views on this split proposal

I proposed we split this section off this article into it's own article it could do with a better name though. I wrote this whole piece by the way and put it here because at the time I didnt think it was enough to warrant its own article and I thought it would suit the article I put it in. Liverpool–Manchester rivalry#Liverpool-Manchester as one region. Eopsid (talk) 12:46, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I've left a notice of the discussion at the Greater Manchester and Merseyside wikiprojects. Nev1 (talk) 13:06, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

OS OpenData for site specific articles

I've been looking for discussion/guidance on use of OS OpenData for articles on particular places, so if there is something already underway on this, please let me know: The location maps are brilliant to show where within the county a place is, but there must be a lot of times when a detailed map is also needed, for which the OS OpenData Vectormap District could be ideal. Accessing the database version is beyond my grasp, but the Raster version is a possibility - especially as individual Km squares can be easily copied from the OS Viewer (although only using IE8, seemingly) and stuck together and anotated in Inkscape. There are examples here and here. I wondered if there are views or policies on either facilitating or standardising such usage, to maintain a look and feel across UK articles. RobinLeicester (talk) 20:34, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

You might like to look at a couple of archived discussions Ordnance Survey changes and OS OpenData where you will find comments from those more expert than I am (both in the maps and licence issues).— Rod talk 20:50, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
There is now an OS OpenData template at wikimedia commons, so I assume the rights and usage issue is all resolved. (The OS site says the map should include an attribution. I don't know if the link to commons is sufficient or not, so I included some text on the map too.) The UK Location maps are now all based on that data, I believe, but I have seen very little use of the larger scale options. RobinLeicester (talk) 00:02, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Suggest that maps from this source be uploaded to Commons rather than here so they can be used by other projects. Keith D (talk) 00:20, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
There's a batch upload "in progress" to Commons (effectively dormant) commons:Commons:Batch uploading/Ordnance Survey which intended to upload all the VectorMap district tiles. You can use the associated temp directory to find the individual tiles, probably easier to get them there than the OS viewer: That route allows download of 10 km x10 km squares, and as jpg or tif which means easier to merge.
The best product for large scale maps of small sites is VectorMap, I've started to make some limited use of the vector version (eg File:Westminster London UK location map.svg). However, for individual sites the best approach is to just use the raster version: Its easier to work with, can be cropped to desired area easily and gives a end product very similar to the familiar 1:25,000 OS product.
Upload to commons using the OS OpenData template, and including that template on the page is sufficient attribution for the OS data.--Nilfanion (talk) 00:36, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Two big shortcomings of the VectorMap raster versions as supplied by OS, are that the colours are all washed out (can be resolved well in Gimp, or just about in Inkscape, and with inevitable variation if done ad hoc by different editors), and that Parish and other boundaries are not included. The Westminster map resolves both of these very beautifully - at least to borough level, but I, and most editors, wouldn't know where to start with the actual vestors. Is there any chance of producing rasters something like that, which editors can then access in small enough chunks to edit for their own individual needs? (Village, Nature reserve, airfield or whatever) (I am aware that is probably a vast and complex request, which makes me wonder if the OS viewer might still be a more viable method, if such maps were to be a 'normal' item in a UK geographic article). RobinLeicester (talk) 01:19, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Ashford, Dorset

I'm unsure about how to proceed with Ashford, Dorset - either to re-name or delete? I'm inclined to suggest deleting due to non-notifiability, as it's not a village, but a neighbourhood of Fordingbridge instead. If it's kept, it has to be re-named, as it's in Hampshire, not Dorset. I've so far neither re-named nor deleted any article, so am requesting advice and assistance. Thanks. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 20:24, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Having had a quick scan of some sources (& frequently getting Ashford Hill) I would suggest that there probably isn't enough for the article to stand alone. I would go for a merge with Fordingbridge. See Wikipedia:Merging & specifically Help:Merging for how to do this.— Rod talk 21:50, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
I also have a similar query with Castleton, Dorset. This article states that Castleton is a village in Dorset, whereas it is actually a neighbourhood of the town of Sherborne. In fact actually it's not really a neighbourhood - as far as I can tell from my 1:25,000-scale maps, it's a parish which extends around the northern half of the town, encompassing both the town's castles but not much else. My feeling is it should be merged with the Sherborne article - but similarly to the above query, I've never made a merge before. Any suggestions? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 20:59, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm not so sure about Castleton as this source describes it as a civil parish "covering 1,976 hectares and has 53 dwellings with 111 electors". I have used a civil parish as a rule of thumb as the smallest unit worth an article (unless a specific hamlet has lots of history or other notable features). Castleton has a significant number of listed buildings, historical population data, a museum, parish records and generaly seems to have enough sources for its own article, which might include info on how most of the houses in the parish, but not the church, were pulled down when the railway was built.(Ref).— Rod talk 21:50, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
Hmmm - I can see that it could be justified on historical grounds, but I therefore wonder how it would dovetail with the Sherborne article. Several of the refs which you list all refer to Castleton as being part of Sherborne (and 'Castleton' is not included in the address of, for example, the museum - it's just Sherborne). How would you separate what appears in each article, bearing in mind that the two most important buildings within the parish of Castleton are the two castles, both of which are called 'Sherborne Castle' and both of which are intimately associated with Sherborne? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 22:12, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
If the "general rule" of parishes being notable is accepted (and not everyone does) then you could expand the Castleton article, including mention of the castles etc, and say in the articles for Sherborne and the castles that they are actually in the parish of Castleton but have most significance for Sherborne. Parishes are often not mentioned in postal addresses. The museum looks quite interesting & might even be worth its own article.— Rod talk 22:37, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
I've made an initial expansion of Castleton - hopefully its ratings will improve as a result! Thanks for researching the various sources. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 00:50, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Converting OSGB36 (OS grid refs) to coords on various lists

I have started a discussion about converting the OSGB36 (OS grid refs) on various lists including Grade I listed buildings in Taunton Deane, Grade I listed buildings in Bath and North East Somerset, Grade I listed buildings in Mendip, Grade I listed buildings in North Somerset, Grade I listed buildings in Sedgemoor, Grade I listed buildings in South Somerset, Grade I listed buildings in West Somerset, List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Avon, List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset and List of locks on the Kennet and Avon Canal to use Template:Coord, as I think this offers advantages for users worldwide (who may be unfamiliar with the OS system) and the use of Template:GeoGroupTemplate to enable mapping on googlemaps etc. I have been told that a bot could be tasked to do this, however this would be quite a significant change and would not want to do it without consensus. If anyone has any comments could they join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geographical coordinates#Automagically converting OSGB36 to coord?.— Rod talk 16:17, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Colesbourne, Gloucestershire

I am surprised to find that there isnt an article on the village of Colesbourne, nor the manor house of Colesbourne Park as it is very popular at this time of year from the snowdrops please can somone look into this and i will try and help. thanks JMRH6 (talk) 14:39, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Coordinates in infobox

Just for information these is a discussion on displaying coordinates in the {{Infobox UK place}} template. If anyone has any views then please express on the template talk page. Keith D (talk) 22:17, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Categories nominated for deletion

Category:Highest points of English counties‎ and several other similiar categories have been nominated for discussion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. __meco (talk) 09:06, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Small settlements in Bedfordshire missing articles

After changing the settlements in Bedfordshire template into two templates one for Bedford Borough and one for Central Bedfordshire, Luton Borough didnt neeed a template as only one settlement is in that district. I noticed that a number of small settlements which I've actually been to lack articles. I will now list these settlements:

  • Bushmead - the article is about a part of Luton but a village, albeit a very small one I suggest looking at a map, exists which I have been through quite recently. This village lends it's name to Bushmead Priory and is mentioned on that article. For this article to be created you would have to move the part of Luton to say Bushmead, Luton and the new article would be Bushmead, (whatever parish Bushmead is in I dont actually know which it is) naming it Bushmead, Bedford could be confusing as there is a road in the town named after Bushmead Priory called If i remember correctly Bushmead Avenue.
  • Colworth - this village appears on maps [1] such as this one as very small old civil parish. This settlement appears to lend it's name to Colworth House which is now a science park. Which I have actually visited.
  • Scald End - Not sure whether this counts as a seperate settlement but it seems to appear as one on ONS maps. It's in Thurleigh civil parish, and contains a few farms and a small number of houses. A number of other ends in Bedfordshire have their own article so I cant see why this one should not.

So are these article worthy and if they are I made need help doing the coordinates and things where a little dot shows where they are on a map. Eopsid (talk) 09:35, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Scald End seems to be more an informal placename than a settlement, and unless you have any reliable sources that mention anything noteworthy about it, I can't see any purpose in having an article about it. At most, I think it should be a redirect to Thurleigh, which mentions Scald End, which you should then put in bold face. As for Thurleigh itself, this article is tending towards being little more than a directory. You may want to check out Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements which has some good advice and plenty of ideas for improving articles. Just because someone has created other stubs about small settlements doesn't mean it is a good idea that should be promulgated. Much better, in my mind, to create meaningful articles. Derek Andrews (talk) 12:54, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
As Rod said a few posts up, it's a good rule of thumb to only go down to parish level. Not least because parishes are precisely defined and give you 100% coverage of the land. (more or less....) It also means you don't end up duplicating a lot of background material, and it can serve your reader better by giving a bit more high-level context. So in the first instance, I'd develop any information about Bushmead in the article on Eaton Socon and Scald End in Thurleigh and just see how it goes. If it looks like you've got so much information about the hamlet that it starts overwhleming the parish then by all means split it out, but I suspect they will work pretty well as part of the parish articles.
Colworth is a bit more interesting if it was indeed a parish in the distant past. However it seems to have been incorporated into Sharnbrook fairly soon after that map was made. As you say it was small - I suspect that the parish was pretty much coterminous with the Colworth House estate and that the "village" was little more than the estate houses. So while I'll accept there is an argument for Colworth in its own right, I think I'd leave the redirect to Colworth House in place, and work on the CH article and Sharnbrook articles rather than a new Colworth article. A good test is "what would a WP:GA look like for this hamlet? Usually that would mean compliance with Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements, and it just seems a lot more productive to write about those kinds of things at the parish level, at least in the first instance. Oh, and WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is no argument... FlagSteward (talk) 20:35, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
I do not know anything about Bushmead, but Colworth does not appear as a parish in any of the maps in the History of Bedfordshire by Joyce Godber. Perhaps by becoming a parish in some technical sense, the residents of Colworth House at one time avoided paying the equivalent of Council Tax. I agree that the best plan is to add information about this "parish" to the Colworth House article. JonH (talk) 18:55, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
Good to see some sensible discussion on what to do about small settlements. Many villages in Bedfordshire are composed of "Ends", and to my mind they are no more notable than streets in a town. I tried to merge some stub articles into parish articles, for example Apsley End (see Talk:Shillington, Bedfordshire), but there are editors who argue that "all locations are notable" (without defining what they mean by location). Of course there are some exceptions: for example, Slip End has been promoted to be a civil parish, and Cotton End is now disconnected from its original village (Cardington, Bedfordshire) and it has given its name to a lower school. In general I agree that being a civil parish indicates that village is notable: either the parish is a new creation, so there are a reasonable number of inhabitants with an active community, or it has existed for hundreads of years, and there is enough history to create an article. JonH (talk) 18:55, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
What do you mean by disconnected from the village? I have been persuded not to create these articles. Also if we do things by parish level surely we should merge very stubby articles on hamlets into the articles on their civil parish. The settlements which I have mentioned with the exception of Colworth are really no more than farms and a few cottages sorrounding it but not physically continuous with the village eg you cant really walk to the village pub/shop in less than an hour. Scald End is only arguably a hamlet. But if no article about the village of Bushmead to be made surely appropriate edits should be made to the Bushmead Priory article so it says it is in the location of whatever civil parish Bushmead is in (Just looked on a map it's in Staploe) instead of talking about an article lacking village. Eopsid (talk) 16:17, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
I don't think there should be fixed rule; decisions on whether to split or merge articles should be made to give the best result in each case. By saying that Cotton End is "disconnected", I just meant that you can only get to Cardington by road if you go through Shortstown and Harrowden. In 1894, Cardington parish was split to create a new civil parish (Eastcotts), and according to the parish council website [2] there are now two villages (Cotton End and Shortstown) and perhaps those two articles should be developed rather than the Eastcotts article (there does not seem to be an actual village called Eastcotts). JonH (talk) 20:33, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
I think it's a basic principle that current civil parishes are inherently notable as entities in themselves - you should at least be able to get some hard reffable facts on their history and geography. A reader should be able to enter the official name of a CP and end up at an article. However there may well be cases where the parish has just one main settlement, but the parish has a slightly different name for whatever reason. In those cases I'd suggest a redirect to the WP:COMMONNAME of the village and cover the parish in the village article. In cases such as this, where it's hard to match the parish name to either main settlement, then there may be a case for a separate article on the parish - the reason for the discrepancy may well be reffable, was there a country house that was burnt down or something? It's a matter of judgment.
In this case I'd note that the OS map has Eastcotts as the southeast suburb of Bedford. I suspect that what happened was that once the bypass was built everything north of it (including the original Eastcotts) got annexed by Bedford and normally the parish would have been merged with Wilshamstead (centred on the village of Wilstead - an example of where it would be sensible to redirect from the parish name to the main village, the village name has obviously been contracted over the years). However this was an unusual case where the Shorts factory had created a new centre of population that was sufficient to justify minimal fiddling with the parish boundaries. They could have changed the parish name to something more appropriate like Shortstown - but chose to retain the ancient name. Obviously this would need a Bedford local to confirm, but if the story is something along these lines then Eastcotts deserves an article of its own with the parish as its main subject but also mentioning the suburb (suburbs being generally of tenuous notability).
Like Jon I would not be too dogmatic about this stuff - I think we need coverage of all the parishes just so that any geographical feature in England/Wales has a potential home. But we should be flexible about smaller settlements. We had this same issue over on the Italy project - we've got articles on all 8000 comuni that are the basic unit of organisation corresponding to a big village or small town council, and about 1,500 of a potential 30,000 articles on the frazioni, subdivisions of the comuni that are typically hamlets. I suspect half those frazioni articles could have been safely upmerged into their comune article, but some of them are eg world-famous ski resorts that clearly have independent notability. So the sub-parish level needs judgment. I know some would disagree, but in the absence of any obvious fame I'd happily upmerge any hamlet that just consists of a few residential buildings. On the other hand once a settlement starts having schools, religious buildings and side-roads/cul-de-sacs (as opposed to just a few buildings stretched out along a road going from A to B), then it probably deserves an article. Since Cotton End has both a school and a Methodist chapel, it deserves its own article. But I wouldn't make the call just on the basis of being called an "End", or being "disconnected from its original village".FlagSteward (talk) 11:13, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

List_of_largest_United_Kingdom_settlements_by_population

I just discovered this list and started a talk point. It is supposedly rereporting the 2001 census data but has totally confused what the report says. Either this needs to quote Birmingham and Manchester by the Greater urban areas as separate entities or London would need to come off the list. It is worrying that this is being requoted elsewhere because of the wiki page. Tetron76 (talk) 16:37, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

A similiar thing was brought up before [3]. Eopsid (talk) 13:14, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Parish boundaries on Google maps

FWIW, by chance I just discovered something new, to me at least - Google maps can draw parish boundaries. [4] I got this simply by searching for eastcotts bedford. For Elstow i had to use elstow parish bedford, but I have not been able to find any other parishes that work. If anyone knows how to do this more reliably, I think it would be a useful asset for research purposes, and very nice if GeoHack could be forced to make it display. Derek Andrews (talk) 01:28, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I found this one, but I think it's user generated. You may want to ask at WikiProject Maps or even the more used WikiProject Geographical coordinates for more info if no-one else here knows the answer. Cheers, Zangar (talk) 09:26, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
[www.statistics.gov.uk] shows the maps but you can't zoom in or anything, e.g. [5]. However, I think the ordnance survey have released all of the data but I don't know how to manipulate it. User:Nilfanion is your best bet. Polequant (talk) 09:41, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
I suspect that this is a new feature Google is in process of implementing or testing, which is why it only works for some parishes in Bedford. I've managed to trigger it for a dozen CPs in the area. If Google rolls it out it will be useful, especially if we can find a way to reliably trigger it, as we could tweak Geohack so a link to Google provides that visible boundary. There are several mapping sites that display the parish boundaries (those which provide the 1:25,000 scale OS maps) and there's also the lookup tool provided by MaPit that tells you what CP a given lat/long location is in. I'm not aware of anything that produces Civil Parish overlays on a base map.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:53, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
http://www.election-maps.co.uk/ is a Government website showing OS maps with overlays for civil parish boundaries in England (and community boundaries in Wales), as well as most other local authority and electoral boundaries in the UK. The website does not show parish wards (subdivisions in those civil parishes that are divided for electing parish councillors) nor Scottish civil parishes. Within Northern Ireland, townlands, wards (unlabelled), districts and constituencies are shown. As for Google Maps: at certain scales it has recently begun showing a range of boundaries for searched terms, including approximations of postcode districts and individual postcodes. — Richardguk (talk) 00:02, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Boroughs

While reading Swindon I noted a link to Borough of Swindon which redirected to Swindon (borough), even though the article was about the Borough of Swindon. The naming policy, Wikipedia:Article titles, particularly WP:Common name and WP:Precise, indicates that we should use the name commonly used in reliable sources, and that if we need to disambiguate that we use a natural title if possible before we resort to brackets. We also have the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) guideline, which for Administrative subdivisions suggests "do what English does". Under those policies and guidelines I moved Swindon (borough) to Borough of Swindon, and made a couple of other page moves as I was browsing, thinking at the time that these were exceptions rather than the rule. Another user has contacted me about the move, and I looked more closely this morning and note that there are a good number of Foo (borough) articles. We had a discussion on Hundreds last year in which the consensus was to change Foo (hundred) to Hundred of Foo or Foo Hundred. I just looked at that, and we included Districts in that discussion, though it wasn't explicit, and as there are a number of articles which use the Foo (borough) format it's worth raising the matter here to see if there are any issues. SilkTork ✔Tea time 09:44, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

It looks like there was no opposition five years ago to switching to Borough of Foo, except that nobody wanted to do the work. SilkTork ✔Tea time 09:56, 27 March 2012 (UTC) The conversation was moved and continued here where there was more support. SilkTork ✔Tea time 10:01, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
You might indeed conclude this to be the outcome of the discussion at the time. But then see Talk:Borough of Milton Keynes#Requested move, which the RtM discussion was closed as 'no action' on the grounds that there is not unanimity for the change. If there is now consensus (and I don't see why there shouldn't be) then let's just do the work case by case. Many hands make light work! --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:14, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
Oh, I see you've done it! WP:BE BOLD indeed! <applause!> --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:16, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
There already was consensus at the time of the Talk:Borough of Milton Keynes#Requested move. There was a query that the request should not be for just one article, but for all related articles. The discussion showed that there was consensus for all to be changed, but the closing admin did not seem to notice that, as the discussion was on a separate page. Essentially, our naming policy along with common sense says that the articles should be named after common (and official) usage. I'm not sure how it came about that the borough and district articles were named Foo (borough) or Foo (district), but such is the way with Wikipedia, that it can be that one person starts doing things a certain way, and others just follow without question. SilkTork ✔Tea time 19:33, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
We must work to improve accuracy. If that means that the titles of the corrected boroughs are inconsistant with the erroneous style of the uncorrected boroughs then so be it. The sooner we can get them all corrected the better. Is there a bot-master in the house? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:10, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
This should be done with care, not just en masse. If the borough/district name is unambiguous there's no need for any disambiguation, the plain name is the most suitable. If the borough is ambiguous, then it depends on the situation. When the ambiguity is with the core settlement this form is probably appropriate. When the ambiguity is with something else it might not be - the parenthetical form may be more suitable, or something else.
Three Rivers is an example here. "Three Rivers District" is a sub-optimal title, as that is still potentially ambiguous - with the American places. Something on the lines of "Three Rivers, Hertfordshire" solves that.--Nilfanion (talk) 23:16, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
I agree that it needs some judgement. Some places are Borough of Foo, some are Foo District, some are just Foo, and a rare few are Foo Borough. When looking to decide which is which it requires a human to do a bit of research. I have gone through and adjusted quite a few already. SilkTork ✔Tea time 10:01, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Geographic counties of England

Wikipedia appears to lack a clear definition of what a county is which has lead to some confusion within the Wikipedia articles I have seen on this subject.

Currently Geographic Counties of England redirects into Ceremonial_counties_of_England, however, this is a term that is not precisely defined and raises a real issue when it comes to Greater London.

The idea of Administrative_counties_of_England is clearer as there are several acts Local_Government_Act_1888, etc that create admin bodies.

However, there appears to have been an assertion that there was a county Greater London created but as far as I can see there was never any body administrative or otherwise that existed called the County of Greater London. The three relevent acts are:

If no new county was created how can Greater London exist as a ceremonial county? The real issue is of course Middlesex which still existed as a Geographical county at this point (needed on some legal documents). I think that there needs to be an entity Geographical county.

This should then probably absorb the article Postal_counties_of_the_United_Kingdom which never existed as a term prior to the possible stopping of usage and makes giving the History of counties greater scope. Because Historic_counties_of_England disagrees with the conventional assertion of Counties existing at Saxon times simply having a name change from the Normans. Even the wiki given etymology for the word county doesn't exactly match the OED.

Other related articles include:

and a previous conversation of relevence Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about counties

Obviously a messy area which needs some clarity to allow all the positions to be put. Tetron76 (talk) 14:12, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

  • "Ceremonial county" is an informal phrase adopted by enwiki as the least-worst way to reconcile the conflicting official and popular notions of current English counties.
  • "Greater London (excluding the City of London)" is a county "for the purposes of" the Lieutenancy Act, not merely "treated as" a county. So, in some (confined) legal sense, it actually is a county. (1997 Act, Sch 1 para 2(a))
    • Sch 2 para 8 further implies that "Greater London" is an official name for that lieutenancy area.
  • The administrative county of Middlesex was unambiguously abolished in 1965. (1963 Act, s3(1)(b))
  • Clearly the Lieutenancy definition of the county of Greater London is counterintuitive (as it excludes the City, unlike the popular and local government definition of Greater London). But it does at least have a legal basis.
  • I would avoid trying to merge the statutory and postal county articles: the existing content is substantial and distinct.
  • Beware re-opening the enwiki terminological flamewars of yesteryear!
— Richardguk (talk) 15:22, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
Yes, there are different counties. "Ceremonial county", however, is not a Wikipedia word, it is a real term used by reliable sources. What we should attempt to do on Wikipedia is provide a summary of real information provided by reliable sources. Sometimes the real information in the real world is a bit messy. Despite the temptation, it would be inappropriate of us to try to tidy it up! The Quaffale site always mentions three counties when listing breweries - [6], [7], [8], etc. I think that such an approach may be more useful than attempting to merge them all into one. SilkTork ✔Tea time 15:24, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
cermonial county was a construct used in Hansard before wikipedia but only been adopted since because of wikipedia. The problem comes that there is no such thing as the ceremonial county of Greater London it is an invention that is now showing in wikipedia. The article on County councils states this although there is no difference between this unit and administrative counties apart from the latter is only applied retrospectively due to the wording in the act.
The 1963 act does abolish the administrative area and council but it it doesn't replace it with another county:
From [9]
As from 1st April 1965 (a) no part of Greater London shall form part of any government administrative county, county district or parish ;
however, the Geographic area called the County of Middlesex continued to exist and it is used on birth certificates etc not just addresses : [10]
the big problem comes with Middlesex that still exists in the postal area and has never been in another county. There is a need for a term to refer to the Geographic County which is different and more significant than the term cermonial county.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Tetron76 (talk • contribs) 17:03, 28 March 2012‎ (UTC)
  • Is this a question as to should Greater London be categorised as a Ceremonial county? I note that Encyclopaedia Britannica has it as a Metropolitan county, while our article on that says that Greater London is not a Metropolitan county, which is supported by the Office for National Statistics.[11] Jonathan Rawle says that Greater London is a "proper county with its own Lord Lieutenant",[12] and this is supported by the Greater London Lieutenancy website.[13] The City of London is also a Ceremonial county - [14] - [15]. SilkTork ✔Tea time 18:59, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
The real crux of my issues is a combination of nomenclature and needed usage.
My interest is to be able to refer to Geographical regions that are commonly referred to as counties or were at the time referred to as such.
The most significant area is Middlesex which as has been stated was removed from being an administrative area so it is no longer the same as a county with a council.
Now while the county formed part of an address it would be possible to use the phrase postal county even though this is a pure construct that was not used at the time.
But after 1965 Ordinance survey, RAC, AA, Royal Mail all continued to label the area as Middlesex even beyond when wikipedia claims Royal mail abolished the use of county codes.
When asked to give the county on forms Greater London was never a correct response. Middlesex has taken part in inter-county competitions and while London often competes I am unaware of Greater London or a London Borough competiting in a sporting competition as a county.
It is indesputable that there was still a geographical area called a county that existed beyond 1965.
So uhere is a need to talk about this region:
you cannot use:
  • historic county because this states the county ended in 1963.
  • ceremonial county doesn't recognise its existence
  • former postal county is also wrong usage of Language
  • county would be inconsistent
Even if the county might become obsolete - it has never been official ended
To return to the matter of London briefly
The last source you give shows what happens in the modern world. The information has been taken directly from wikipedia. There is the factoid that is included which cannot have come from another place that states London was made a county in 1132.
This is not the case someone has gotten confused from Shrievalty_of_London which is not a countyin the same way the Liberty of Westminster is not a county. According to the source for the shrievalty it may even be a fake [16] but it certainly doesn't make statements to support By Henry's charter the sheriffs of London also gained jurisdiction over the neighbouring county of Middlesex
There has never actually been an entity of the county of Greater London but there has been a area which could be considered equivalent to a county.
There was the Greater London Council and as you mention the 1997 act gave Greater London a Lieutenancy but there was a time between 1986 and 1996 when there was no such body.
For the areas of Greater London there was the physical area that was called a county used for inter-county sport and postal addresses and the administrative regions of London Boroughs.
The history of counties is also currently suggesting the Normans created the county but when they never even changed the boundary or name from the Saxon regions
90.193.131.228 (talk) 18:43, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
How to refer to Middlesex in the encyclopaedic context will depend on why you need to mention it:
  • If describing Middlesex itself state its one of the historic counties of England, and has no current administrative significance.
  • In the historical context, for instance when describing a historical event or in a biography, then refer to a location as being "in Middlesex", and add a note that it is now in (Greater) London.
  • In the present day context, for instance when describing a geographic location - state that it is in London, and was historically in Middlesex. Westminster's lead section provides a suitable example.
  • The entry of teams representing Middlesex in county-level sporting competitions is not directly relevant to the status of the area. After all, England competes in international competitions but is not a sovereign nation state. As for writing about Middlesex in the sporting context, Middlesex County Cricket Club handles it just fine.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:31, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Westminster was legally removed from Middlesex with the creation of the County of London. Twickenham for example has always (slight exaggeration at least 704 AD) been in Middlesex . I can produce endless sources that place the town in Middlesex after 1965. Westminster is also a classic example where lack of precision and no references makes the article flawed. Westminster was not part of Middlesex despite holding the Middlesex Guildhall. It was under the control of the Abbey (an abbacy) before becoming the Liberty of Westminster. The article then starts making claims about a palace of Westminster from Norman times using a source which supports no such claim. This information is then duplicated on other pages...
  • The main point that is being missed is that the 1963 act did not remove anything other than administrative part of the County. Consider if Parliament were to take away the Scottish Parliament and Scottish courts would this end Scotland legally. If the region was also renamed as part of England then it would cease to exist legally. The former is the case with Middlesex [17], and parts of Surrey that they were not renamed - they were already in Greater London - the municipal boroughs were already called London Boroughs.
  • it is true that the area being discussed as Greater London could be viewed as an area without a county (although this is constitutionally not the case without a Royal decree) but the point is that the area continued to exist. This is different entity from what is being described in historic counties.
  • Even ignoring the misuse of language which is happening. The term geographic county has been used as a term prior to 1963 and it does not correspond to the idea of a ceremonial county. It is needed to discuss the county before it was what wikipedia is calling a county.
  • Unlike Middlesex cricket club some teams required you to live in the county to represent the County. The Middlesex County Cricket club do not represent a historic county of Middlesex unless they include London North of the Thames etc. They would represent Middlesex which is already defined as an historic county. The problem comes that you are wanting to distinguish the word County for Middlesex and for Yorkshire and the distinction is not history but administrative. What is a county without its administration - a geographic region. Without such a distinction you end up having to resolve POV which is currently unmentioned [18] Tetron76 (talk) 10:42, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Westminster is in the historic county of Middlesex, it became part of the County of London when that was created, and it is now within Greater London. If you have issues with the way that article is written, change it and add sources. The boundaries of most (if not all) of the counties have changed since the Norman period, with parishes being exchanged. The changes in London were rather more drastic than most, but they happened everywhere.
Two major issues: I am not sure any of Westminster has ever been in Middlesex. Middlesex C W Radcliffe, 1939. The Guildhall was swapped with County of London. The reason that it is in Westminster is because of the Liberty. Two the difference is that there is the postal county that continued to exist which is not the same by the definitions within wikipedia. The point with the article is merely to try and give you some feel for how important precision might be. If I said Ashford, Surrey is in the historic county of Middlesex it might be correct but it is going to confuse.Tetron76 (talk) 13:34, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
  • The current status of Middlesex is not that relevant when talking about these localities. Twickenham is now in London, and is in the historic county of Middlesex. What is inaccurate or misleading about that?
Currently there is no reference to Middlesex. But again there are problems: 1 - Twickenham was in a region called Middlesex in 704 AD, 2 - all road maps placed Twickenham in the County of Middlesex in 1995 and the Historic county vanished in 1965 according to wikipedia, 3 - No one ever used the phrase I live in the historic county or postal county of Middlesex. Tetron76 (talk) 13:47, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
  • An Act of Parliament can legislate for absolutely anything, as a result of parliamentary sovereignty, and once passed it has Royal Assent. That is the key of the British Constitution. Abolishing all of the counties would not be a major change, especially if county-level services are still supplied.
For parliament to make the change they would need to change other laws first. My above reference was the supreme court website - the choice of words administrative county is there for a reason.Tetron76 (talk) 13:47, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
  • The sporting situation can be handled in the same way. You say where the club is based (In the London Borough of X, historically part of Middlesex). You say that its membership is drawn entirely from the historical county of Middlesex. The Middlesex Cricket Club represent that historical county.
  • Please read historic counties of England, as that is the preferred term for what you are calling a geographic county. Geographic is a bad word to use as all definitions of county are arguably geographic, and the ceremonial counties are called geographic by reliable sources. Note that "ceremonial county" is not a WP construct and reliable sources make use of it (The Church of England, Parliament, English Heritage for a start).
The usage of ceremonial county to cover all Lieutenancies is a construct and as it stands unreferenced.
Google confirms "David Beckhem is a God" [19] So do we add him to List of gods? Of course not.
It should be noted that Greater London as a Ceremonial County was the only point I was challenging, not used anywhere on the above GLL website. Parliament also uses Geographical county [20], English heritage had one hit for CC which was again the breweries [21]. I can see how it is useful to define GL as a CC but consider what would you have called GL before 1997?
I had already started a talk point on the Historic page before this. There are issues with lack of definition of what is a historic county. If you say it can only happen from Norman times what was Middlesex before this?Tetron76 (talk) 14:43, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Chambers Dictionary definition of County:

A portion of a country, separated for adminstrative, parliamentary or other purposes... At the moment you are only allowing for part of this definition to be used. The usage in Language however, covers more than just the administrative area.

By describing a place such as Kingston as in the ceremonial county of Greater London suggests that this is what its county is regarded as.

To balance this would require the inclusion in the infobox should contain the former postal county information too.

However, because of the word former this still suggests that Kingston wasn't described as being in Surrey after 1996.

While it was possible to regard Kingston as being in Greater London the usage would refer to the area covered by the road atlases which date back to at least 1907 Reference Atlas of Greater London (1913—21 Walker) [22] The term Greater London has applied to the area well before 1965 the wikipage

Kingston is an example of what has been happening where people are effectively sanitizing the pages from any reference to the County. Which is still used today [23]

I'm not saying that there aren't POV issues but the hyperpedia link has an agenda too and is factually inaccurate in places. The source that I would use for the continued existence of the county is the road maps. But as can be seen from paliamentary records there are people using the term to refer to Middlesex outside of address. The first is interest of a donation from a "a businessman from Middlesex" [24] and the other where some of the debate that shows POV issues [25]

From a wikipedia policy issue I could create the GC article and with over 10000 books [26] as opposed to the 1000 for ceremonial county there wouldn't be an issue. and millions of hits describing a places in London Boroughs as either Middlesex or Surrey there clearly would be no restriction to POV if that was my intent. What I want is the ability to accurately talk about the "postal" counties of Surrey and Middlesex that fall inside GL without distorting the usage at the time. And remove the effect the WP has at the moment and possibly altering the situation rather than providing facts.

Tetron76 (talk) 17:17, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

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