Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements/Archive 1

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London

"The county and home nation must be mentioned"

I raised this point in the "lengthy discussion", but does this mean we have to go adding "England" to every place in London? Part of the objection to enforcing "UK" was that it was unnecessary extra information, as England is widely known. London is also widely known; "London, England" sounds excessively American. To borrow Mais Oui's expression, yuk! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blisco (talk • contribs) 12:02, 22 August 2006

I actually tend to agree with you. London is the only place in the UK which can very easily "stand-on-its-own" in an international context, being as it is a "global city" by any reasonable definition. Same goes for Paris, New York City etc.

London, England, or even worse, London, England, United Kingdom, is just as ugly, if not uglier than New York City, New York, United States. More so because European English-speakers do not tend to do as much of that "listing" thing as Americans, who will almost habitually add the name of the state to placenames. --Mais oui! 12:17, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

This is also an over simplification of the "lengthy discussion" where it became clear that including the "home nation" is controversial in places such as Cornwall. Choosing to include the home nation and not UK is somewhat misleading: which is the last thing we should be aiming to do in an encyclopedia! Yorkshire Phoenix 12:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

UK geo guide to Sections

I think the guidelines section of the main project page is a little outdated - I'd like to propose they be ammended/updated using the following system:

• Lead - of course(!).
• Geography and administration - By placing this nearer the top, we are telling users what and where the place is, before what it was (with a history section). I think the title also reflects a NPOV as geography can encompass both physical and human/administrative geography. Given this, I think suitable sub-sections should include (roughly):
  • Civic history - about the history of its administration/borders, including charters, former borough/county boundaries etc. This approach removes this data from the history section and so doesn't clog up/spoil the flow for that section, but places it in its own specific section.
  • Political/Parliamentary representation - including constituency/ward/electoral details (this forms part of geography - but if too long may be appropriate for its own section).
  • Physical geography/Geology - self explanatory, may require it's own section if appropriate (I'm thinking especially mountainous areas like Chew Valley etc)
  • Divisions and suburubs - summative style - useful for stopping endless lists appearing in the see also section, and instead use a flowing prose style
• History - divide as appropriate, but I think a good approach is -
  • Etymology - I think this is useful here rather than other sections as it is about the origins (history) of a settlement. I think in most cases it will be too short for a section in its own right.
  • Relevant subsections - including the origins, early history (Stone, Iron, Bronze, Roman, Industrial, Recent) of the area.
• Landmarks - major buildings, important architecture, memorials, public art etc.
• Demographics - census/civil registration data (and more recent estimates where available): population (in cities with their own councils include population of the administrative city, metropolitan area and catchment area), population change, age structure, race, religion, etc etc
• 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
• Present day - this helps destinguish between confirmed history and modern events (with a proper context). It can sum up the area/settlement today, including its use/significance.
  • Communal facilities - libraries, parks, sports venues
  • Transport - centres and modes/means of transport of today
  • Education - tables, lists or prose of schools, colleges, uni's etc.
  • Industry and/or /Retail/Commerce - this may need it's own section, or merely balance between this and economics sections as appropriate.
  • Sport - venues, local (notable) teams and relevancies.
• Places of interest - if appropriate and if different to that of the Landmarks section.
• Culture - if appropriate. It may be more suitable to include this in the Present day section if.. suitable. Could include arts, media and sport. Local theatres, radio stations and sports teams. Also any important cultural figures, such as artists and musicians associated with the settlement.
• Notable residents - use notable rather than famous as it is less POV. Residents indicates that some people may not be born in a certain place, It should include (and make it clear) both modern and historic notable people.
• See also - self explanatory
• References - of course.
• External links - as before.

I'd like to make it clear I think these should remain as guidelines as before, and not form an imposing policy! But I do think this is more useful to readers and editors alike, particularly as many articles are maturing fast. I'd welcome feedback, if any. Jhamez84 19:27, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I think these suggestions are quite good as they give much better and clearer guidelines. One comment I'll make, however, concerns the Notable Residents section. I know some entries (for example Stoke-on-Trent is one I know of, as well as many from Cheshire settlements, with which I'm now quite actively editing) get plagued at times with well-intentioned but incorrect, or plainly nonsensical entries with little justification for them being there. For Stoke-on-Trent I suggested that one of the necessary (but not sufficient) criteria for inclusion in this list might be that there should be a pre-existing wikipedia article about that person. I also noticed that in reviews made of the article, a number of reviewers had suggested doing away with this section altogether as it just attracted a certain kind of quick vandalism and lots of spurious entries. They suggested that any entries people thought might go in a Notable residents section (as it is suggested this section is called) be merged in with the other sections in the most appropriate places. I'm not sure this would always be easy, but I think it is worth mentioning this suggestion. Does having this section have any bearing at all on an article's chance of making it to Featured Article status?  DDStretch  (talk) 12:09, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I was fairly sure that this proposal would be welcomed, as I believe it is evident that they improve upon the previous guidelines.

I think you made a valid point with regards to notable residents - the additions you mentioned seem to be increasingly common. I think a soloution to this would be to (like all other sections) be more insistent on sources and citation - this should in turn improve verifiability and notability.

If nobody objects in the next few days I'll re-write the guidelines as appropriate, including a note on the residents issue. Thanks again, Jhamez84 16:35, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

My thoughts about "notable residents" - I don't think it should be a requirement that there is already an article about them, but that they satisfy Wikipedia:Notability (people). Otherwise you could end up with a large number of stub pages - PERSON is a famous THEIR OCCUPATION born in TOWN just to satisfy that requirement Salinae 13:03, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I only just noticed this. I have rewritten the guideline on "Present day" sections and demoted it as it is just a clumsy "miscelaneous" section. Most of the information described as belonging in that section belong in the geography, economy, culture, etc sections as described. Comparisons between historical and modern situations were also mentioned here, but those are not out of place in a history section: most articles deal with them in a "modern history" subsection or as a concluding paragraph of the history section.

Otherwise it looks good. Joe D (t) 18:26, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

You should've requested feedback before making these changes really. Look at Shaw and Crompton - a good article - it uses the former guidelines really effectively. OK it's not suitable for every article, but perhaps that's all we needed to state. Jhamez84 00:40, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

You may be interested that I followed the advice for suggested section names for Middlewich, and there have been some comments raised about those names and their order when it went for GA review (Talk:Middlewich)

Ah. Looking through the revised guidelines more closely I have made further changes back to the original guidelines, which more closely represent the standard style used, and which fit the suggestions of the GA review perfectly. Joe D (t) 09:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I've had to revert these changes again. Please don't ammend these without raising your intentions here! To split Geography from administrtion is a very contentious move for example - the title is there to stop edit wars as to where a place is geographically. The Middlewich suggestions are not suitable because that talk page is a) a single article which does not have GA status, and b) broadly involves an inexperienced user and an American editor pushing American Cities style guides on to UK towns and villages. Jhamez84 14:19, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Your edit has introduced several changes which I don't think are justified, and which don't follow the standard ways of doing things. I have bought most of the issues up before, and am merely objecting to changes and reverting back to the standards that have always been used and have succesfully given us good and featured articles, and I object to the claim that I am the one making the amendments.

• Your edit to the introduction section has now made the page self-contradictory
• I can't think of any page that lumps geography, administration and politics into one. The standard way of doing things is with Physical geography separate, and Politics and administration separate. I seriously object to bundling such a diverse range of topics together, and the current featured and good articles do not do this. Even if this is done on some articles to prevent edit wars (and that's not a great way to deal with edit wars -- a concensus on the article should be made and the editors made to stick to it), that's no excuse for harming the quality of other articles by changing the established standards.
• I've only seen one article that actually had a separate landmarks section, and I don't think having separate landmarks and places of interest sections can be justified (it certainly wasn't on the article I saw it used on). They are not separated on the current featured and good articles.
• Nobody calls the economy section "Economics". The original titles were adequate, and are used on several featured and good articles (Bristol, Sheffield immediately come to mind).
• My addition to the notable residents section was the only novel change I made, and it should not be contentious -- it is already implemented in several articles, including at least one good article.

You have reverted several people's edits in one rather than dealing with the specific areas you have problems with (only one of which you have made explicit), which isn't really the done thing, and have introduced various gramatical errors. Joe D (t) 14:42, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

What aspect of civic history, contemporary boroughs/counties, parliamentary constituencies does not form part of Geography and administration? When does human geography become politics or administration and vice-versa? The Project page's introduction section is wholly inadequate, outdated and in breach of WP:MOS and WP:LEAD - it should be corrected rather than used as a standard to force onto the guidelines. "Economics" is the approach taken by the countries and US cities guidelines - to say nobody uses it is a sweeping, POV and unhelpful remark to make here.

You hadn't made any attempt to make clear your intentions before making very large changes to a guideline which will affect thousands of articles. I for one disagree with your approach and have reverted them (given I set out my intentions, obtained feedback and consensus) back to an earlier version.

I don't object to ammendments or improvements, but do object to massive changes with no notification which have loopholes for content forking. Jhamez84 15:46, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Jhamez, I'm not going to go into detail about these today: I could very easily get excessively argumentative and I respect the work you've done elsewhere on UK geography projects, so I don't want us to fall out over it, and, more importantly, I have far more important things to be doing this week. However, a couple of points/questions:

1. I don't think it's fair to say that your version has a concensus: as far as I can tell, only one person commented, and they just gave a vague OK to it: I suggest we try to agree on the less contentious issues, and then set out the arguments over the other issues and get feedback from the rest of the UK geography project, and third parties
2. My intentions were always clear: I was reverting changes which I didn't think were adequately justified or agreed back to the original versions. Anyway, lets not waste time arguing about who was right to revert who, and move forward on agreeing the correct guidelines.
3. Regarding your latest edit to the introduction guideline: I looked at the style guidelines again, but I don't see what the issue is with them? I'm not disputing the edit, but the summary given doesn't make it clear why the material was removed.
4. I'm not sure where content forking comes in to this?
5. Regarding geography: we already treat demographics and transport separately (or at least we did -- the transport guide seems to have disappeared altogether?), so we're already splitting up aspects of human geography. The difference between our versions of the guide is basically that mine takes Physical geography out into its own section -- i.e. landscape, topography, geology and climate. In my opinion, the distinction between those topics, and politics and government is far greater than the difference between demographics and politics and government. Because we've already taken demographics, economy and transport (all considered to be fields of human geography) out of geography, once human and physical geography are separated, it makes sense to rename geography to "politics and administration". It simply seems bizarre to me to define geography as including physical geography and politics, but to exclude transport, demographics and economy.

Anyway, like I say, I have important things to be getting on with right now! Joe D (t) 16:30, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps seperate Human geography and Physical geography sections would address this issue of geography - though my originally concern about this was that villages and small districts are not likely to be able to fill these sections.

I do think that the Present day section could be removed, as you make good points - but is there a feasible alternative?

I've stated many times before (in passing) that seperate guidelines should be drawn up for UK cities, towns, villages, boroughs and localities. Jhamez84 00:40, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

InfoBoxes for Settlements

I think there is a need to update or re-specify the InfoBox information on the page. I do not know how or where the actual specification of the InfoBox template can be altered. can anyone give any help on this matter? Here are some issues I would suggest are discussed and/or addressed:

Latitude and Longitude. Many more entries now have the Latitude and Longitude added into the InfoBox. I suggest the listing for the InfoBox given on the project page be altered by adding the Latitude and Longitude. (This also adds the Lat. and Long. at the top of the actual entry if you place them in the InfoBox.) However see the next point:

Thumbnail Map If one adds the Lat. and Long. to the InfoBox, the thumbnail map changes, and makes the specified way of indicating where to position the dot obsolete. It is much simpler and less time-consuming to do it this newer way. However, the thumbnail map may not be as good as the old one, and so I wondered if any kind of alteration could be made to cater for different thumbnail maps. In fact, I have no way of finding out who or where this InfoBox and the specification of the thumbnail, etc was first proposed so this could be discussed. A link needs to be given somewhere about this, surely?

The following suggestions are only applicable to settlements in England. For Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, changes which reflect their own Local Administrative Structures need to be made. I do not know much, yet, about them, and so can only talk about England. At the moment, the InfoBox is only for places in England, which is unusually restrictive and very unfortunate, given the name of this WikiProject: (UK geography).

Ward The positioning of this entry makes it contextually appear to be the UK Parliamentary Constituency that is meant, and that is how it has been used, according to my observations. But the use of "ward" is ambiguous and, if more changes are made, as suggested in the next section, it should be altered to the more clear "UK Parl constituency" or some such more clear phrase.

Additional Fields to the InfoBox: Civil parish. One can, I discovered, add the field "Civil Parish" to the InfoBox if one so wishes. This should be added to the specification as given on the project page. It can be omitted if the settlement is in an "unparished area" (as in the case of Crewe, for example). For settlements that cross parish boundaries or which contain multiple parishes, all can be listed, as happens with other fields at the moment (see, for example, Mow Cop where this applies to the "Ceremonial County" and "Historic County" fields.)

Additional Fields to the InfoBox: District Council Ward. This should also be added to the InfoBox. It would serve a number of functions (a) it would add completeness to the specification of the local government administrative hierarchy in which a settlement is embedded, (b) It would allow the unparished areas to give the local governement ward(s) they possess, as this or these would be constituencies of the lowest level of local government that they have.

Additional Fields to the InfoBox: County Council Ward. This should be there for many of the reasons given in the previous suggested addition.

I think these changes are now pressing and necessary. I'd welcome comments.  DDStretch  (talk) 12:48, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I think these raise important issues - though, I can see a potential clash with including wards on the infoboxes of larger settlements (places like Huddersfield, Manchester etc have 20/30 plus wards)

Also, the Metropolitan counties don't have county council wards, as metropolitan boroughs are excempt from county council administration.

However, that said, I think these changes may be suitable for suburbs and districts (I'm thinking such as Moss Side), where they are not towns/cities/villages, but are small populated areas, contiguous and verifiably part of a larger town; in this instance I think smaller local government info us much more useful to the reader.

I also approve of the Long/Lat mapping system, but have a dislike for the rather ill looking British Isles that appears on the infobox. I certainly think the green and healthy map is more pleasing!

With regards to UK geography, you may be interested to know there is a very active Scotland project which seems to run very much independantly of this one.

Map aside, it is my view that we consider creating a alternate/sister infobox for this smaller type of land division, to incorporate the changes proposed above by DDstretch. Jhamez84 16:48, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the comments. For the potenial problems, I can see at least two ways to progress if these changes are put in place: (1) The fields are optional, as I understand it (for example the "Civil parish" field, if left empty, is simply omitted from the InfoBox), and so it could be routinely omitted from Metropolitan Districts, with some other way of giving its wards being devised, or (2) A quite similar InfoBox might be made available for Metropolitan Districts. Although I would like more consistency, consistency should sometimes be sacrificed if it makes other things (like comprehensibility) become difficult. However, in this case, I think the first way to progress might be the more useful way forward.  DDStretch  (talk) 17:15, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

About the map. I also would prefer the green one, as it is larger, but think the current colours together with the small size of the yellow dot make the dot difficult to spot: i.e., it is a size-dependent contrast problem to me. It could be solved by choosing a slightly darker green, lighter blue for the sea, and a slightly larger yellow dot, in my opinion.  DDStretch  (talk) 17:18, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll try message a few editors with regards to these changes, as, given the UK geo project is somewhat dormant, this page is seldom visited/used. I'm fairly sure the infoboxes are formulated with a strict convention/consensus as to what their contents is, as part of all the naming conventions and Anglo-Scots-Welsh-Ulster consistencies needed. I'm inclined to think that the use of sister/alternative infoboxes for very small districts, suburbs and settlements may be the answer for including lower level local government wards etc. Though the mapping could be addressed by establishing fresh consensus, and designing a new map. Jhamez84 23:41, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I too like the idea of the extra entries in the infobox. My only concern is that the infobox can frequently be longer than the article at the moment. We can add these as optionals, and if no one objects I will look at doing this over the next few days, once I get my HD swap done (hopefully this weekend). What we shouldn't do is fork the infoboxes. They were reintegrated from Unitary Authority, Non UA and several other versions some time ago. I am trying to remove the template redirects but it is a slow process. Regan123 00:28, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Any news about any developments about the issues we talked about here?  DDStretch  (talk) 14:23, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Infobox location on page

Should the infobox be at the very top of the article as at [1] or lower such as [2]? There doesn't seem to be a guideline on placing here or at WP:MOS -- Foxhill 22:18, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Infoboxes should always be pegged to the top-right of an article per WP:MOS. Jhamez84 14:22, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Infoboxes should be placed in the main body or most relevant section as per Wikipedia:Infobox_templates#Design_and_usage. The MOS indicates that a right aligned image is usually what is in the lead, though it is not specific about that. The Wikipedia:Annotated article has an image in the lead section. A new guideline Wikipedia:Manual of Style (infoboxes) says that they are "commonly used at the top of an article", which is true, however discussion and consensus is against this trend as readers may turn off the content box, which can result in an infobox displacing the section(s) below which were designed and laid out with the content box turned on. I'll make some adjustments to the How to write about settlements guideline in line with this, and then have a discussion with the editors on Wikipedia:Manual of Style (infoboxes). SilkTork *SilkyTalk 15:41, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Units on UK articles

Is there a convention or guideline about writing Km & miles & which should come first, in UK articles. I have put Mendip Hills up for FA status and the review page includes the comment "Units are inconsistently used. In some places metric are given predominance, in other imperial. Please be consistent SI (imperial)" - another editor has commented on my talk page that "you ought to put miles first with km in brackets through the article". Any pointers to guidance on this would be appreciated. — Rod ^talk 19:56, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

You may like to look at WP:MOSNUM, particularly section 4. These are guidelines, however, and not mandatory. If I were you, I would conform to "local usage", which is a bit tricky in this case, as the UK is going through a slow tortured changeover from Imperial units to SI units. The fourth bulleted point in section 4 is relevant here, although as it is written, it is USA-centric. Since your article is not about something scientific, there is no need to conform to SI units by paying attention to the second bulleted point of section 4. In the particular case you are concerned with, I would either put in Imperial (miles, etc) with SI (km, etc) in parentheses, or the other way round (SI with Imperial in parentheses), whichever way I felt more comfortable with. You may to consider doing the same.  DDStretch  (talk) 20:31, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Title co-ordinates

One thing I think should definitely included are title co-ordinates. I mean the latitude and longitude at the top right-hand corner of the article - see Sheffield as an example. This excellent feature is non-intrusive and allows people to rapidly navigate to an appropriate map without having to hunt through the article for the necessary OS map reference or whatever. Anyone object, or anyone have any comments? --A bit iffy 14:01, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I'll put the following in somewhere (not sure where yet) unless anyone objects:

Use the {{coor}} template to show the latitude and longitude at the top right hand corner as a link to online maps. For example, {{coor title dms|53|23|09|N|1|28|10|W|region:GB_type:city}} produces those shown in the Sheffield article. (See here for the the syntax etc.)

--A bit iffy 09:51, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Transport section

Another thing I think should be included is a dedicated section on transport. For almost all settlements one can include pertinent content about railways, roads, road systems, local bus companies and so on. For a good example, see Sheffield which is a featured article. (Indeed, for larger settlements, there are often separate articles on transport.) Anyone object, or anyone have any comments? --A bit iffy 14:01, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I thought it was in the guideline, but apparently not. I'll stick it in. Re: Sheffield, the transport section on that article is in dire need of cleanup, per the discussion on its talk page. Joe D (t) 14:51, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Transport was already briefly mentioned in the guideline, but only as one element in a sort of catch-all "Present day" section. (I'm not sure I like the principle of a "Present day" section. Perhaps the intention was to cater for very small communities - suburbs or villages or something - about which not a lot could be written re transport, education and so on. Each of these topics would necessarily have a bit of history to them, so "present" doesn't seem right. Not quite sure what an alternative would be, though.) As regards the Sheffield article, you're right, it does need fixing: an excessive number of subsections has produced a bloated table of contents. I hope that this "how-to" guide doesn't in the end lead to similar excesses in TOCs! --A bit iffy 09:12, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I mentioned this in one of the sections further up this page. I too dislike like the idea of the "Present day" section. I removed that guideline, but another editor put it back in, so I toned it down to try to discourage its use as a "miscellaneous" section. I don't think the guineline encourages subsectioning at all, though individual editors may go ahead and create too many anyway. We could perhaps expand on the summaries of style guidelines a little... Joe D (t) 10:26, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Done. Any comments? Joe D (t) 15:05, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

That looks good to me, Joe - thanks for that.--A bit iffy 09:12, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

The guidelines already recommended a section for Transport. Please remember the Present day section is there because we're writing about settlements and not major cities like Sheffield. There is always scope for flexibilty (as these are guidelines only), but this is outlined within the guidelines, stating that Transport may be a section or subsection according to importance/size. Jhamez84 14:21, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Templates section?

I'm wondering if the page should have a section on templates to list and briefly explain the types of template typically found in settlements articles. Thus the present section on the infobox template would come under this, plus the title co-ordinates section as I have suggested above, and other ones such as you get at the foot of the Sheffield article. Any comments?--A bit iffy 09:53, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Geography & history

Why are geography and administration placed together? I can't see how local government and physical geography are related.

I think the history section guideline has encouraged the overuse of subsections in many UK articles. Maybe the guideline should read "Relevant sub-sections - such as..." instead of "Relevant sub-sections - including..." Also, many UK article are currently using the subsection heading "Recent history". The term "recent" is too ambiguous. Epbr123 23:20, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

"Geography and administration" is there to stop POV forking which "traditionally" (excuse the pun) hails from the traditional counties folk - modern boroughs, counties and other local government units were not considered to be geography to these folk and thus the compromise was formed.

Indeed seperate physical and human geography subsections can, and have been, added successfully. These headings are only guides, but work well and are passing the WP:GA standard using this. Jhamez84 01:23, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I've since changed this section to just "Geography" for broadly for the same reasons. Whilst articles we passing GA, this was a recommended step for FA. Jza84 18:26, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Current advice on sections

I have recently nominated Runcorn as a FAC. I have received some criticisms here, including the order of sections (Geography before History). A previous application of Middlewich as a GA was also criticised here for its sections. I think the time has come for a radical review of the advice given. I agree that the first section should be on History. Then everything else must be "Present day", so a section with this title would be redundant. In addition I have argued elsewhere that a section on Religion should be included, as I have done in the Runcorn article. Peter I. Vardy 18:16, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I too agree the "Present Day" section should go, and a "Religion" section should be added (I first thought this should be within Demography, but it seems every settlement has religious buildings which can form a good section in its own right). Feel free to alter those, I can't see them being contentious.... however, I'm personally against History going before Geography; I think it's more important to know where a settlement is, how it lies and is comprised, before it's history. I think we get a better context that way round.

I've suggested for a long time that we should have seperate guidelines for villages, towns and cities. Your thoughts? Remember these are guidelines, not necessary policy. The aim here is to achieve national consistency, so every settlement can have a logical structure (you'd be surprise how many don't), and if you want a certain kind of information, you know where on the article to look. Jza84 18:24, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I think consensus has to be agreed between WikiProject UK geography and WikiProject Cities on whether geography or history should go first. Its not good that the two projects have contradicting guidelines. I believe WikiProject UK geography should follow whatever WikiProject Cities decides, seeing as WikiProject Cities represents a wider range of users. If anyone here disagrees with history coming first, they can then raise the issue on the WikiProject Cities talk page. WikiProject UK geography really shouldn't have created layout guidelines when there were already some on WikiProject Cities. Epbr123 18:43, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

But WP:CITIES is too US-centric, and its guidelines just don't do justice to UK geography. We'd have km before miles if it was upto WP:CITIES too! There's nothing on how to deal with our county systems, or granting of city status, etc. How does it deal with smaller settlements? Infoboxes? Anything on hamlets or civil parishes or unitary authorities? From memory we have a WP:INDIANCITIES and a number of other nation-specific projects which have their own guidelines, and work well. From what I can tell, WP:CITIES shouldn't be enforcing layout guidelines when UK geog does it better. I remember at one point we were going to have WP:UKCITIES due to the failings (for want of a better word) of WP:CITIES. Jza84 18:54, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

The US isn't metric, EU countries are. There is nothing in the WikiProject UK geography layout guidelines about hamlets, civil parishes, unitary authorities or the granting of city status. There's no need for these different layout guidelines as all the cities in the world are fundamentally the same. Epbr123 19:00, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd have to disagree; I mean variation exists within the UK alone - just compare St Davids with Bradford, or Birmingham with Edinburgh, and these are just cities. However the problem is that WP:CITIES does not translate well enough to UK settlements (and it is about settlements, not just cities or even large towns). The UK should have it's own guidelines in my opinion, but closely related to that of the work of WP:CITIES of course. I believe this because the UK shares much in its history; in demographics, its capital, its coast, its crown, its governance, certain events which are key to the evolution of British settlements (dissolution of monestaries, local government act 1972, county towns, university towns, post-war immigration, royal charters, Industrial Revolution, time during the civil war, the two world wars). For all its good points (and there are many) I don't think WP:CITIES encompasses these aspects at all.

I agree however that this system of guidelines does need a through workout, and maintain that we should have seperate (but closely related) guidelines for cities, towns, and villages, based upon the strong points found elsewhere on Wikipedia. Perhaps we ought to review the weaknesses of the current system. Jza84 19:24, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I am arguing about why different projects recommend different orderings of sections. Why does geography have to come first in UK city articles and history come first in worldwide/US city articles? Would it be right if each UK county project created their own layout guidelines and ignored the WikiProject UK geography guidelines? Epbr123 19:30, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Don't ask me, I'm just one editor; that would have to be upto the editting community - I personally don't have any problem with that no (I found it - Wikipedia:WikiProject Indian cities). But what you're suggesting seems to render the WikiProject UK geography as redundant and with no voice. I don't have particularly strong views on Geog vs. Hist going first, and wouldn't loose sleep over it by any means. But I do think it's more helpful to readers for geography to go first as it informs the history section. It seems to work very well on a great many of our settlements (look at Sheffield - one of our best FA's), and I'd have to support it on that basis all the way... but if there's consensus for change...? Again, I'm more interested on how we can improve these guidelines for the good of the articles, and one of these may be WP:UKCITIES, as a go between WP:CITIES and WP:UKGEOG. Jza84 19:55, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

...Sorry I misread part of your comment (!) - no I don't think the seperate city/county projects of the UK should have their own set of guidelines of course, though many do for categorisation and subdivisions. Though these work in partnership with UK Geog. Are you suggesting we disband the project and all move to WP:CITIES? Jza84 20:04, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

• No. WP:UKGEOG has its uses, but it shouldn't recommend a different section ordering to WP:CITIES. Epbr123 20:09, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I do seem to have stirred up a hornet's nest of controversy when all I really wanted was some consistency in advice on getting Runcorn, and any other UK settlement, up to FA standard. I must say the broad–brush advice given at WP:CITIES seems OK for a start and it provides a framework from which we could give advice for a possible WP:UKCITIES with a bit more detail applying to the UK. But it is in conflict with the advice given here. In my limited experience I have had more comments from US assessors than from UK assessors, and some of these have been helpful, but in other cases they have caused confusion because I have been trying to follow UK guidelines (this also happened in the GA assessment for Middlewich). I don't really mind History or Geography first so long as having them in an order which is "wrong" for the assessor does not get in the way of a successful outcome. By the way, how do we get rid of the category at the bottom of this page?(!!) Peter I. Vardy 12:16, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I've removed that category for us, and really, no need to apologise; I'm just glad that some interest has been generated in the guidelines, and challenging them and working in co-operation is the only way we can strengthen them, and thus improve (and standardise - which is something I'm passionate about) our articles.

I've had a good look at WP:CITIES. Its main guidelines are explicitly for US cities (just see here). It does have some strengths, but also lacks the depth required to cover British towns adequately. In my view, what's missing includes style guides on counties, geographic reference framing, civic history, sections on "Landmarks" (which I think is one of our strengths).

There is a different set of generic guidelines (which, interesting are DIFFERENT to the US ones - found here), which uses, LEAD, HISTORY, LAW AND GOVERNMENT, GEOGRAPHY, DEMOGRAPHICS etc etc in that order.

The options to me are:

1. Keep the existing guidelines, (tweak them a little)
2. Remove these guidelines, just use the generic WP:CITIES
3. Re-write new guidlines (history could even go first), drawing on WP:CITIES and tweaking accordingly, post them at this project, and have a link at WP:CITIES for UK specific settlements.

I'd have to urge for the third option here. What do you guys think? Jza84 13:19, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Option 3 is best. Epbr123 13:35, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I think Option 3 would be best, given that more radical options are not feasible. However, we would then have two issues to counter: (a) The inconsistent set of guidelines that you, James, pointed out. We need some means of raising that so that they are made more consistent. After all, who does one appeal to if one abides by one, and the other is quoted back at one; and (b) how to get assessors to then look at the articles in the light of the guidelines that are then developed. For this latter issue, I suggest we devise some standard "boiler-plated" set of sentences that we encourage people to add to all nominations pointing out the guidelines that have been adhered to in order to write the article, and also pointing out that these, local guidelines, have been carefully constructed to be as consistent as possible with whatever other guidelines exist, but which have been customized to the very specific local UK situation. I think we do have to do that, because of the variety of situations in which Cities in the UK are placed (e.g., administratively, 6 or so have the status of civil parishes, more are districts, and more are unitary authorities, each of which may need some careful thought as to whether and, if so, how, the layout of any of the sections needs to be adapted for those administrative situations. We may need to emphasize that the legal basis for a settlement being a city is quite specific in the UK, and that this separates them off from towns. In the USA, it seems cities are more frequent and it seems less of the "big deal" for somewhere to call itself a city. Would we want them to be dealt with separately in separate guidelines at all for the UK?  DDStretch  (talk) 13:50, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes you raise very good points. I think these guidelines, and not the US or generic guidelines should (or even dare I say "must") be used for UK settlements (and I do mean the UK, not just England of course). Also, I think this set of guidelines should apply only to those settlements that are not coterminus with a local government district; for those (such as Manchester, and other large towns/cities), I think they need very simillar, but slightly different guidelines, if not for headings, then for content.

Perhaps the WikiProject UK Geography template (which is pegged to talk pages) should include a link to these and state something like "if nominating for GA/FA, have you double checked this follows the WP:UKCITIES guidelines?" (WP:UKCITIES merely being a redirect page to here). This may combat premature nominations and raise awareness before receiving inconsistent feedback.

I think that these guidelines should not only been a section title guide, but include some mandatory phrases (such as if it has city status, then its bestowment year must be included in the lead section, for example). Would these things address your concerns in any way? Jza84 14:13, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipaedia moves fast! It is less than 24 hours since I raised the matter and I notice that as I write, action is in progress. I would have gone for option 3 if I'm not too late. We have to be careful not to get too hung up about the word city. As WP:CITIES states at the outset, the word covers "cities, towns, villages, hamlets....". I hope we can produce a set of guidelines (not rules) to help us to structure articles on settlements in the best possible way, while leaving flexibility for settlements with differing and/or special features; for example I am working on two medium–sized towns, a unitary authority, a smaller market town and would like to work later on civil parishes containing small/very small villages/hamlets. Good luck (we may need it). Peter I. Vardy 15:10, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposed restructuring

Based upon the above, I've written a possible new template which we could potentially use as our guidelines in the future. They're based upon what's avaliable at WP:CITIES and some of the previous discourse. I'd like some input from you guys on anything which may need changing.

These guidelines are avaliable at my sandbox. Please make your suggestions here however so everyone can see what's been said in the archivies. Jza84 19:52, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

WP:CITIES proposed city article structure guideline states that "The order of sections is also completely optional, and sections may be moved around to a different order based on the needs of their city. Editors are strongly encouraged, however, to at least begin with the lead/infobox, followed by history, geography, demographics, and economy". Maybe it should also be mentioned in the WP:UKGEO guidelines that the ordering is optional except for the first few sections. Economy would have be promoted above Landmarks on the WP:UKGEO ordering for consistancy. WP:CITIES doesn't recommend Governance being among the top sections, but as there's an argument that Governance is part of geography I don't mind it staying where it is.

The WP:CITIES guideline uses the heading "Notable natives and residents"; I think we should include the word "residents" among our heading "Notable X'ers / X'tonians / natives" as the section won't just be about people born in the city. Epbr123 11:22, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I'll put mentions of the flexibility of use of these guidelines as you say, and how the upper sections are more mandatory than those which are lower (although References is madatory per MOS but I'll mention that!).

I split Governance from Geography because, though I know they are one and the same, the non-US guidelines recommend LEAD, HISTORY, then GOVERNMENT AND LAW, then GEOGRAPHY (it seperates the two). I thought GOVERNANCE as the second section would be a helpful one (I named it GOVERNANCE rather than GOVERNMENT because most settlements don't have a government, they are governed.), and inline with WP:CITIES. I think it also allows the geography section to flourish more so than perhaps it had been doing.

I'll place ECONOMY before LANDMARKS (I thought I had but will fix this). I also wanted to point out that DEMOGRAPHICS is named DEMOGRAPHY - this is because its the correct use of the word (we'd have GEOGRAPHICS and ECONOMICS as the other sections too if this wasn't the case!).

I'd like some more feedback about the use of Notable X'ers /X'tonians natives - many articles seem to have adopted this (I even adopted it for my local town when I learned of it). I think this gives the benefit of the article telling us what people from the settlement are called (which has been missing on many articles), and also I personally don't think the terminology implies that people listed were necessarily born in the settlement, but I'd like to see what others think about this. Jza84 11:36, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

This is a massive improvement on what is there now. I wish I had had this, or something like it, when I was struggling to re-write the Runcorn article. I like the headings of "Governance" and "Demography". Should "Geography" include Geology? This is currently recommended and I went to great lengths to get the info for Runcorn - which I think adds useful information. How about a separate section on "Communal facilities" which would include libraries, tourist information centres, parks, nature reserves, health (GPs, clinics and hospitals) and such matters? I'm not so sure about "Religious sites". I introduced a section on "Religion" in Runcorn because it seemed to work. However the details of the religious composition of the settlement could (should?) be in Demography, any special religious buildings in "Landmarks" and details of the current churches in "Communal facilities". I'm not sure whether recreation centres, sports fields and the like fit better into "Communal facilities" or "Sport"

I use the heading "Notable people" in the Runcorn article and this seems to work; it can then include those who were born in the town and have or have not moved on, and those born elsewhere who have settled in the town. A "Culture" section can be useful (as in Runcorn) but if there is not enough to make this a separate section, info about theatres, cinemas etc could go in the "Communal facilities" section. Would "Industry and commerce" not fit into "Economy" and political figures into "Notable people"? A heading of "Politics" might be confusing in the presence of a "Governance" section which includes much of this. I hope these random comments are of some use in the debate. I am of a mind to withdraw Runcorn as a FAC and reorganise it along these lines but as it has got so far, I think I will leave it where it is and await events. Peter I. Vardy 14:44, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I've made some changes per your points; I've made the use of "optional headings" a little clearer, and elborated on how they could/should be used. Specifically, with regards to RELIGIOUS SITES vs RELIGION - I've made this clearer, and how the headings depend on the content, and I've included a COMMUNAL FACILIITIES heading also. Does that help in any way? Jza84 15:16, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I've just looked at the new guidelines, and I also think they are a great improvement on the older ones. Here are some comments:

• In the "Infobox" section, would it be an idea to also state that all settlements that are coterminous with a local government district (at tier 1 and/or 2, by the way) might be better advised to use a different infobox whose details perhaps need working on at the moment? I can also see why you use "must", but that jarred a little at first when it is in a set of guidelines. However, I don't see a better way of stating it at the moment.
• In the "Lead" section, would it be worthwhile to add anything about providing citations? I know some articles I have read have them in the lead, but I have a possibly vague memory that some editors have criticized articles that use citations in the lead. If this is so, and it goes against some MOS guidelines, may be some explicit statement could be made here, with the addition that information given in the lead merely summarizes stuff that should be gone into in greater detail in the rest of the article.
• I don't like the use of "natives" in the "Notable ...." section. It does seem to be more commonly used in the USA, whereas here in the UK, I think it can sometimes have perjorative overtones. My own preference is to have the section called "Notable Residents". particularly as sometimes the particular choice and use of "X'ers" or X'tonians" might become a source of edit wars.
• The "References" section should, I think, mention the option of having separate "Notes" and "Reference" sections. The reason I mention this is that sometimes one makes use of one reference a number of times in an article, but using different pages (for instance, the pages of a book, like the various "Victoria History" books for various counties.) In these cases, I think it is better to have the option of specifying the authors, year (if necessary), and page numbers in a Notes section, allowing the complete book reference in the "References" section. It looks neater to me, and involves less typing than the alternative, which would mean a complete new reference to the same book for each page one referred to (and we are supposed to supply complete references.) As an aside, I am reverting now to my old academic preferences for what is known on here as the Harvard System or Author-Date system of references, though I knew it as the APA-Style. It might be an idea to mention that, whichever method is chosen, it must remain consistent within each article, or is that too much?

Those are my initial comments. I'll have another look and if others occur to me, post them later. I hope it helps, and good work!  DDStretch  (talk) 15:13, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Someone pointed out to me that "Communal Facilities" made him think of public, shared washrooms, showers, etc. After some thought I saw what he meant. Would it be better to change the name slightly to "Community Facilities"?  DDStretch  (talk) 15:35, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback! This is great stuff!... OK, I think I've addressed these issues; I've made it clearer about the alternative use of references, notes etc, and about not "over-using" citation in lead sections (from clicking on three random FA's - Islam, United Kingdom corporation tax, AIDS do have citation in their leads, though it is not excessive). I've also changed Notable Xers to "Notable people" per all of your feedback... oh, and we now have "Community facilities"! Anything else I need to be aware of? Jza84 15:51, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've been bold and uploaded the new section guide. Hopefully this should be the start of something good. Jza84 16:07, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the great work on this. Under resources you could add the Victoria Histories (available by region at British History Online) mentioned above and the Topographical Dictionary of England from the same source, as these may be useful to other editors. Also my current FAC for Chew Stoke has suggested a floating table and graph of population data and "compass-table" showing the neighbouring parishes. Another comment I had was "Why are obsolescent US miles given first?" - should some mention be made about the use of miles & km in UK based articles - for which I cited this guidance as defence but I can't see it mentioned now?— Rod ^talk 16:19, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the support. I'll add the Victoria histories to the resources list as suggested. With regards to miles vs kilometers, I was reluctant to add anything in until I'd seen an official convention on this. I cant see km as a primary unit being popular, but if the convention exists do please share it!

I personally hate compass-tables. I think they're patronising and inefficient uses of space (particularly when there are no settlements in a certain direction or a settlement borders in several directions). I also think they clash with infoboxes and print awkwardly, and they don't include directions in more specific/obscure directions (east-northeast for example). I'm a believer in consensus though, so if people feel these are helpful....

I know User:Epbr123 has done some good work on formatting tables for demography (see Sale, Greater Manchester), perhaps this can be codified somehow? And is there a standard way of producing graphs? I think it would be nice if we took a standardised approach to this particular issue, whatever form it may take. Jza84 17:59, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I don't mind compass-tables, and it was me who suggested one be used in the Chew Stoke article. But if we all the same, the world would be a boring place. I'm happy to go with the flow on this, but think they do show some useful information in a shorthand way.

As for the recommendations regarding graphs, please excuse the "shorthand" notes I've written them as — I can claim some professional expertise here in some respects to do with graph design. However, what we first need to decide is whether we want to separately consider what it is any graphs would primarily be used to illustrate — some general trends, or would they replace information that might otherwise be placed in a table. The advice (from perceptual and cognitive research) tends to vary a little depending on this.

• If one wishes a general all-purpose solution, which may be the sensible option, line-graphs are probably the most typically useful to indicate a range of things, including changes that may vary over time (eg, accelerations and decelerations). They can do this more efficiently than other graphs.
• Pie charts should normally be avoided, due to perceptual distortions that have real effects depending on how any particular segment of a pie chart is orientated.
• Any line or bar graphs are usually best drawn so that the vertical axis is duplicated on both the right and left sides (minimising strange perceptual illusory effects that have real influences on interpretation), and,
• the horizontal axis is best drawn on both the bottom and the top for the same reason. Thus the graph will be a drawn box, with the scale marked on the outside of all four sides.
• Any scale-breaks are better handled as "full breaks" (not just a partial break by having two slanted lines breaking an axis), and lines indicating slopes on the graph should never be drawn across any such breaks. If people want, I can dig out some books that give practical advice - there are quite a few around now.

Is that of any use at all, or is it too specialized? There is also advice about maximally discriminatory sets of markers one could use for different things on the same graph, if that would be of use. Note that things normally associated with word-processing suites may not have the best options available, since they concentrate of different presentational aspects than that of being as accurate as possible, given the particular ways in which our perception and eyes work. So, if you really meant talking about software for producing the graphs, then I apologise for this last comment being the only useful bit of what I wrote. Also bear in mind that I haven't been active as a researcher in this area for about 7 years now.  DDStretch  (talk) 20:46, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Woah! This is serious level stuff! Though helpful none-the-less of course, to say the least. First things first, is there anything on Wikipedia about the use and production of graphs? - It seems there is no WP:GRAPH from some quick searching, but perhaps there is something somewhere else? Secondly, is there any template or wiki-syntax that can generate graphs for us from data that we input?

I think it would be reasonable to assume that graphs for demographic data would be best served as visuals for population change in an area; afterall, more specific data on ethinic composition etc has only been avaliable in the last census or so, whereas population totals have been widely recorded since 1801. In this capacity, I think somekind of self generating line-graph for population change would be a fantastic addition to the project (but is it possible?) Jza84 21:05, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I too would like a self–generating graph program/template. As a non–computer progammer I am having difficulty in doing much more than producing text and images — and the assessors for GA, FA, etc seem to want more than that. Even producing tables is for me a hard task. Perhaps the advice is out there somewhere, but wikipedia does not make it easy to find what resources are available. If we can collect such techniques and give links to them from our own advice page it would be invaluable. Incidentally I don't really like compass–tables either; links to maps give much more spacial information. Peter I. Vardy 21:27, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any graph-specific things going on to assist editors on wikipdia, but think there should be something. The problem is probably that, as far as I have seen, much of the software to generate graphs is tied into various Operating Systems and using different software on different Operating Systems does not produce identical-looking graphs, or graphs that conform to the best advice available. A java-based application might offer the best hope, but that may have to be developed separately, and my own programming is not up to doing that. I, and I hope, others, may be able to find something suitable by searching the web. I agree that self-generating easy-to-use means is really required. Like Peter, I find the syntax of tables on wikipedia to be difficult enough, and I have quite a bit of expertise and experience in using LaTeX/TeX families of tools for various graphical and table displays in mathematically-orientated writing. I just don't think it is easy to grasp and it is eminently forgettable.  DDStretch  (talk) 21:59, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok - I have one more comment about the rewritten guidelines. I think something needs to be said under the section called "external Links", and possibly also mentioned in the "Dos and Don'ts" bit. Certainly a link to WP:EL should be placed somewhere, but I think it would be good to state something about the adding of external links to the main body of an article. I think they should be avoided. My position is that if someone thinks an external link is required in the text, AND if it passes the tests described in WP:EL, THEN if one wishes to add it, it should be handled as a reference or citation, and added as is usual for such things, in between the <ref></ref> tags as one would normally expect. Otherwise, if it could still be justified according to WP:EL, it should not be in the main text of the article, but should be added to the External Links section with justification and accurate description. In all other cases, it should not be added. However this aspect is subject to a fitfully ongoing discussion in Wikipedia talk:External links‎, but it still could form part of our guidelines, as it seems to satisfy most of wikipedia's requirements for appropriate verification and citation, as well as making the whole article appear more neat. It would also go some way to providing backup for people who remove added external links that seem little more than linkspam or advertising spam.  DDStretch  (talk) 22:10, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I absolutely agree! I detest external links mid-prose, for the exact reasons you shared. And you are completely right about the use of external links themselves (a link to WP:EL would be great - feel free to make the change, as I wouldn't want to breach WP:OWN here!). I also think a link to WP:SPAM may compliment any linkage of WP:EL. A description of the link (which acts as a means to justify its relevance), would improve our UK articles regardless of any other convention, and I think is an appropriate use here of WP:IAR! Jza84 22:27, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Whether the guidelines in WP:EL advise that External Links should be avoided in the text of an article or not is currently under discussion in Wikipedia Talk:External Links, where there has been some opposition to the advice to avoid them. Interested people may like to comment (either way.)

I've also (before the oppositional comments appeared) added to the External Links section of the guidelines. If the advice to avoid External Links in the main text is removed, the wording will have to be changed, but I still think it worthwhile for us to try to maintain this in this guideline here.  DDStretch  (talk) 21:47, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

One more issue, I think: We need to say something, or something more about images. We need to say something about positioning the images in an article (I've seen somewhere the notion of alternating left and right images to make the article seem more balanced, but I'm not so sure about that.) We need to mention the need to use a "Gallery" section if the number of images gets large. I've seen articles today (Farndon, Cheshire is one such article), which became overloaded with images, and moving them into a gallery, which I did today,helped maintain the continuity of the text. May be we need to give advice about appropriate sizes of thumbnails, etc. What do people think?  DDStretch  (talk) 20:07, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I like images alternating (more or less) through a long article — it gives a feeling of variety; but this is purely a personal opinion. There is a default size for thumbnails although I have been known to change this to give better balance, more detail, etc. I also like an image at the top right of an article — something representative of the settlement, or iconic (and this is in line with WP:MOS#Images). Recently User:Jza84 has kindly incorporated images into the top of the infoboxes for Runcorn and Widnes and I think this looks great — tidy and attractive. Peter I. Vardy 09:03, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Peter. What you do, and have done, is quite good. But some articles can get overwhelmed with images, poorly positioned, which looks quite bad. It is this last situation I'm mostly concerned with here.  DDStretch  (talk) 09:09, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

The need for a unitary authority etc infobox

I've reverted a change that was made by an active editor of {{Infobox Settlement}}, which changed the wording in the Infobox section such that that {{Infobox Settlement}} would be the recommended Infobox the guidelines said should be used . I reverted it, because it isn't clear that everyone would want it, it doesn't reflect current usage (though we may want to change that), and I thought it better to put it up for discussion here first. I've also amended the wording to make it more clear that the guidelines as they currently were intended to be read, reflected current usage for these UK situations rather than being more prescriptive. A quick scan through part of the list of articles that use this infobox show that, apart from an attempt to make Weymouth use it as part of its Featured Article nomination discussions, it is used by Liverpool and City of London. The list of articles that use it is lengthy, and I didn't scan all of the pages. So, what do people think about using this template? Where would this issue be better discussed, and perhaps we need to consider this with a bit more urgency now?  DDStretch  (talk) 08:45, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that that infobox is an improvement on what we had before - however it needs a fair bit of tweaking and making a little more bestoke towards UK local government districts. It has unsightly flagicons (as on Liverpool) and the consensus is not to have historic counties in these infoboxes. Some of the ordering of the content is a little "jumbled" too. You did right to revert this on the project page as its use certainly doesn't reflect any kind of consensus.

It's becoming and clearer clearer that we need a proper local governement district infobox; though these things are unfortunately beyond my editting ability. Jza84 10:01, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I've just realized that the use of this template in Liverpool was edited in (replacing the old do-it-yourself infobox) by the same user (User:MJCdetroit) who around the same time made the change to the guidelines I reverted. Doing a quick visual comparison, I think the old one looks more compact and better.  DDStretch  (talk) 15:43, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I've raised the need for a Template:Infobox UK district at the Infobox UK place talk page. Jza84 23:37, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I changed the page because it is better to have a standardized template than several manually constructed ones or none at all as it seems the guidedance would suggest. All the data from the Liverpool infobox was transfered to the standard infobox. As far as the old infobox being more compact, I am viewing with Firefox and the old manual infobox extends into the second paragraph of the History section, whereas the standard infobox only extends down into the first. It would be better to see if the standard infobox would work before trying to build a new infobox. I know that I solved one of the problems that Jza84 was having with it in the Manchester article. If there are other questions, let us know. Regards, MJCdetroit 20:49, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that that infobox brings huge benefits. But what concerns me is that it is so flexible in design, that is open to alot of POV content forking (which is quite common in England, and the UK), and thus edit warring.

I'm much more comfortable with a tighter England district infobox, which better reflects the content and ordering of Template:Infobox UK place. I'd like to see historic counties dropped, flags removed, a reintroduction of the co-ordinates pegged to the top right of the article, inclusion of emergency services, and much much more automation of content.

Infobox settlement is open to the extent that (at an individual article level), stuff like the removal of contemporary counties, misuse of England vs. United Kingdom, and the order of material is too easily done. A centralised district infobox is much more "controllable", for want of a better word. As for Manchester, the article is still not accurate - that crest is actually the coat of arms of Manchester City Council, rather than the city itself. Jza84 22:37, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I've heard that England had Soccer hooligans, but infobox hooligans with their content forking and edit warring...unbelievable...

Infobox settlement is intended to be very very flexible by its nature and as you put it the content is basically for the individual article/project to decide. I haven't heard of any other edit wars concerning the content of the infoboxes. You could still use infobox settlement but what you could do is decide here, at this project, what should and should not to included in the infobox and implement. Speaking of content, if that is the coat of arms for the City Council of Manchester and not the city itself, then why would you want it in the infobox about the City? Wouldn't it be better to have it only in the article about the city council? Because as an outsider looking in, I thought that the coat of arms was for the city and not the council; even with the wording under the COA in the manual box. There is a way to link Coat of Arms in the standard infobox to the city council article. (I'll make the tweak). Post Scriptum: even the file name itself is City of Manchester Coat of Arms.jpg.  ???

I haven't looked at the code very closely, but why can't Infobox UK place be expanded to include the things that you would like? If you're not going to use the standard infobox settlement, that seems to me to be the logical step.

By the way, the first sentence was a joke. Regards, MJCdetroit 01:46, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Edit warring on British geography is small, and caused by a minority (albeit a persistent one). Template:Infobox UK place is centralised, standardised and has a lot of automation. In this capacity, the contents can't be forked or rejiged unless it is done at the main template, where hundreds of editors will descend to fix it.

Why "UK place" can't be used is because what we're talking about are not settlements, but local government districts (the two are quite distinct in the UK); Liverpool and Manchester are quite rare in being both settlements and coterminus local government districts. In this capacity, these infoboxes are subject to hightened content forking, because many districts are synonimous with councils, their descisions, and their scandals. Also, places like the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham which contains five towns, a large village and a huge civil parish, (and has a verifiably poor council), has vast cultural differences within its boundaries (very poor ghettos, and very very rich rural hamlets, places from different former counties) and was (prior to UK place) subject to constant vandalism due to self-percieved cultural perspectives.

Infobox settlement, whilst a great template it is, is editable at an individual article level, meaning vandalism and forking could go undetected.... I'm a pessimist, incase you hadn't noticed. Jza84 14:07, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

That's ok because I can only assume that you have a reason based on past experience to be pessimistic. At least now I have a better understanding of UK settlements verses government districts. You may want to carefully explain the situation and what you would want in an infobox at Wikipedia:WikiProject Infoboxes. Regards, MJCdetroit 15:35, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Other areas infoboxes

I've just been tweaking the Template:Infobox_UK_place on Chew Valley & noticed the command "must use" . While this is OK for Chew Valley there may be other more appropriate ones such as Template:Geobox Protected Area on Mendip Hills which contains settlements but is also an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty - which makes me feel the must is a bit strong. Can any alternatives be allowed?— Rod ^talk 17:15, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

The phase (or rather word) must does seem a little strong (I added it, though hesitantly). It was added to stop the barrage of highly localised and inappropriate infoboxes (and even wholesale removal or absence of any infobox).

I think the Mendip Hills however is not a settlement, and thus uses a perfectly acceptable infobox. I'll try to write something to better reflect this, Jza84 17:31, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Part of any uncertainty may be the use of "place", but another choice of word in the template name would seem to remove this uncertainty and yet add more different ones. Perhaps this could be specifically noted somewhere. Bear in mind that thed UK place template is also quite likely to be used for civil parishes as well as settlements.  DDStretch  (talk) 17:37, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes this civil parish infobox seems to be a problem. Stalmine is an example where localisation (a pet hate of mine) is taking hold, and the infobox has many gaps in its content. I've left a comment at Template talk:UK Parish about a merger (as has someone else). Jza84 17:49, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

FAC process

I must say I am somewhat disillusioned by the process of getting an article assessed as a FA. My application to get Runcorn accepted was rejected and the comments are here, a grand total of four, one of which is a humorous comment referring to a fradulent former administrator. The second comment was easily addressed (an image under copyright). I acted on the third and fourth comments (other than copyediting which is awaited — in a big pile) but, with no further response, the application was archived — presumably it had run out of time or something. I have just contacted one of the assessors whose response is here. Too late!! I've decided to have a break from settlements and am writing some new articles on the pioneers of the chemical industry in Widnes. Will probably return to Runcorn after copyediting. Peter I. Vardy 09:42, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

• It does seem as though the FAC was unfairly rejected. FACs should only fail if the "opposes" aren't being addressed. Epbr123 09:59, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I didn't say anything on the FAC page, as Runcorn was an article I had had some input to, and Peter was addressing the issues very well, I thought. It was also my view that if one addressed the reasonable criticisms, the article would go through.

I think some of the comments attached to the "Oppose"s on other articles have been and are quite unusually severe, and the best way forward may be to try to recruit a set of sympathetic copy editors who would be able to satisfy some of the issues raised by the more rigorous "Oppose" views. I don't know how one goes about doing this.

On a related issue, how does a refutation of some unreasonable or inappropriate "oppose"s get viewed, by the way? I've seen some criticisms which I would think are misplaced or far too stringent and not universally applied. I wonder what the attitude is if one does not address these by changing the article, but one refutes and criticises the criticism? Of course, one should not be tempted to reject the criticisms too easily, but some have seemed a bit "too much".  DDStretch  (talk) 10:19, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

If you explain on the FAC page why you disagree with an oppose (preferably referring to guidelines), the FAC director will decide whether the oppose is valid or not. The best place to find copy-editors is at Wikipedia:WikiProject League of Copyeditors and Wikipedia:WikiProject Grammar. Although, Sale, Greater Manchester had copy-edits from about eight people and was still opposed. Epbr123 11:38, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree this is a shame. Runcorn does need copyeditting, but it seems the FA process to me is malfunctioning somewhat - I've barely had a comment at Shaw and Crompton's FA nomination too. Jza84 11:11, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

It's only a matter of time before someone opposes on copy-edit gounds. Epbr123 11:32, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Would it therefore be a good idea to supply some copy-editing links together with some kind of statement along the lines of "Any article that has expanded beyond the stub or start assessment level may benefit from copy-editing by editors with some expertise in this field. Useful places to find out how to find an editor on wikipedia who might take on this role for the article can be found in Wikipedia:WikiProject League of Copyeditors and Wikipedia:WikiProject Grammar."?  DDStretch  (talk) 12:15, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

A problem is that there a very few expert copy-editors. If we tell everyone where to find them, we'll be less likely to get our own articles copy-editted. Epbr123 12:22, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, how objective is the copy-editting process? It seems that many articles get "Oppose: Needs copy-editting" - but little constructive feedback beyond that, and I'm concerned it may just be a point of view (maybe not though, I have an open mind). I'm familliar with grammatical redundacies, and unit formatting, spelling etc, but do we have any quanifiable guides on FA standard copyeditting? If so, then a solution may be to train ourselves, and others. Jza84 12:24, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I suspect that about half of copy-edit objections are based on personal preferences rather than incorrect grammar. These are some of the writing guidelines available, but they are far from comprehensive: User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a, Wikipedia:How to copy-edit. Epbr123 12:37, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I think the "training ourselves" idea has some merits. I did toy with the idea of becoming a copy-editor, post compulsory ill-health retirement, particularly in mathematical subjects for which there is a great shortage. However, even though I own Judith Butcher's book "Copy-editing: The Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Authors and Publishers", I rather let it slip. It seemed not particularly difficult to gain experience in, and we can always use the "case-studies" of the existing FAC process to help us. Having glanced at the book now, I think some of the criticisms I have read on various FACs are a bit too much to do with personal preferences and subjectivity/idiosyncracy than strictly-speaking, copy-editing.  DDStretch  (talk) 12:40, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for support and comments, everyone. At present Runcorn stands at position 80 in Wikipedia:WikiProject League of Copyeditors/proofreading in the "other articles" section. One has been there since January. Peter I. Vardy 12:49, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject League of Copyeditors/proofreading is useless at the moment. It's best to contact members of the LoCE directly. Epbr123 12:59, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

But which of the 223 listed members to choose....  DDStretch  (talk) 13:03, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Spam as many as you can. The ones at the bottom will be more likely to be active. Epbr123 13:06, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Just to let you know, I contacted a member near the bottom of the list directly, who happens to be a retired English professor, and copy editing is under way. Thanks for the advice. Peter I. Vardy 08:29, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

"... it seems the FA process to me is malfunctioning somewhat ... Jza84 11:11, 10 July 2007 (UTC)"

I couldn't agree more. It seems to be almost completely down to the personal stylistic preferences of one or two reviewers. Some of whom, it seems to me, claim to be far more authoritative that they have any right to claim. --Malleus Fatuarum 20:17, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

If an oppose is down to a personal stylistic preference, you have the right to challenge it. The FAC director will decide whether the oppose is valid or not. Epbr123 20:27, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I was just commenting on the few FA reviews that I've seen, but think it's an unsatisfactory area. Some criteria are rather easily checked, almost automatically. But the overriding issue seems to be the quality of the prose, not the quality of the article. In the absence of gross errors of grammar or spelling, that's inevitably going to be a matter of personal judgement. Yes, featured articles need to be well written, but good enough is good enough, especially in cases where the content itself is exceptional. --Malleus Fatuarum 20:51, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

It's best to raise this issue at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. There are many people that will agree with you. Epbr123 21:03, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer :) --Malleus Fatuarum 21:18, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I want to add my support for and agreement with Malleus Fatuarum 's comments. It has struck me from reading some of the comments by some of the "experts" in copy editing that they do it in an unprofessional manner. The criticisms are sometimes too snipey, and they mix in unnecessary value judgements (I mean add in ones which are not needed) with requests for what should be altered. I have professionally had quite a few things copy-edited (both books and articles) from academic publishers. The nature of some of the value judgements I have seen by some of the "experts" would certainly be deemed completely unprofessional and inappropriate by the publishers I have dealt with. Although it would be judged unwise, one could almost go and copy edit the contributions from these copy editors for the inappropriate content they contain!  DDStretch  (talk) 23:03, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I too have been very unimpressed by some of the contributions I've seen from some self-styled "copy editors", in too many cases clearly leaving the article in worse shape than it was before. But who dares to change it? The oracles have spoken, and thus shall it be. --Malleus Fatuarum 23:40, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to add another dimension to this discussion. I have the impression that reviewers don't always take the trouble to check the facts given in an article. At least not beyond counting the number of references, checking the ratio of words to citations, and making sure that every paragraph ends with a reference. Stuff that a computer could do in other words. But what's more important for an encyclopedia article? The prose or the facts? If the prose is more important, then the present system is working fine. If the facts are more important then the present system is broken. --Malleus Fatuarum 00:18, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

My view is that both are important, but that the process as it is deployed now, over-emphasizes the individual stylistic preferences of the most verbally outspoken copy editors/reviewers over mere prose issues. It also ignores the validity of the facts issue almost entirely. Thus we have a situation where there is what might be dramatically called a "triumph of presentation over content". What's more, the presentational issues are often idiosyncratic or idiopathic to the individual making the value-judgements. Criterion 1a is held up as being the standard all successful nominations have to meet or exceed, and it asks for brilliance and a professional standard of writing. We would be fortunate indeed if the copy-editors/reviewers who shout the loudest about this also met or exceeded a similar professional standard of performance in the way they dispense their judgements. If the attention to the validity of facts were of equal importance, then we would not see (a) such wishy-washy reactions to insufficient citing or verifying; or (b) a refusal to require page-numbers if at all possible for citations; or (as I have seen in one case) (c) a refusal to endorse removing material from an article on the grounds that "it didn't matter if it wasn't referenced at that time; the key issue was that it was capable of being referenced." without realising that if the editor who inserted this material does not reference it immediately, it becomes almost impossible to do after the event, the more so if some time has passed, and almost certainly if it ends up being someone else who gets the job of trying to sort it out! (I speak from bitter experience, both on here and in my professional life.) O.K. Rant over. Normal service may be resumed later on.  DDStretch  (talk) 01:17, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

The prose ought to be sorted out in the GA review in my opinion. It's also my opinion that those who don't have the faintest idea about the subject they're reviewing focus on the trivial detail rather than the substance of the article. "I don't like blue, it should be green". --Malleus Fatuarum 01:41, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

It's all happening again — see Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Runcorn. You get the article copy-edited, which results in many sentences being split; so it's criticised for "choppy sentences". And for including built environment in "Geography". And for not enough "History" — last time there was too much! Perhaps assessors should have some training in consistency and in checking the guidelines. Peter I. Vardy 21:56, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd have to say that I agree with the comment made about "choppy sentences", particularly in the lead. I'm not at all certain that the recent copyedit has improved the article. Still, I suppose someone would have opposed on the grounds of 1a anyway, so nothing lost. Good luck with the review. --Malleus Fatuarum 00:27, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Compass tables

The old-style compass table (Template:Compass-table is being changed over to a new one (Template:GeoCompass) without prior discussion on many UK articles, even ones which are up for FAC status. Sometimes this is done without an adequate edit summary, sometimes the edit summary claims that the old template is faulty, but I have not been able to find any discussion or mention of this which would justify the gradual replacement of all old compass tables. I've initiated a discussion about this on the new template's talk page where my views are set out. If anyone would also like to comment, either way, please feel free to do so. An example (up to now) of the old-style compass table can be seen in Warrington's article, and the new one in Nottingham's article.  DDStretch  (talk) 08:33, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Further reading

Would there be any benefit to having a "Further Reading" section added to the optional section headings? If it were, we could emphasize that such further reading should only be of high-quality sources. I was prompted to have this thought after reading a comment on Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Further Reading.  DDStretch  (talk) 09:28, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I think a "Further Reading" section is valid in an encyclopaedia. I have a rather (very) long list in Runcorn. It hasn't been challenged (yet) and the works are of varying academic depth (none of them is "rubbish"). But if anyone is interested in looking further into any aspect of the town, it tells them where it can be found. Not all the fine details can be contained in an article and this section gives ideas where to go if deeper knowledge is wanted — surely that is a purpose of an encyclopaedia. Peter I. Vardy 11:32, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

This is something I've never really looked into. I think a guideline here would help me out for a start! Jza84 13:45, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Thoughts

I have several objections to this as it presently stands. As I have stated at the current discussion at Talk:Rugby, Warwickshire, I believe that the current guidelines are too rigid and prescriptive to take into account the wide variety of local variations, and does not leave enough to the discretion of individual editors. I can see a need for some standardisation, but specifying exactly what section titles should be used, and exactly which order they should go in, seems to me to be stretching things a bit far. Also I am somewhat puzzled by the order which this has been put into.

For a start I would like to see some leeway given too articles which have already been written in a particular way. As information which has been written to fit a particular section may not fit properly into the standardised order. Perhaps by allowing several non-standard section headers to be introduced at the discretion of editors if they are relevant local circumstances. Perhaps things like 'Introduction' or 'Character' or 'Architecture' or 'claims to fame' or whatever, if they are relevant.

Also I am rather puzzled by having 'Governance' near the top of the article, for a start many towns already have this information in the article about the relevant district. And also it is to my mind more of a specialist subject which properly belongs nearer the bottom of the article. G-Man ^? 21:47, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

"Perhaps by allowing several non-standard section headers to be introduced at the discretion of editors if they are relevant local circumstances. Perhaps things like 'Introduction' or 'Character' or 'Architecture' or 'claims to fame' or whatever, if they are relevant."

The guidelines already allow for that sort of thing, with a number of suggested optional headings. I'm sure there would be little objection in adding to those optional headings if a case could be made. I would have to say though that I fail to see any need for an 'Introduction' section. That's surely what the lead is for. But as to your general point, I can see no reason why standardised section titles shouldn't be used across every article. That surely has the advantage of making information readily available to the reader, in a standardised place. In a sense, I don't think the ordering of sections matters that much: what's more important is that it's consistent across articles. --Malleus Fatuarum 23:15, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

My point was that it might be a good idea to include a general overview of the subject before delving into more detailed sections further down in the article. The lead section isn't really long enough to do this and this is the way that many articles have already been written (see Leicester for example), and on many existing articles would be difficult to change retrospectively. G-Man ^? 23:29, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that Leicester article is a very good example of why adopting the WP:UKCITIES standard is a good idea, and doesn't help your argument at all. The General section in particular is a mish-mash of information placed any old where in my opinion. Compare that to a UK city article that has achieved FA status, like Sheffield for instance. --Malleus Fatuarum 23:42, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

OK well Leamington Spa is a better example of what I'm talking about. G-Man ^? 23:50, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

• That Leamington Spa article is another one that I believe would be very substantially improved if it was reorganised along the WP:UKCITIES guidelines. A good article let down by a sloppy structure. "Geography and character"? What's that about? --Malleus Fatuarum 19:03, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Guidelines are not tramlines and I have found it invaluable to have a framework on which to write what can be quite complex articles on settlements. It is also helpful when submitting articles to outside assessment (for GA, peer review, FA etc.) to be able to refer to authoritative guidelines when quibbles are raised by assessors who have not bothered to read the guidelines themselves. Peter I. Vardy 16:20, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I really couldn't agree more. Without the guidelines I would probably have given up trying to contribute to any settlement articles. Life's too short to keep arguing about whether "Geography" ought to come before or after "History" .... the only criticism I'd have is that the guidelines were a bit too hard to find. --Malleus Fatuarum 18:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I have to disagree about Leamington Spa, In my opinion the Geography and character section gives a good introduction to the town, before heading into more detailed sections lower down in the article. Although the article has its weak points, this is IMO how articles about towns should be written. G-Man ^? 22:53, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd be interested to see what articles pass GA and FA; those that follow WP:UKCITIES (which is inline with wiki-wide "international" WP:CITIES standards), and those that use "organic" structures. I think the consensus here (and I should imagine elsewhere) is to use these guidelines. Jza84 13:24, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

The ways in which assessors have raised so-called "copy-editing" issues are so infuriating to deal with (as they are really not copy-editing issues at all, but personal, idiosyncratic stylistic preferences) that I would hesitate to allow even more squabbles and "problems" to be raised by people who think sections should be renamed, moved, etc. I think the guidelines can help avoid these additional wrangles. If an article needs substantial re-writing to fit in, then it is similar to many other articles about UK settlements already in existence, and I don't think special pleading for them should be easily come by. I think we should also be closely monitoring the success or failure of various bids for GA or FA status along with the kinds of section-structures such articles possess, in order to see whether this guide is useful as well as obtaining information to possibly use in a future case about the kinds of "copy editing" requests that assessors make. So, I agree with Jza84 in this respect.  DDStretch  (talk) 13:46, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd agree that some of the "copy-edit" objections raised at GA/FA review have little to do with conventional copy-editing. And I do particularly like your suggestion that we ought to be monitoring the success/failure of GA/FA bids, and try and learn what we can from them. If you look at the stats, there seem to be surprisingly few GA/FA UK geography articles. There must be a reason for that. --Malleus Fatuarum 22:40, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Many settlements have been opposed at FA level on grounds of not conforming to WP:CITIES guidelines. UKCITIES is in my view a powerful way of combating that problem, as well as eliminating "Americanisation" of British settlements. I think we have about four or five FA UK settlements - all of which pretty much follow UKCITIES to a "T", and yet conversely, have substantial variation within them too. Admittedly we have a few (and I mean just a few) GA artlicles that aren't UKCITIES compliant, but they still have a comparable "logical" structure.

Going forwards, if this really isn't a case of WP:OWN for Rugby, Warwickshire, I must urge that that article is worked on asap. UKCITIES aside, it still has no logical structure anyway, and alot of contextual problems. Same goes for Leicester - which I agree is a pretty terrible article.

I also agree with Peter, that these guidelines should be easier to find - but I'm not sure how that could be addressed. Thoughts? Jza84 22:53, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I think we should be careful not to discourage users like G-Man from working on UK articles. I agree that it would be better if the articles followed the guidelines here, but imposing them on unwilling editors could be counter-productive. Rugby, Warwickshire may still be a stub if it weren't for G-Man. Epbr123 23:07, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

That's a fair point. Perhaps it's one that also supports the earlier suggestion that the guidelines are too hard to find. I know from my own personal experience how difficult I found it to be initially. But having eventually found them, I didn't see any good reason not to conform to them. If I'd disagreed with them I'd have tried to argue my case here. --Malleus Fatuarum 23:21, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

The guidelines would be easier to find if WikiProject UK geography banners were put on more UK article talk pages. The banner has a direct link to the guidelines. Epbr123 23:32, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

They need not be part of the banners for UK geography alone, but that aside, what you suggest is a very good idea. For example, I now routinely add a short assessment report to Cheshire articles I have assessed (as does Peter Vardy), and part of that includes a suggestion to structure article's in accordance with the guidelines. (See Talk:Crewe for one, brief example.) We should encourage all UK projects dealing with counties and cities, etc, to refer to the guidelines on their project pages. Is there some way of adding a reference to the guidelines to somewhere on the WP:CITIES guidelines? Would there be any problem with doing this at all?  DDStretch  (talk) 23:43, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Aaah! I see there's already a mention. But perhaps it needs mentoning more prominently or again (perhaps alongside the UK geography project in the "related projects" section)?  DDStretch  (talk) 23:46, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I wonder how many new editors look at the article talk page before they begin editing? And often, as I suspect might have been the case with Rugby, Warwickshire, there may well have been no talk page anyway. --Malleus Fatuarum 23:49, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

(undoing indents to make it look less silly) I think there may be no easy or even no easily feasible way of contacting editors who just jump in and start editing articles. The only possible way that springs to my mind is a "welcoming" template that is similar to the one which one sometimes gets on newly registering. This new one might welcome people editing UK settlement articles to view the talk pages and make use of the guidelines. the drawback of this would be that someone would have to "patrol" the articles, and some way of avoiding annoyance due to getting many such welcome messages, or annoyance for other reasons, would have to be devised. One key point is catching edits recently so that conforming to guidelines would not seem to be too much of an immense task (a bit like making an unreferenced article a referenced one if the original editor is not able or unwilling to add references, in fact.) The other key point is to make the whole thing seem a supportive one to editors, rather than something that demotivates them.  DDStretch  (talk) 00:13, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Isn't this where the article categories might be able to help? If every category was linked to a welcome page, then for instance, on the first edit of a UK settlement article (or any other categorised article) a new editor could be given a welcome and a reference to the guidelines? --Malleus Fatuarum 00:43, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I've created a "sleek" UK Geo WP userbox which just myself and DDStretch wear on our userpages - I think this at very least raises the profile of this WikiProject (which is in desperate need of more quality editors as are gathered here at the moment).

Perhaps the WP banner on the talk page could have a link to WP:UKCITIES?

Going back breifly to a point made by Epbr123, I hold the utmost respect for G-Man of course; he's one of those seminal contributors in my eyes and has done some great work; I just think that UKCITIES compliments his work on that article, and takes it forwards - there's no content dispute or anything like that. But, if the consensus is to use these guidelines.... Jza84 00:48, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

"Perhaps the WP banner on the talk page could have a link to WP:UKCITIES?"

I'd say that was a good idea, but many articles don't have a talk page. Perhaps every article ought to be created with a talk page automatically, initial content depending on the category that it's in? --Malleus Fatuarum 01:14, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Edited to say, having taken a few seconds to think about that idea, it would expect everyone to allocate articles to the appropriate category, which is never going to happen. --Malleus Fatuarum 01:21, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography mainpage needs an overhall to be honest anyway. Some of the daughter projects are much more sophisticated at this moment in time. An example of what I mean is we've had "Rutland" as the collaboration of the month for at least two years now!

Most WP have a rating system, with a grid showing performance on stub, start, B, A, GA and FA level articles. The rating is given within the banner as part of a template which generates the performance grid (I believe). Perhaps UKCITIES could form part of that process? Jza84 10:38, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Invention and discovery

Any objections to me adding "Invention and discovery" as an optional heading of UKCITIES? Might be useful to some settlements like Edinburgh or Cambridge. Jza84 19:54, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it might be useful for lots of other settlements as well. I'd been wondering how to integrate a reference to the Stretford Process into that article. --Malleus Fatuarum 19:59, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Is it deliberate?

Is is deliberate or a mistake that these guidelines suggest spelling out numbers less than eleven, whereas the MOS suggests spelling out numbers less than ten? --Malleus Fatuarum 20:03, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

It must be a mistake (probably mine!). MOS is a much broader and powerful style guide, so I'll ammend the main page so we're compliant! Jza84 20:11, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Initial thoughts

Thanks for sorting this, everyone, and appologies for not being any help with it. Haven't had a chance to go through in depth, but I have a few things to bring up:

• Mentioning historical counties in the intro: I'm not bothered about this either way, but I know the strong feelings both for and against. I thought there had been a previous decision against recommending including this in introductions though (i.e. to devolve the decision as whether it's intro worthy to individual articles), and I just want to make sure that this isn't something that was covertly inserted when nobody was looking?
• Geography: I mentioned this a few months ago: I'm not too happy with the fact that demographics, economics, transport, etc, all of which can be considered to be a sub-field of human geography are considered worthy of their own sections, yet physical and human geography are otherwise lumped together. I'd like to see more flexible guidelines, where short articles may lump all of geography together, while longer articles can split out those sections that have enough information. A little village may have no need for separating transport or demographics, while Bristol, for example, has enough material for a separate physical geography section.
• A lot of articles currently consider sport to be part of culture, and I approve of that structure in many cases -- particularly smaller settlements, and places without significant sports and teams. Can we have that as an option?
• "It is one of the most notable university towns in the United Kingdom because of its notability, and is known as Nickname because of the event of x." I have no idea what this was supposed to be, but it's not a sentence ;)

The problem is, we're writing about a very wide range of subjects, therefore just as the previous guidelines were considered inadequate by one camp, these will be by another. My favoured solution, as touched upon with geography and culture above, is to recommend a smaller number of "core" sections, and recommend splitting out things like transport, sport, cultural references, demographics, and so on, as and when required. I know we're trying to standardise styles, and I'm all for that, but I think we need to be a little flexible here, as British settlements are not all of a kind. Joe D (t) 17:31, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Firstly and breifly, these are guidelines, and as stated several times in the banner and the prose, there is scope for flexibility and the use of common sense. I think that's important to make clear here again. A few other things in response though:

• Historic counties are fine to be mentioned in introductions - so long as it's not used as the primary geographic frame of reference, or worded in a way that suggests they still exist with the former boundaries. In my experience, there inclusion in lead sections usually dispels edit wars. I think it's also quite important infomation now (as they are no longer included in infoboxes), particularly for genealogists or family history research etc.

• "Geography" is a problem that will never be solved - essentially the whole article is "Geographic" as Geography in it's purest, technical sense means the study of everything. In common use however, Geography tends to mean location, geology, climate, land-use and the built environment. Of course it could extend to toponymy, transportation, demography, economy, and even more broadly, culture, language and politics... but we need to draw the line somewhere, and see how we can structure articles in a way that gives certain topics their due space and status. This is the approach taken at an international wiki-wide level, and would suggest that you'd have to take your argument there to find a way forwards.

• "A lot of articles currently consider sport to be part of culture, and I approve of that structure in many cases -- particularly smaller settlements" - I'd agree with that as a possible option, yes. If common-sense, flexible writing wasn't made clear enough as an option, I'll try to write something in that makes this so.

• On your fouth point - that's an example, using a formulaic style of writing (there is of course so such town as "Exampletown"). If you can propose a more suitable example, I'd be happy to discuss it and replace that section with a "live example", as such.

Finally, on core sections, this is already made clear in the guidelines (upper sections are more recommended than lower sections). We're following WP:CITIES standards of layout here as closely, but as British, as can be, to ensure a consistent layout and structure and help push our articles to GA and FA. Jza84 19:20, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

On the fourth point, you misunderstand. (I came up with the Exampletown example in the original incarnation of these guidlines, incidently, I know it's a stylised example!) My gripe is with that particular addition to the example: it does not make any sence in the English language as I know it. Joe D (t) 19:54, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I understand now that you understood! Sorry!... OK, perhaps we need a couple of live examples? We could put them in quotation boxes - perhaps a Northern Irish hamlet, English town, Welsh suburb and Scottish city? Or is that overkill??? Jza84 20:13, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we could tidy up the Exampletown example so it makes sense, and then point people to our "Featured articles":

Sheffield, Weymouth, Herne Bay, Dundee, Westgate-on-Sea, Whitstable, Birchington-on-Sea, Sheerness, Shaw and Crompton

and "Good articles":

London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Bristol, Manchester, Belfast, Chew Stoke, Chew Magna, St Buryan, Sale, Hale Barns, Evanton, Penmon, Peterborough, Runcorn, Widnes, Stretford, Altrincham, Askam and Ireleth, East End of London

for live examples? Joe D (t) 12:29, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the FAs and GAs don't really take into account good examples of short and stub articles that are likely to be the norm for small villages. So I'm not sure it's such a good idea after all. Joe D (t) 12:31, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've added a live (random) examples from Eastwood, West Yorkshire, and Neilston in Renfrewshire. Hopefully that does the trick! Jza84 19:52, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

The new tag that has appeared this morning on the page: Possible Problems

I now see that WP:UKCITIES has been flagged up as being only an essay, and not a guideline or policy (as it hasn't gone through some difficult-to-find process which relies on consensus to apply). This means that proposals up for GA or FAC status could possibly fail because they do not conform to WP:CITIES, which we have decided can be inappropriate for UK settlements (see later about a possible catch 22 situation).

Since the problems of using WP:CITIES for UK settlements prompted the writing of WP:UKCITIES in the first place, I can see that things may well become more difficult for a while. However, reading WP:PG, Help:Modifying and creating policy, and WP:Policy, including WP:Policy#How are policies started? shows what I think is an amount of equivocation over what is being talked about in places: "Policy" or "Guideline". Furthernore, WP:CITIES does seem to have WP:UKCITIES listed under WP:CITIES#Article structure guidelines, and it has had this for some time without being challenged on the talk page as far as I can see. I also note that the other entry in that section (WP:CITYLIKE or WP:USCITY has one slightly misleading shortcut name (the first), and does claim in its yellow/orange block at the top "This guideline was constructed specifically for U.S. Cities, although could be used on virtually any other city in the world with some minor modifications.", which, I guess, we dispute otherwise WP:UKCITIES would not have been written. There is a template that could be added to these guidelines, though adding it now would almost certainly not be a good idea (it is {{globalize/USA|article|date=}}) So, I think it is not clear what the status of WP:UKCITIES is, though it probably could do with going through some kind of formal process to make it a guideline.

What I glean from reading the documents suggests that a way to provide a justification for a future proposal of a guideline or policy is to show how it has been successfully used by editors. Unless a catch 22 situation is imposed upon us, i.e. "(a) WP:UKCITIES can't have been successfully used if articles using WP:UKCITIES have not yet achieved GA or FA status articles, and: (b) Articles cannot achieve GA or FA articles unless they use WP:CITIES, rather than WP:UKCITIES", then all will be well in the end but possibly a little more difficult. If a catch 22 situation does arise, I think we should appeal about its basic unfairness in an appropriate place on wikipedia. What do others think of this new situation?  DDStretch  (talk) 12:40, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that the kind of nitpicking that motivated someone to add that essay flag is what sometimes makes wikipedia so discouraging to work on. I also think that the FA reviewers already have enough nit combs without being handed yet another one, so the sooner whatever is done that needs to be done to get that essay tag removed the better. Perhaps start by asking User:SMcCandlish why he felt it necessary to add it, as the only requirement for a guideline seems to be a reasonable consensus in its favour. --Malleus Fatuarum 15:23, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Ahh. I was a bit unclear on one point, I think. A reasonable consensus in its favour and a successful use of the guidelines are strong indicators in favour of an essay's "elevation" to a guideline, but they are not sufficient in themselves. What are required are discussions on various talk pages (I guess here and WP:CITIES as a start, but details can be got from reading the pages I've already given in my first message.) And I see that it is as this point that problems may arise, with the discussion being swamped by editors who have never attempted to write articles for the UK based on WP:CITIES and found that WP:UKCITIES are more suited, or who have never even attempted to write any articles about a UK settlement, and who may attempt to play the catch 22 game, as described above. I, too, think this is potentially very de-motivating for us. Already, we on the Cheshire Project have been discussing not even attempting to put articles in for GA or FA status any more, after a series of failures that seemed to indicate contradictory and mutually inconsistent criteria being applied, which to us indicates that the whole process is somehow out-of-kilter (we've been thinking we should concentrate on getting all our articles up to B class first).  DDStretch  (talk) 15:42, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The problem with the old tag was that it was only meant for Wikipedia guidelines, not Wikiproject guidelines. I think we would be allowed to display a tag such as the one at Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities/Guideline. Epbr123 16:09, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that perhaps this is a case where we ought to be bold. The guidelines have been discussed among interested members of this project, and they have been applied successfully to at least one FA, Shaw and Crompton, and perhaps half a dozen GAs. So Epbr123's suggestion sounds good to me. Replace the present essay tag with one similar to Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities/Guideline. The thought of having to go through any kind of formal/semi-formal wikiprocess to get anything "officially" accepted as a guideline frankly fills me with dread. I'd rather stick pins in my eyes. --Malleus Fatuarum 17:07, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the tag since no justification was given for its inclusion, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities has under Article structure guidelines a link to this page as UK Cities. Unless of course, Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities is an essay and not a guideline. Salinae 21:59, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• Salinae, you have just become one of my heroes :) --Malleus Fatuarum 22:16, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I've now added a UK settlement version of the project guideline notice that appears in WP:USCITY, as User:Epbr123 suggested this might be all right. We have, after all, discussed it at length, and it has been successfully used to get GA status for some articles (and, I think FA status for some as well, but please can someone check this. and edit if not?) I hope it reads all right: if not, please feel free to edit it accordingly.  DDStretch  (talk) 22:37, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

As an aside, on theCheshire Project, I hope you guys don't decide to entirely abandon the GA/FA process, although I do agree that the way the Runcorn article was dealt with was farcical. With the Middlewich article though I'm not so sure. I'm not a great fan of the FA process, and the GA process is obviously the luck of the draw, depending on your reviewer. But submitting articles to disinterested third-parties has got to be an important part of any quality assessment. --Malleus Fatuarum 00:57, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

The problem for me with the GA process, particularly for Middlewich, was that you spend a lot of time fulfilling the guidelines, wait about a month for a review and then have it knocked back because there was insufficient "dotting the i's and crossing the t's". Unfortunately I feel that the GA assessment doesn't look at the quality of the article (i.e. the correctness of its statements), rather it's about the correctness of the english. Given limited time I feel it's more useful to spend it increasing the content of related pages. Salinae 06:24, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

It's an issue concerning trade-offs. Given that there are a large number of stub or start articles within the remit of the Cheshire project, and there are limited editors and time in which to write articles, then the following question needs to be addressed:

Do we devote more of our time to getting a small number of articles to jump through a number of hoops where (a) the most stringent criteria demanded are that they should be of professional quality for FA status; (b) some of the comments made by the reviewers who demand such professionalism in our writing falls short of being professional in itself, because; (c) there can be such a lack of coordination in the reviewing process that the results are often "luck of the draw"; (d) inappropriate comments are sometimes made which confuse personal preferences of style versus the agreed-upon house style; or (e) demands are made that are contradictory or mutually inconsistent? Or, do we devote our time to a larger number of articles, raising them above stub or start status to broaden the coverage of Cheshire-related articles with some decent content (up to B status, or A status, since a classification of A status does not seem to require that an article could achieve GA status on our readings of the criteria)? (I personally speak as someone who has had some copy-editing experience as both an author and as a copy-editor in the hard-copy publishing world in the past, though I am long out of practice with the latter.)

We have come to a view that the amount of time required to attempt to reconcile comments made for articles submitted for GA or FA status, some of whom are unreconcilable for a single article is a sub-optimal use of our time, especially when compared with the ease with which we can increase the coverage of Cheshire-related articles with some decent content in the same amount of time with the same effort. That is why we have discussed diverting our efforts as described. DDStretch  (talk) 10:42, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Infobox location

See discussion above on where to place the infobox. It is inappropriate to suggest that editors place infoboxes in the lead section because of the differences between having the content box turned on or off. The guideline here is "Insert in the main body of articles - either after the intro or in the most appropriate section. Consider putting in the top right only in the most compelling of cases." SilkTork *SilkyTalk 15:46, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I've reverted your changes to the main guideline space as I do not believe you have achieved consensus here first. Can you give examples of where this approach of "top-right" UK place infoboxes are causing problems? Jza84 16:11, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

The consensus has been the prior discussions on this matter which led to the Design_and_usage sentence quoted above. If you take a look at the main article in, say Category:British capitals - London, Cardiff, Edinburgh etc then hide the contents box, you'll see a displacement of the first section. And it's not just for now - that displacement will occur with future editing - so rearranging images and info boxes now won't prevent displacement happening in the future when other editors place images in that section. SilkTork *SilkyTalk 18:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I think one of the problems with trying to dictate layout is that the user will have different skins, screen resolutions, browsers, collections of toolbars etc so it is impossible to place infoboxes, tables or images in particular ways which will not stop some form of "displacement" for someone somewhere. My personal preference is for the infobox to go top right to give a "quick summary" before readers progress further into the article.— Rod ^talk 18:19, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) I don't see reference to any quantifiable consensus. Can you point to any straw poll results SilkTork? I can't see this being popular at all - and many articles are bestowed with awards using the infobox in the top right hand side corner.

The problem lies with image placement, not infoboxes. If one moves earlier images to the left hand side, white space and text warping is avoided. I too would vote strongly for infoboxes to appear in the top-right. Jza84 18:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any consensus against having infoboxes in the top right, and if I had I certainly wouldn't have been in favour of it. The problem with the Edinburgh article is a problem with the placement of images, as Jza84 has suggested, not a problem with having an infox at the top right. --Malleus Fatuarum 18:46, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. The infobox at the top right looks best to me. It hits the reader immediately and if there is a good image at its head it provides an arresting introduction. The positions of the images in the Edinburgh article are certainly a mess and do not follow the guidelines. Suggestion: place your images so that they are OK whether the contents box is turned on or off. Peter I. Vardy 20:11, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to add my support for keeping the infobox in the top right. I've never seen an article on any topic where the infobox hasn't been placed there. Epbr123 22:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I have never seen any article up for GA status or FA status being picked up on a MOS breach of guidelines by having the infobox at the top right of the page. Given that then reviewers of FA status are often unusually zealous in pouncing upon even a misplaced comma, I think something as obvious as an infobox being in the top right would have resulted in many adverse comments and failures of articles if it did breach any guidelines. On a personal note, I think it looks much better there anyway, and, as Jza84 remarked, the problem may well be to do with image positioning rather than infobox positioning. What tests or checks have you done to pinpoint that it is the infobox rather than images that are causing the problems? Similarly, as Rod pointed out, have you tried many different skins, screen resolutions, etc to eliminate thse are the source of the problems. Until you do so, I think it is not sensible to edit in such a radical change in the guidelines. Finally, WP:USCITY even has as its example, an infobox at the top right, and the entire guidelines are arranged in its "canonical form" for the guidelines, which means that it suggests the infobox should be in the top right. So I think we can safely conclude that until a definite problem can be pinpointed on the positioning of the infobox, rather than the other possibilities myself and others have pointed out may apply, we can merely not implement any change you are proposing to the guidelines of WP:UKCITIES, and that our guidelines are consistent with others, etc. I have certainly never seen any consensus anywhere that exists in favour of any change.  DDStretch  (talk) 23:27, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I would also support retaining the infobox at the top right of the articles as it is the natural place for a box summarising the article. If the problem(s) over layout can be pin-pointed then the guidelines can be updated to cover what needs to be done to avoid hitting the problem(s). Keith D 00:01, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

2 nominations

Hello project page,

Just thought I'd post here about Blyth, Northumberland and Peterborough. Both are either FA or FA nominated and wondered how users felt about more closely applying this guideline to these articles? -- Jza84 · (talk) 17:04, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

• As long as you remember that the purpose of the guidelines is to help articles pass FA, not to provide extra criteria for FAs to pass. Epbr123 17:54, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Of course! They do fall under the remit of the UK geo project and that's exactly why I thought I'd try to gauge support before applying this myself. Incidently, I've created a UKCITIES version of Peterborough in my sandbox which I think works wonderfully! -- Jza84 · (talk) 18:02, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

My concern is that Blyth, Northumberland is close to passing, and asking for changes may jeopardise that. It would be best to create a new version of Blyth, Northumberland in your sandbox, and then get its approval from the article's main editor. We shouldn't get the main editor to do the work, and we must be careful not to create a disagreement over the article. Epbr123 18:28, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I've left some comments for him/her re Blyth. It seems he's in favour of the standard layout (of course!) which is great. Let's wish him luck with the nom. -- Jza84 · (talk) 12:27, 22 October 2007 (UTC)