Wikipedia talk:UK Wikipedians' notice board

Literary articles and Wikiproject UK

I do not know the procedure for this wikiprojecct, which is why I am inquiring... I have noticed that some literary articles are attached to national wikiprojects (Queen of Spades to Russia, for instance). Does the same hold true for Wikiproject UK? I am asking as I have recently got the article on She up to GA and plan to take it to FA review shortly, but am just dotting the i's and crossing the t's. Should this article be linked to this project, or does this project prefer only to keep to historical, political, etc. articles?

Open Ireland page move discussion

After a two-year ban imposed by Arbcom, a page move discussion for the Republic of Ireland can be entertained.

• (Discuss)–Republic of Ireland→Ireland (republic) Kauffner (talk) 08:22, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Conservative Party (UK)

A collaboration is being formed to promote this article to Good Article. You can join the discussion here. Green plusses will be handed out. – Lionel ^(talk) 03:29, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Bodleian frieze

There is a c.1620 painted frieze in the Upper Reading Room of the Bodleian Library, I'm assured, with 202 portrait heads. I'm after a list of who these are, for reasons arising from an article. Can anyone, Oxonian or otherwise, help out? There are a number of learned articles about the frieze, but I can't find anything more than fragments of those freely online. Charles Matthews (talk) 14:54, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Another journal on UK LGBT stuff

• Cocks, H.G. ""Sporty" Girls and "Artistic" Boys: Friendship, Illicit Sex, and the British "Companionship" Avertisement, 1913-1928." Journal of the History of Sexuality. Vol. 11, No. 3. July 2002

This could help coverage on UK LGBT History WhisperToMe (talk) 00:28, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

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

I have started a discussion about the use of abbreviations at Talk:List of abbeys and priories in England#Use of abbreviations which applies to all of the "List of monastic houses in X" (where X = counties) articles and the main list at List of abbeys and priories in England. The contributions of any interested editor would be welcome.— Rod ^talk 14:01, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Relief maps

Scafell Pike

Scafell Pike

I've uploaded a full set of relief maps for the English counties, and the Welsh and Scottish equivalents. I've added the Cumbria map to the relevant template and the results can be seen to the right.

I'll upload the remainder soon, and finish adding to the location map templates - these should be useful for physical geography articles (hills etc).--Nilfanion (talk) 11:33, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Can we not use them for all location maps. Much better than the previous offerings. Fmph (talk) 12:28, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

The convention for location maps is to use political/road maps for human geography (eg towns) as the relief details on such a map amount to chartjunk, the human elements are more relevant there. Relief maps are prettier, but can be less informative for that sort of thing.

Which is a more informative background for a locator of Wembley Stadium: File:Greater London UK location map 2.svg or File:Greater London UK relief location map.jpg? Examples like are why I would not support relief maps for everything.--Nilfanion (talk) 12:45, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Well I'd prefer the relief map in that particular example. Those political/road maps are astonishingly uninformative. Fmph (talk) 21:39, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Really? I'd consider the M25 and the edge of the built up area to be much more relevant to locations in London than the northern edge of the South Downs, which is the only topographic feature I can readily identify. "Astonishingly uninformative" suggests something lacking - what exactly?--Nilfanion (talk) 21:54, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Given that someone who has never been to London or Cumbria would not understand what was the difference between the blue, green and black lines, there seems to be an assumption that what features are on the map give some context to the red dot. Unless you actually have a handy key to the maps they are pretty uninformative. The relief maps on the other hand are very informative about location, and the administrative boundary overlays are reasonably simple to understand. Fmph (talk) 13:12, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd imagine most UK readers would recognise a motorway on a map when they see it - the "blue line = motorway" is conventional. Adding a meaningful legend to the file description is sensible, and I can address that. With regards to structures in London, the relief detail itself really adds nothing (pure eye-candy, irrelevant to subject), meaning a plain political map contains the important info (the borders) even more clearly.

In any case, as things stand both relief and road map variants are available for use - you can freely use either. Longstanding consensus, for right or wrong, has been to prefer road maps over plain political ones for UK articles. As the UK relief maps are only just available, there is no consensus regarding what UK articles should use relief maps. Its worth noting the global convention of political for human, relief for physical. I'd prefer to not use relief maps for things that primarily relate to humans.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:21, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Surely the maps should be informative to more than just UK readers? This is not just uk.wikipedia.org! In fact, I'd suggest the opposite is true. Most UK readers will already know where Manchester or Salford is. The maps should be there to help those from outside the UK who don't have any context to work from. And the idea that what gives context is the prevalence of motorway junctions is ludicrous. The relief maps are much richer visually and the context much simpler for the eye to read. I've never liked many of the 'administrative' maps. But those relief maps are great. Fmph (talk) 06:23, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Can you point to a list of these or indicate how to search for them? To use the hills example above how would I find the best map to use on Quantock Hills or Mendip Hills which currently uses the UK outline map in the infobox but also has File:Mendip Hills Map.png or Somerset Levels which uses File:Map of Somerset Levels.png (which you made for the article). Are you suggesting File:Somerset UK relief location map.jpg for all of them & how could an editor indicate on the map which part related to a range of hills or more specific area?— Rod ^talk 22:32, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Ok - sorry for not making clearer. I haven't yet set up a proper category on Commons - I'll do that when upload is done. For now, you can find the maps in my recent uploads. Now in Category:Topographic maps of the United Kingdom. The current set is for every English county, Welsh county borough and Scottish council area. England and Wales national maps will be next.

They will be readily usable via the {{location map}} series of templates, just the same as you would call the existing political maps, only change is addition of a relief=yes parameter.

Some location map-type templates will need modifying to use these new maps (such as Template:Infobox UK place, as they don't allow calls to the relief parameter.

The {{Geobox}} series of templates need a different calibration setup, copying the coordinate data from Template:Location map United Kingdom Cumbria to Template:Geobox locator UK Cumbria ought to work there.

I'm not sure which templates will need modifying to make full use of these, but I suspect its several!

A pushpin locator cannot readily replace a highlighted area map, you need to create an overlay image to go over the background. Geobox templates can handle this - for example File:Greater Fatra (SVK) - location map.svg over File:Slovakia demis.png produces the result at Template:Geobox/sample.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:55, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Automagically converting OSGB36 to coord?

UK wikipedians may be interested in the current discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geographical coordinates#Automagically converting OSGB36 to coord?. I started it as a request for help with changing OS grid refs on a few lists, but it has developed into a wider debate about which geographic identification systems to use.— Rod ^talk 20:47, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Thistle Hotels

"Guoman Hotel Management" operates "Thistle Hotels" and "Guoman Hotels" Should Thistle Hotels stay at its name? Should it be split into Thistle Hotels and Guoman Hotel Management? Should "Thistle Hotels" be moved to "Guoman Hotel Management"? Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 04:27, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Template:User WikiProject United Kingdom

{{User WikiProject United Kingdom}} has been nominated for deletion. 76.65.128.132 (talk) 09:00, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Merge of Mandate Palestine into British Mandate for Palestine

In 2010, the article "Mandate Palestine" was forked out of "British Mandate for Palestine" article, becoming an identical article since. Due to the almost complete overlap (technically both articles describe a former Mandatory geopolitical entity of Palestine under British rule, which has only one article in other languages) and ongoing confusion (some insisted that "British Mandate for Palestine" is more the name of a 1922 document and not a country), i propose to merge Mandate Palestine into British Mandate for Palestine, and make an additional article named British Mandate for Palestine (document) to prevent confusion between the document and the geopolitical entity. Please vote with a proper reasoning here.Greyshark09 (talk) 10:02, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Mandate_Palestine#Merge. Keith D (talk) 14:23, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Monmouthpedia

You might be interested in a project Wikimedia UK is running to improve coverage of the town of Monmouth, in conjunction with various local groups. The Land (talk) 10:10, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Merge channels and shows WPP banners to WPP Brit TV banner

Hello, UK Wikipedians' notice board. You have new messages at WT:WikiProject British TV#Merge banner templates together.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

I'd like to suggest that the two task force banners (British TV channels and British TV shows) be merged into a WPP banner for the new WPP WP:WikiProject British TV subproject of WPUK. For the discussion, see WT:WikiProject British TV.

70.24.249.190 (talk) 02:08, 22 January 2012 (UTC)