Wikipedia talk:UK Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 10

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Naming conventions: country ajective foo'ers vs foo'ers from country name

Am I right in assuming that the vast majority of categories have the format "English cricketers" as opposed to "Cricketers from England"? --Mal 20:04, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Have a look at Special:Categories: there appears to be as much of each. -- Francs 2000

12:59, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Lancashire lists

I've put some suggestions on Talk:Lancashire regarding changes to the various lists of places in Lancashire (mainly regarding the fact they are lists of places in all sorts of incarnations of Lancashire, never mind Greater Manchester, Cheshire, West Yorkshire....).

All comments and suggestions warmly welcomed - I don't want to make major revisions before I have an idea of other editor's feelings on this. I look forward to hearing from you, A q uilina 19:54, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

the (re)naming of Category:Northern Ireland people

can be debated now at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion. regards, Mayumashu 08:53, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Do bear in mind the question I posed a couple of sections above this: "Fooian Fooers". --Mal 22:32, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

OS Coordinates v Latitude and Longitude

If a UK article has coordinates then they mostly have OS coordinates (and a few have post codes) rather then latitute and longitude. Does anybody know if this was a deliberate decision in the past or something that has grown up? It seems to me that there is a risk UK articles will be missed from any mapping system that gets setup because they use a non-global system. An example at the moment is the Wikipedia placemarks download for Google Earth which misses out most UK articles. Should we be looking to add this information to articles? --MarkS 19:34, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I suspect it's because virtually every dataset supplied in the UK is supplied in OS National grid rather than Long./Lat, it's also a lot more "useful" for a country this size as it's possible for instance do point to point distance just using pythagoras, I would suggest that any mapping system that does get setup that dosn't allow for different mapping projections probably needs to be rethought.--ElvisThePrince 23:04, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Could we have an automatic conversion system? Justinc 07:03, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

The page that {{oscoor}} links to gives latitude & longitude from an OS grid reference. -- AJR | Talk 11:27, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

There seem to be two ways the location information can be used. The first is when somebody clicks on the location and it takes them to something relevant; {{oscoor}} does this really well. Conversions in this case are limited and can be done on the fly. The second use is building an alternative index to wikipedia (eg. the google earth placemarks download); in this case every article has to be scanned and coordinates converted to a single system. I can imagine conversion being a really heavy numbercruching job that would be avoided if possible. I agree with ElvisThePrince that mapping systems that miss out the UK mapping system should be thought about long and hard. However, there seem to be lots of country specific systems (eg. Irish national grid reference system and United_States_National_Grid), if I was setting something up then I would probably avoid country specific systems (there are 200+ countries so there could be massive amounts of conversion). I find it difficult to imagine that somebody in the US (and I guess most Wikipedians are in the US) would spend ages sorting out various systems for small overseas countries. I just feel we should try to avoid post codes for locations (which are used in lots of railway stations) and maybe put latitude/longitude alongside the UK coordinates). --MarkS 19:21, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

There shouldn't be massive amounts of (manual) conversion, most projections systems are all defined in standard ways, and information on their parameters is easily availabe virtually any GIS system worth it's salt should be able to convert between them, for instance the (semi) random one installed on this PC has over 2000 but they are all defined in the same way.--ElvisThePrince 22:41, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

UK Railways Wikiproject

Hi all, since we now have probably more than a thousand articles relating to the railways of the UK I've decided to start a Wikiproject to try and co-ordinate them a bit better. It's located at Wikiproject UK Railways t'is very basic at the moment and has only one member! But hopefully with people's help it'll be able to organise and make the articles on British railways both clearer and better structured and ultimately the most informative of any country in the world. If you know anything about railways in the UK or would just like to help out please head over and join and we'll be able to get a decent community going. ta-ta, --Achmelvic 10:07, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll join. Incidently for anyone interested in this there is a UK Railways Wikia (Wikicity) at [1] where I'm a bureaucrat. T.A Stevenson 10:35, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Request for Image of Railton Special

I'm contemplating a longish journey to Birmingham, to visit the Thinktank Museum to photograph the Railton Special Land Speed Record car. I would be very happy if someone could do this on my/our behalf. PeterGrecian 15:06, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Yvonne Fletcher

Users' comments requested on talk:Yvonne Fletcher, regarding the inclusion/exclusion of a link to http://www.vialls.com/zionist/yvonnefletcher.html Jooler 08:18, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Help wanted with Town and Country planning in the United Kingdom

Hello, I am very new to Wikipedia but have been expanding Town and country planning in the United Kingdom over the last few weeks and created a new subcategory of UK law called Category:United Kingdom planning law. I have reached a point where some experience would be very useful. How do I get some more people involved? Could someone with experience have a look at what I've written and advise on what articles we might be able to merge and what should stay separated for future expansion etc.etc. Many thanks--Mcginnly 12:17, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

WP:NIWNB

I've proposed the removal of the NI noticeboard, comments are welcome at Wikipedia talk:Northern Irish Wikipedians' notice board#Questioning the validity of this NB. Blackcap (talk) 08:46, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:UK Wikipedians' notice board/UKCOTW

I've made a proposal at Wikipedia:UK Wikipedians' notice board/UKCOTW. Comment required there. Computerjoe 's talk 20:21, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

London Underground

American users keep putting "period" instead of "full-stop" in this article and it's becomming rather tiresome. Jooler 16:38, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Wow, what a crazy situation! — Estarriol ^talk 22:38, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I've now added my thoughts on the matter in Talk:London Underground. Please let's try to remain as constructive and calm as possible about this. Cheers — Estarriol ^talk 22:52, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

British Empire apparently only the 2nd largest in history

According to this - List_of_largest_empires - article the Mongol Empire was the largest empire in history. I have never seen any ranking which does not have the British as the largest and the Mongols as the second largest (albeit largest contiguous empire). Is this article correct or suffering from inaccuracy or perhaps POV? siarach 21:08, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Oddly the online source given has the British Empire as the biggest. There is another source so my guess is that it is using one for the Mongols and one for the British. A very nice comparison of apples and pears. josh (talk) 21:36, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Someone keeps changing the figures around. Jooler 02:30, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

When you add Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and South Africa together, never mind the other 50 countries that were in the Empire, I cant see how the Mongol Empire could have been bigger. It would have had to cover the whole of Europe, China, Mongolia and Russia.

Pronunciation

Do we have an article listing places in the UK with unexpected pronunciations (well, unexpected to those outside the UK, anyway), e.g. "Lester" for Leicester, "Gloster" for Gloucester, "Altringham" for Altrincham, "Darby" for Derby, "Berrick" for Berwick? If we don't, does anyone else think such a list would be a rather good thing? Proteus (Talk) 15:45, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if it exists, but I think it's a wonderful idea. Full support. — Es tarriol ^talk 16:07, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Trust me, it would be good for people from other parts of the UK too! Another full support! -- Fr a ncs2000

00:09, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't oppose this, but there are a few issues that would need considering:

Would the article list all such place names? There are several small villages and hamlets that may qualify, and as such the list could be huge and unmanageable.
You'd have to take care with the language you use - some people may take offence at their pronunciation being deemed "unexpected", and in any case "unexpected" is a subjective term (what's "unexpected" to one person is the norm for another, etc.). Perhaps "Places with non-phonetic spellings" or something similar may be more explicit, easier to define, and less controversial.
Similar to (2), making the definition robust is important. For example, Southampton is pronounced "South Hampton" with a "hard" th (as in "both"), but "Sou Thampton", with a "soft" th (as in "bother") by Sotonians. So defining what the pronunciation actually is will be difficult as it varies from person to person and region to region, and then defining what is expected/phonetical (as both of the above are arguably correct) is just as tricky. Without a very robust way of stipulating both the actual and "expected" pronunciation, you could be opening a can of worms that's best left closed. Waggers 10:14, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Afterthought: perhaps a better example for (3) is Liverpool, which is pronounced "Liver-peul" by many locals and "Liver-pall" (rhyming with "ball") by many Southerners. Distinguishing between accents can also be tricky (often Londoners will speak of "Laaarndon", Newcastle's pronunciation will depend on one's pronunciation of "castle"... in short, one of the advantages of a written encyclopaedia is that we don't have to worry about pronunciation (we have enough problems coping with Americanisations). My advice is to keep it that way; Wikipedia isn't a guide book or phrase book! Waggers 10:26, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

1) There's no reason why we couldn't have a long list. Perhaps a short list at the top of major places and a long list where something could be looked up. Huge lists are no problem, and as for "unmanageable", it's not like it's going to have to be updated.
2) That's just a naming issue, but "non-phonetic spellings" seems fine to me.
3) The idea wasn't to make an IPA list (which would obviously be impossible, unless it was clear that it was an RP list or what not), but to point out obvious irregularities in the way I did to start with (giving the spelling of the place and then spelling it how it would be spelt if it were spelt the same way it is pronounced). The "pool" in "Liverpool" is presumably just pronounced in whatever way the speaker pronounces the word "pool", so it's not an issue that would need to be addressed. "Derby", on other hand, no matter what dialect you speak, is not pronounced to rhyme with "Furby" but with "Barbie", which is an obvious difference that can be pointed out without considering regional differences at all. Proteus (Talk) 12:41, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

This is the sort of thing I had in mind. (I've only done cities.) Proteus (Talk) 13:25, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Waggers is right. There are even a score of ways to pronounce the cities on that short list. There are so many reginal accents in the UK. Jooler 13:30, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

<irony> Might it not be easier to compile a short list of the UK cities that do not have unexpected pronunciations? </irony> ,-) Man vyi 14:22, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we could make additions to or a fork from List of names in English with non-intuitive pronunciations? Warofdreams talk 23:44, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

"Derby" is a word as well as a place, and is always pronounced the same way in the UK (rhyming, as you say with "Barbie"). It's never pronounced "durby" in Britain. So if you're excluding "Liverpool" on the grounds that it depends only how one pronounces "pool" then surely Derby should be excluded on the same grounds - it depends only on how one pronounces the word "derby". And as far as I'm aware, the "Sal" in Salford is pronounced exactly the same way as the "Sal" in Salisbury, that is, rhyming with "ball". As I said, I'm not opposed to the idea, but you're going to have to research each entry carefully if you're to make it accurate. Which is why I raised the point about it being a long list - I know there's no technical problem with long lists, it's more a resource issue. Even if you went through all the existing articles on UK places, that would take about a decade - and then bear in mind that there are still hordes of UK places without Wikipedia articles, which the UK geography wikiproject is trying to rectify. If you're up for the challenge then fine, but bear in mind that your list will be subject to intense scrutiny, possibly starting a few edit wars where agreement can't be reached. Personally I'm not sure it's worth the hastle. Maybe a more sensible approach would be to ensure that the existing articles give a pronounciation in a universally recognised form (see Gloucester as it's one of your favourite examples). Otherwise your list could end up being a mirror of "List of places in the United Kingdom" since everyone's expectations and phonetics are slightly different. Waggers 15:58, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Cornish Holocaust?

I've just nominated Cornish Holocaust for deletion as suspiciously POVy and ORish. There doesn't seem to be an active Cornish project (though perhaps I've missed it), so if anyone here has knowledge of the field please leave a comment. Shimgray | talk | 20:23, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Try Portal talk:Cornwall -- Fr a ncs2000

00:08, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Presbyterian Church in Ireland

Hi all, I have started to expand the PCI articles on Wikipedia. For more information see here if you think you could help, thanks. <font="center" color="#FFFFFF"> theKeith Talk to me 12:41, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

More Pronunciation

Hello everybody. Someone has left a note on Talk:Hertford about its pronunciation. They're talking about how to write it in the IPA, which is a type of beer to me. If there's someone out there who knows about these things, could they possibly have a look. Thanks RicDod 19:19, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Royal Yachting Association

Hey all. This would be my first on this NB. I'm going to begin getting some info on the RYA and do some substantial updating to its page, as it's hugely lacking for such a large organisation. I myself am a keen boatsman, with my RYA level 2 in sailing and a level 2 in powerboating (working towards safetyboat, aiming for advanced) I'm also a VI voluntery instructor at my local, so to speak (Despite it being 18 miles away) Just bringing some awareness to this wiki-in-need, and perhaps some other keen seadogs could chip in. --Dom0803 22:41, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Consider it done.. but I guess some more images would be nice. I'd add some from the RYA photogallery but I'm still not 100% certain on the license issues from that. I would also like someone to help me on Jet (brand) image. Thanks. Dom0803 00:17, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Improved locator maps for UK places

I've adapted a graphic template devised by our Croatian friends to create what will hopefully be an improved method of providing locator maps for UK places. It's no longer necessary to create a separate locator map for each location. Instead, all you need to do is to specify a set of coordinates for the location in question and add them to the following template:

{{location map|United Kingdom|label=<place>|position=<left/right>|width=<number of pixels>|lat=<latitude>|long=<longitude>|caption=<whatever, leave blank if you don't want one>|float=<left/right/none>}}

London

Here's a practical example. London is at coordinates 51.5086, -0.1264. We want a small 150px wide locator map without a caption, and with the city's name left-aligned to avoid it sticking out of the side of the map. The map on the right is produced using this code:

{{location map|United Kingdom|label=London|position=left|width=150|lat=51.5086|long=-0.1264|caption=|float=right}}

See Template:Location map for more information and further instructions on syntax.

To obtain the coordinates for any given place, all you need to do is look it up on Multimap and look for the coordinates in the "Map Information" box; you will need the digital coordinates (the numbers with four decimal points), not the analogue ones (the traditional degrees, minutes and seconds). -- ChrisO 19:35, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Absolutley fantastic, ChrisO. --Dom0803 16:43, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, awesome. Well done, much better than the old pink maps! Waggers 19:14, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I've now done something very similar for London - see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject London#Improved location mapping for London. -- ChrisO 23:14, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Leith

If you could hack something together for Edinburgh, this'd be great. I've been wondering for ages how best to illustrate the (small and idiosyncratically named) areas there... Shimgray | talk | 23:31, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Like this, you mean? -- ChrisO 23:52, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Thankyou! Now to find the time to get it added... Shimgray | talk | 23:54, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I want to make one for Northern Ireland, where do I find the orthographic view map that you used to get the UK one? (I wish to create this one btw in the interest of education, not request it) --Dom0803 11:01, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, nevermind. I took a look at the relevent pages and managed to figure it out for myself, and voila. --Dom0803 11:59, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Belfast

Vipaflex-C body armour

Vipaflex-C is supposedly a material that body armour is made from, and is supposedly bullet and stab resistant ... the only problem is I can't find any reference to Vipaflex-C anywhere. Can anyone help? Deniwikmen 23:43, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Upper class

People here might want to have a look at talk:Upper class. There seems to be something of culture clash about this term. Jooler 14:45, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Motorway

User:SPUI is attempting to merge motorway and freeway, as well as concepts like Autobahn and autoroute. See Talk:Freeway and Talk:Motorway. zoney ♣ talk 12:09, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Beer & brewery notability criteria discusion document

A discussion document has been opened up. Wikipedia:WikiProject Beer/Notability Criteria. Please put in your views either on the main page or on the attached talk page. SilkTork 17:54, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

(Moved from Wikipedia talk:UK Wikipedians' notice board/UKCOTW) -- Fr a ncs2000 22:19, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

sta

Please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Regional notice boards#A uniform naming scheme. Zocky | picture popups 00:52, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

English counties on French Wikipedia

The French Wikipedia has an article, English metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties, which lists as counties:

metropolitan counties (including Greater London)
administrative (shire) counties, and
unitary authorities

giving a total of 82 English counties. If, like me, you find this approach confusing, can you point me to a better description of England's administrative geography on the English Wikipedia that I could translate and offer as an alternative to our francophone colleagues? I've tried to find what I'm looking for on the English Wikipedia, without success. Kahuzi 14:12, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Short answer: no.

Longer answer: ours are split between Traditional counties of England, Administrative counties of England and Ceremonial counties of England (or of Scotland, of Wales etc). -- Fr a ncs2000 14:19, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

To those who are not already aware of it: The online version Oxford Dictionary of National Biography requires a subscription, but many local authorities have a subscription for it for their local libraries and this subscription can be used by anyone in possesion of a library card, from the comfort of your own home. I have a library card for East Sussex libraries and as well as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography it also gives me access to the

The Times Digital Archive
Britannica Junior – ages 5 to 11
Britannica Student – ages 12 to 18
Encyclopedia Britannica – adults
Grove Music Online
Grove Art Online
Kompass
NewsBank
Oxford English Dictionary Online
Oxford Reference Online

Which all prove very useful for researching articles. I have noticed that some articles like Elizabeth Hamilton, Countess of Orkney cite the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Should we perhaps put some tag on these references so that we can make readers aware that they might be able to access the site without actually taking out a personal subscription?Jooler 22:05, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

A good idea. Could also do with a standard style for referencing ODNB - see eg Roald Dahl for a different way of noting it. --mervyn 08:01, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

A list of local authority subscriptions can be seenhere. Perhaps we should put this info on a page called Wikipedia:Oxford Dictionary of National Biography subscription or something, maybe someone could knock up something similar to the ISBN links for booksellers. Jooler 08:30, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

A list of local authorities and library availability of other Oxford University Press products (Like the OED) is available here Jooler 08:36, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Lord Chancellor

Lord Chancellor is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. The article needs some help with inline citations and references. Sandy 00:39, 26 July 2006 (UTC)