Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography: Difference between revisions

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Proposal for things all counties should have

I think this Wikiproject should have a few guidelines for what UK county articles should contain. Here are a few ideas to get things started:

Introduction:

Location in country (mandatory)
County Town with coordinates in intro (mandatory)
Bordering counties and waters (mandatory)
One paragraph summary of interesting or famous facts (mandatory)
Major cities and unitary authorites (recomended)

Sections:

History (mandatory)
Settlements (mandatory)
Geology (recomended)
Demographics (recomended)
Industry/economy (recomended)
References (mandatory)
With optional culture, education etc sections

A checklist like this would help people get an idea of what makes a good encyclopaedia article, and help get articles up to featured standard. Joe D (t) 18:40, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think the "Industry/economy" section should always be called Economy as that's what it's called in the vast majority of articles

I'm also not sure of the county town and coordinates idea being mandatory, the co-ordinates of the county town seems to be too much information, they should be linked to from the article on the county town. There are also a few counties (well, ok, there's err.. Berkshire) which don't have any administrative centre as it only has unitary authorities. -- Joolz 18:39, 27 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There are also the six Metrpolitan counties which no longer have county councils. G-Man 20:42, 27 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The reason I suggested having coordinates of the county town is because I think coordinates are good basic data on location relative to the rest of the world, but the counties themselves are too large for coordinates to be useful. I'll leave this one out of the recomended guidelines until others have their say though. Joe D (t) 18:49, 27 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Dont the county articles already have maps to show where they are?. There should probably be something about local government as well, i.e districts etc. G-Man 20:41, 27 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Each county has a "list of places in.." page, many of which need much improvement, a while ago I made an effort to start all the pages and format them nicely etc., but it is obviously way too much effort for one person to actually finish the lists, let alone actually make articles for the places,. Anyway, they can be found at List of places in England (which links to NI, wales and scotland as well). thanks Bluemoose 12:54, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

UK geography terminology straw poll

Using the following options, and why (and sign name)...

Note:Please do not add your reasoning in this brief vote section, but if you wish to elaborate, do so in the section below.

1. Tiered government (a name for each level of local government e.g Truro, Cornwall, UK or Edinburgh, Scotland UK)

Gulval 18:14, 14 August 2006 (UTC) (or One Container)[reply]
- This is the first edit by Gulval (talk · contribs) since 9 April 2006. --Mais oui! 19:06, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Fooboo 20:27, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

2. One container (e.g Cornwall only, and let the reader follow the links and work out for themselves the geography if they need to)

See Gulval (Tiered government)/Reason for votes cast

3. Home nation only (e.g Truro, Cornwall, England, or Pontypridd, Glamorgan, Wales, the argument being that it is more specific)

4. Sovereign state (The Uk is the sovereign state therefore Uk only used for all places e.g. Pontypridd, UK, Cornwall, UK)

LessHeard vanU 19:18, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

5. Home nation and UK (Cornwall, England UK - has the most information about the place, but some feel is a little cumbersome)

Noisy | Talk 23:36, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Reedgunner 08:52, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
DuncanHill 09:09, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Waggers 09:53, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Mammal4 11:18, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Owain (talk) 11:27, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Bastin 11:29, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
--Robdurbar 16:45, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hunlef1 14:00, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Possible sock puppet: Hunlef1 (talk · contribs) has only contributed to this poll.
Dippas 14:32, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Possible sock puppet: Dippas (talk · contribs) has only contributed to this poll.

6. Other

Yorkshire Phoenix (talk) 08:21, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reasoning for votes cast

This section is for voters to give their reasons - please limit discussion to other areas.

3. Home nation only - more specific, less cumbersome, official usage (reminder that Cornwall's official status is a county, regardless), consistancy is important. Mdcollins1984 22:23, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

5. Home nation and UK - I find the tiered government argument persuasive, but it omits the legal angle and therefore cannot be considered comprehensive. My heart tells me home nation only, but - even though it will involve massive upheaval - I have to go with the most informative option. Noisy | Talk 23:36, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

5. Home nation and UK Makes more sense to have links to the sovereign state and the home nation providing as much information for non-UK residents as possible, there is a massive misunderstanding about the constitutional make up of the UK among many users of English not resident here, for example often believing England to be the sovereign state and Scotland and Wales to be regions within England. Reedgunner 08:52, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

5. Home nation and UK Gives more information, clarifies relationship of constituent parts of UK for those unfamiliar with the subject. My heart tells me to treat Cornwall as an exception and use 'Cornwall, UK' but I do understand the need for consistency in Wikipedia. I do think that ceremonial counties should be used in articles about cities, towns and villages etc, eg. 'Tinytown, Somewhereshire, Homenationland, UK', again this is helpful to those unfamiliar with the geography of the UK. DuncanHill 09:09, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

5. Home nation and UK looks great for counties, cities, and larger towns. We might need to iron out more detail on what to do with smaller settlements, where the inclusion of things like parish and borough may also be necessary. Waggers 09:53, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

3. Home nation only - More specific - people do know where England, Scotland & Wales are & the entries for those countries state that they are in the UK in the first sentence (!). It is also pointless and unethical to edit thousands and thousands of factually correct entries, just because some Cornish nationalists don't believe Cornwall is in England. An Encyclopedia should deal with facts, not wishes. Duplicating the same info will also bog articles down for no reason. Summertimerolls 16:33, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

3. Home nation only - because that is how such information is presented in the real world, and especially in official usage . Oxford is in England. "Oxford, England, UK" looks as though it was either written by, or for, a person of below-average intelligence; or else a pedant-beyond-redemption. "England, UK" is tremendously patronising to the reader, and is a non-starter if we do not wish to diminish the elegant beauty of the English language. We should not let Cornish nationalists massively disrupt Wikipedia as a result of their WP:POINT campaign.--Mais oui! 16:48, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

3. Home nation only, per above and all the other arguments here over the past three years. Joe D (t) 18:38, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

3. Home nation only - I would be perpared to accept Home nation and UK, if it was expanded to United Kingdom (I dislike abbreviations in article headers, particularly that one), but I think it's unnecessarily cumbersome and would be no more acceptable to the Cornish nationalists than this one, so my preference is for this. UK only would cause an outcry among the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish, and would convey less information. One container doesn't provide enough information. Tiered government discriminates against England, the only home nation which doesn't have it. -- Necrothesp 19:16, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

3. Home nation only - more specific and thus more useful. Addition of UK not necessary. Lancsalot 19:22, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

5. Home nation and UK(tentatively) - Despite my long involvement with this I still find it difficult to decide which of these options to choose. I am more concerned that whatever the final choice is, it should be presented in the proper way so that it is clear to subsequent editors why these decisions have been made. This absolutely requires a page describing the nomenclature decision (as I have mentionned above) in easy to understand terms that we can link to in future. This would necessarily include a paragraph specific to Cornwall (i.e despite the historical situation, Cornwall is administered as a county of England so that must be included in the designation...) as this is where these problems occur most regulary (but not the only place). There may have been other arguments here over the past three years but part of the reason that there has been a recurring problem with this is because no summary of the discussion is written down, and talk is often spread over dozens of pages with no clear idea or reasoning behind why things are done a certain way. The highhanded nature of many established editors who rv changes by newbies without explaining themselves also does not help. I like the one container model because it is concise, and lets the reader make up their own mind, but on reflection an encyclopedia should give enough information that an reader shouldn't have to. The tiered government model seems the most logical to me, The reason I don't choose this is because of the inconsistency it introduces between English and Scottish/Welsh entries which is the consequence of the political status quo, not the model itself. I don't even really like the Home nation and UK model because it is so coumbersome and doesn't really roll off the tongue. As a second choice I would be prepared to go along with a Home nations only strategy if the condition about a nomenclature page are met. Mammal4 11:18, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

4. Sovereign State - The constituent countries of the United Kingdom are not seperate entities unto themselves; they share common cultures, currency, language and perhaps most importantly populations. In every country there is a sizeable population that defines itself as being one of the others - and there is also within every country a population that defines itself not as English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish but British as they have no cultural history or affiliation with any of the "old" nations. In short, not every Briton living in England considers themselves "English" and the same is true of each of the other countries. I see that this is a minority view (no pun intended!), and I will of course abide by concensus, but it does question how accurate a defination of country is - outside of the purely geographical (which is British Isles anyway!)LessHeard vanU 19:18, 9 August 2006 (UTC) ah, well....[reply]

3. Home Nation only - More specific but still well known enough for the average international reader to get an idea of its location. josh (talk) 16:09, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

5. Home nation and UK - The name of the United Kingdom must be mentioned. To make the United Kingdom the solitary exception to the system adopted for the 190/1/2 other countries in the world seems truly bizarre; indeed, it's so bizarre that it seems (to me, at least) to be just POV-pushing to exclude it. However, whilst I sympathise with LeeHeard vanU's position, I also recognise two factors that may require the inclusion of the Home Nation's name. First, some people are more comfortable with using the names of the Home Nations. Second, some people claim that the Home Nations are countries, and those people therefore argue that the Home Nations ought to be treated with some of the privileges of sovereign states (including 'assuming' that their whereabouts is known). Hence, the compromise position between these is clear: Home Nation and United Kingdom. Unfortunately, this doesn't resolve the Cornwall issue, but the only way to resolve that is to make an exception for Cornwall, which seems just as bizarre as to make one for the United Kingdom. Bastin 11:29, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

The UK would not be "the solitary exception to the system adopted for the 190/1/2 other countries in the world". Of the top of my head I can think of several exceptions:

Nearly every place in the USA gives just the state, without mentioning USA.
The majority of places in Trinidad and Tobago just mention one or the other island.
Places in Greenland and the Faroe Islands don't feel obliged to mention that they're part of Denmark.

Blisco 13:14, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

US places give the country's name. As it happens, I tested it earlier today, trying a selection of large and mid-sized cities: Denver, Buffalo, Trenton, Gary, Oakland, Charlotte, and Santa Fe. All give the USA's name in the first sentence. Try others if you want; as the SmackBot's updates of census places make reference to 'United States', I'm guessing that it's not restricted to large or mid-sized cities.
Most places in Trinidad and Tobago give 'Trinidad and Tobago' as their location. Of course, since the country has the word 'and' in its title, there are reasonably good grounds for it being an exception in the mind of the main author (Guettarda). 'United Kingdom' isn't so complicated; if T&T and SV&G are the only countries that have such inconsistencies (not policies: sporadic use of one island's name in some cases), there's probably a reason.
Greenland and the Faroes aren't part of Denmark. They are territories of Denmark, just as Gibraltar and the British Virgin Islands are territories of the United Kingdom. Thus, to call them part of Denmark would be wrong. Bastin 19:27, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

5. Home nation Taking Leeds as the example, I was happy to pick the most used format, I searched on Google for Leeds encyclopaedia and got three distinct pages with no mention of the UK [1][2][3]. I am sorry but added the UK is silly. Even Truro gets no UK mention [4]. I sympathises and where appropriate a link to the arguments about Cornwall's status is fine but the Home Nations are all that is needed in the title. Rex the first ^{talk | contribs} 12:24, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

3. Home nation preferably, but as a general rule give whatever is most specific while being understandable by a general readership. After all, the purpose of including the country is merely so that an English-speaking reader from anywhere in the world can easily place the location in question. There's no need to state that Westminster is in England or the UK, because everyone knows where London is. Similarly, nearly everyone has heard of England, Scotland and Wales, even if many people in the world think the latter two are part of the first. There's no need to state the sovereign state in every article. Most of the articles in Category:Towns in Trinidad and Tobago state that the place in question is in Trinidad, or in Tobago; it's neither necessary nor particularly useful to say that they're in Trinidad AND Tobago. --Blisco 12:54, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't quite accurate - of the 44 articles in the category, 23 mention Trinidad and Tobago, 18 mention Trinidad alone and three mention Tobago alone. And, since I wrote almost all of the articles, it really doesn't say much, beyond the fact that my writing style is quirky and inconsistent. Guettarda 15:20, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - voted 5 because a number of non-British users are not familar with the concept of england/scotland/wales being in the uk; we may only mislead by not mentioning UK. That said, I don't see it as a big issue and I don't see a massive need for a standard.Robdurbar 16:45, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

3. Home nation only While my feelings, and vote, are just for home nation only, I would be more than happy to treat Cornwall as an exception and let them use United Kingdom. Having lived and worked there on and off, I find the general feeling is much the same as people in Cardiff (where I have also worked and lived) distancing themselves from England. Myself, I've moved back "up country" so I no longer live in Cornwall, and I want my local town to be recorded as being in England, not the United Kingdom Geof Sheppard 07:35, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

6. Other We should show the state (UK) and NUTS 1 subdivision (Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland or English region). That way we would have objective consistency, and if Cornwall is successful in gaining NUTS 1 status it will be shown in that box. Yorkshire Phoenix (talk) 08:21, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

5. Home nation and UK - is fine for most of England with the exception of Cornwall. Due to Constitutional status of Cornwall it should remain Cornwall, UK

5. Home nation and UK as above, Cornwall should be exempt due to Constitutional status of Cornwall.... Dippas 14:35, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

1. Tiered government or 2. One container My passport does not say or mention England or English. It says 'British'. Like it or not, the English are classed as British. I am Cornish, born in the Duchy, on the island of Britain which is part of Europe. The Kilbrandon Report (1969–1971) into the British constitution recommended that, when referring to Cornwall official sources should cite the Duchy not the County. This was suggested in recognition of its unique constitutional position. (please see Talk:Cornwall and the Constitutional status of Cornwall). Gulval 18:22, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is the first edit by Gulval (talk · contribs) since 9 April 2006. --Mais oui! 19:06, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

1. Tiered government It gives enough info for those outside of the U.K., who may not be familiar with the various regions, to see where you are talking about without including any contested references. Personally I believe Cornwall is a Duchy and not part of England. Tiered government reflects that without directly negating others opinions which I may disagree with...it's an accurate and conciliatory solution.

Postdiscussion from straw poll

Re: Noisy (5. Home nation and UK) - you say "even though it will involve massive upheaval". Well, the fact that the Wikipedia community does not use "constituent country, UK" tells us that we do already have a consensus: it is what is going on throughout the entire project at the moment: constituent country only. We should not inflict "massive upheaval" on Wikipedia when we already have consensus occurring on tens of thousands of articles. --Mais oui! 17:14, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One tier of government is clearly not sufficient; Truro, Cornwall is not enough. Given a worldwide audience many people simply will not know where Cornwall is. Apart from anything else, it might be Cornwall, Ontario. However most people will probably know at least roughly where England is, so Truro, Cornwall, England is sufficient. The same applies to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. England is more precise than UK, so let's go with that. DJ Clayworth 13:39, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Yorkshire Phoenix (6 Other) - Is this not effectively the same as 5, but allowing the inclusion of Cornwall, UK if NUTS status is reached? Mdcollins1984 14:55, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, if Cornwall got NUTS1 status (and I hope it does!) it would be "Truro, Cornwall, UK", for the timebeing, however, it would be "Truro, South West England, UK". The difference between my position (if Cornwall was NUTS1) and 5 with Cornwall exemption is that it would consistently miss out the home nation for English places, rather than making an exception for Cornish places, because "England" is not a NUTS subdivision. Yorkshire Phoenix (talk) 15:18, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I misunderstood the NUTS1 status (not county and NUTS1 status) - thanks for clarifying that. So in fact, to summarise, you are proposing 6. Other Use NUTS1 status, e.g. "Truro, Southwest England, UK", "Selby, Yorkshire and the Humber, UK", "Edinburgh, Scotland, UK". Mdcollins1984 15:27, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's right: I feel anything else would be subjective, inconsistent or agenda driven (such as excluding UK for nationalist reasons). However: I must stress that I personally prefer "Truro, Cornwall, UK" (and thus hope they achieve NUTS1 status) and "Selby, Yorkshire, UK" (and thus hope the regions are one day redrawn) but these would be deviating from the objective approach we gain from using NUTS1. Yorkshire Phoenix (talk) 15:35, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Using NUTS1 regions is a bad idea IMO, as the English regions are possibly the least well-known and well-understood subdivisions of the UK. If we insist on following such a rigid bureaucratic structure we run the risk of getting imbroiled in the kind of petty wrangling over naming that has afflicted Anaheim Hills, Anaheim, California. --Blisco 17:04, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RE: Dippas - (5 with Cornwall exemption) "Home nation and UK as above, Cornwall should be exempt due to Constitutional status of Cornwall...." Do you mean Cornwall should be exempt due to the potential change in the status of Cornwall, given that it is still classed as a Constitutional County of Cornwall? Mdcollins1984 14:55, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My interpretation of this comment is that Dippas (or Dippas's puppeteer - see contribs) is presupposing that the "constitutional status of Cornwall" is as a separate entity from England. --Blisco 17:04, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions Re: Straw Poll

How long shall we keep this running? It looks like no real majority is going to be found between 3. Home nation and 5. Home nation and UK. The consensus that has been reached is that the Home nation needs to be included and the UK could be seen as optional. Where this leaves Cornwall is still open to debate, but it is still and Constitutional County of England, so not to include England is potentially inconsistent and may be fought over by the Cornish who wish to remain in England (as it stands at the moment). I agree that a policy page needs writing though. Mdcollins1984 15:04, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, now that the sockpuppets have come to play I suppose this process has run its course! Of course, this was only ever dipping our toes in the water of this topic and several avenues were not explored, for example the tricky Northern Ireland situation (I note that we do not have a Template:Northern Irish infobox yet either); and the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics proposal made a late appearance.

I strongly disagree with you about Cornwall. I think that this poll has very, very strongly indicated a clear consensus for including "England" in the Cornwall articles: 19 people (excluding the 2 socks) voted for inclusion of the home nation (without or with the addition of "UK"); only 2 voted against inclusion (1 only wanted UK, the other wanted the NUTS 2 unit: South West England). We really ought to use this clear decision to include England to counter the on-going (and really very successful) campaign by the Cornish nationalists to erase all reference of England from the Cornwall-related articles. --Mais oui! 17:45, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Just incase you have misinterpreted what I said, I did not, and have not called for Cornwall to be a special case, in fact I have been advocating the use of England in Cornwall articles until anything is changed (I am from Cornwall, and am not campaigning for separation...!). I was being cautious, having seen the arguments that are already aired here. I voted Home nation, but would accept Home nation and UK, although either seem equally popular. Mdcollins1984 19:00, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Cornwall situation thing isn't what is up for discussion - it is administered as a county of England regardless of whether it is in England or its constitutional status or ancient history or the fact that the people there feel Cornish. If we choose to have the home nation in the name then this is what should be presented. What is up for discussion is the best way of describing all places in the UK (Cornwall included). Mammal4 20:15, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is it worth pointing this in the direction of the Cornwall portal? Mdcollins1984 19:01, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure - I'm actually the only one who edits that page so I'm not sure how much traffic goes through there. I was thinking of setting up a Cornwall Wikipedian's bulletin board as some other portals have, but from experience on other Cornwall pages they generally turn into circular arguments (as here) and no meaningful decision is made. This straw poll is the closest to a result that I have seen on any talk page from the last 4 years! Mammal4 19:57, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sock puppet accusations

Can we stop all these accusations and labelling of sock puppets (and vandalism come to that!) and keep this discussion civil? I don't see the point of tagging editors votes with text claiming sockpuppetry, and its not even consistent (Summertimerolls has also only contributed to this poll but hasn't been flagged up)! Mammal4 20:10, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Prediscussion for straw poll

Anons revert warring over England vs United Kingdom Just a heads up that there seems to be some mild revert warring being conducted by some anons changing definitions on smaller UK towns as to whether they are in England or the United Kingdom. See for example St Ives, Cornwall and 172.216.59.40. The IPs of the anons are moving around a bit, so it is one to keep an eye one. -- Solipsist 22:14, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is specific to Cornwall - Constitutional status of Cornwall should explain their motives. See also this silliness. --Blisco 08:07, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't new, its been going on for years - it comes and goes in waves and I expect it will quieten down again in a few weeks. Mammal4 08:29, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ahh thanks, I hadn't realised that it was only affecting Cornish places. I rather thought they were picking small backwater places in the hope that no one would notice ;-) So presumably the general response is to revert back to United Kingdom each time and leave it at that. -- Solipsist 10:35, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Its never clear which should be used as nobody has made a policy on it. Generally across the Uk geography pages it is the home nation that is used, but this I think is just because most of the orgininal stubs were created by a small group of people, and that is what they chose to do then. In Cornwall most of the England designations have been eroded to UK over time by many different casual editors, but the reverts back to England always seem to be from the same small group of editors. Personally I think UK is the better description for all the geography entries as this is the largest political entity and the sovereign state ( the home nations are not independendent - yet). Additionally, as England is erroniously used as a synonym for Great Britain by many non natives I think this makes it less confusing all round. I know a number of editors disagree with me here, but thats just the way it goes. I've tried to come to a compromise in the past by including both England and UK in designations but nobody is even interested in discussing it. Mammal4 12:12, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've tried to come to a compromise... but nobody is even interested in discussing it. - a not uncommon frustration of working on Wikipedia I'm afraid. -- Solipsist 16:05, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Anonomous user/s is now currently working their way through all of the British universities changing all of the Uks to England Mammal4 15:50, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, if we don't really have a policy one way or the other, it can't really be considered vandalism. The trouble is that it looks like they are coming from random AOL based IPs, so it is difficult to engage with them. The latest one seems to be 172.214.64.62 (talk · contribs). If you catch them whilst they are actively making edits it would be good to drop them a note on their talk page to ask them why the are making the change (e.g. this one). -- Solipsist 16:05, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From experience I don't think that they are interested in discussing it. To me this looks like a concerted effort to push a home nations rather than UK POV on wikipedia rather than genuine edits. Its a bit suspicious that all of a sudden all these unregistered AOL accounts and rampaging through and changing all the designations (never more than one or two edits per IP). I suspect that it is being orchestrated by one or two individuals (its not difficult to rotate IPs to give the impression of many editors like that) who probably also log in and contribute under a named account. its quite a clever rouse really as it is hard to pin down. Not really much that can be done except rv back again until they get bored!Mammal4 09:11, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Totally agree with you there. Indeed that's how I interpreted the original changes I saw. However, if we don't have a policy or general concensus on the choice of UK or England, it makes it a little more difficult to treat it as vandalism. If they fail to engage in discussion, that can probably be regarded as disruption, but we would still need to make the effort to try and inform them. But as you say the best approach is probably to keep reverting until they get bored. -- Solipsist 13:07, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, it looks as if I've stumbled into the middle of something. I've been reverting anon edits made today, but I seem to be doing it in opposition to the way that you've been heading. In the two years that I've been here, I've never seen articles with UK in the intro until the last week or two, so I've been "correcting" them back to England. I'll have a wander and see if I can find other discussions. Noisy | Talk 17:24, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It certainly seems sensible to have a consistent approach one way or another. My preference is definitely to use United Kingdom as it's the correct political entity. Using the individual countries seems to me like it's trying to promote independence - a subtle case of POV editing - but as long as the approach is consistent I'm happy to adopt the alternative. Waggers 14:04, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The home nations are also political entities, convey slightly more information without confusing any additional readers (i.e. UK and England are equally well known around the world), and AFAICT are far more common at present. Joe D (t) 22:35, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with this point. It's telling that this debate is restricted to 'England' vs 'UK' - you don't see many articles about Scottish or Welsh places, let alone Northern Irish ones, that use 'UK' rather than the home nation. There seems to be an assumption that any place in the UK is by definition in England unless otherwise stated, and omitting 'England' tends to reinforce that assumption. --Blisco 09:29, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As someone rather new to this, my impression of the 'Cornwall, Uk vs. Cornwall, England' malarky is that there are about 3 people with a strong 'England' POV, and a lot of people with a less strong POV who by habit refer to Cornwall as being in the UK rather than England - of course, this is just my own POV as an Englishman who grew up among Cornish people (and I'd never address a letter to 'Cornwall, England' - unless I wanted it to get lost in a Cornish post office!)--DuncanHill 22:45, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've just surveyed all the entries in List of places in Staffordshire. There are 146 populated entries: England - 111, no country - 31, UK - 2, England and UK - 1, GB - 1. On this basis, I have to side strongly with using the home nation as the identifier. Noisy | Talk 10:20, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes England is a political entity, but it is not the highest authority. The Uk is the soveriegn state that signs treaties etc and has membership to the EU. Most non UK readers do not understand the difference between England and UK (they think it means the same thing), so to use England here, when it is not the sovereign state reinforces this misconception Mammal4 10:26, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If we used both designations (eg Truro, England, UK) then any further rv that removed either of the terms would be a clear case of POV and more easily mopped up? Mammal4 08:45, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm up for that. We need to beware about transferring this idea to biographical articles, though, because things become a trifle more sensitive when looking at historical places of birth and death, since the supra entity changed at various times. Noisy | Talk 09:02, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some other ideas...

One approach is to do it by levels of government. So Truro (unless it's a unitary authority) would be Truro, Cornwall, UK (since there is no tier of government for England). This would mean that the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish entries would read like this: Dunblane, Stirling, Scotland, UK (since there IS a level of government for Scotland).
Another approach is to use only one "container" for any geography article, unless some disambiguation is required. For example, since (as far as I know) there's only one Cornwall (and in fact most of our county names are unique), we don't really need "England" or "UK" to be included; if someone doesn't know where Cornwall is, they can click on the wikilink to find out. This way we make sure that the information in the article is about the subject itself - "Cornwall [is in] England [which is part of the] UK" is not information about Truro, so strictly speaking doesn't belong in the Truro article.

'Only one Cornwall'. The disambig page lists 4 in Canada, 1 in Jamaica, 9 in the USA, 1 in Brittany, and a dragon! DuncanHill 14:28, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One further comment is that I don't think that what the majority of articles currently do is all that relevant to the discussion. We need to distinguish between "best practice" and "majority practice" - quality, not quantity. Ultimately I think we need some really sound reasoning behind whatever decision we make, so that it's futureproof. Choosing between "England" and "UK" based on majority point of view is still an expression of a point of view - we need some objective reasoning for including or excluding the various levels. Waggers 12:39, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The tiered government suggestion seems (to me) the most sensible suggestion so far as it has a sort of logic to it. Once we have come up with a consensus what we could do is insert a very small asterisk template into the opening paragraph of each article (about the size of a three letter word) that would link into another page called "nomenclature of UK place names in wikipedia" or something like that. There all the reasoning behind the decision could be laid out in simple terms, and any relevent discussion appended. The idea would be that the casual editor who comes through and alters the designation with the aim (in their eyes)of improving it will follow the link and realise that a lot of thought and logic has gone into the specific wording that we've used, rather than it just being arbitary. Hopefully they would be less likely to alter it without discussion. This doesn't protect against malicious POV changes from anonymous IPs but then again what will?! Mammal4 13:04, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There isn't any need to refer to the United Kingdom in cases of locations within Britain, as they are either in England, Scotland or Wales - there isn't any grounds for debate. To change and dumb down every entry to suit a handful of Cornish Nationalists who prefer the term United Kingdom to England is ridiculous and would be doing an injustice to Wikipedia - it is a POV held by few, that Cornwall isn't part of England. I don't see the relevant of the tiered governement suggestion, as that has little to do with actual locations, and covers more than one country anyway. The comment on the Cornwall entry regarding the constitutional status of Cornwall is sufficient. Summertimerolls 17:12, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's fair to claim that 'only a handful of Cornish Nationalist' prefer to use UK instead of England - I'm not Cornish, not a Nationalist of any kind, and much prefer to use UK rather than England when referring to Cornwall. The tiered government idea does have the merit of making current administrative arrangements more clear, especially to those unfamiliar with the UK. Oh, btw Summertimerolls, you can sign posts by adding 4 tildes (these things~) at the end of a post - it helps people know who's said what. DuncanHill 17:17, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have used the UK defination in Cornish related articles (I am a member of the Penwith (most westerly District of Cornwall) WikiProject) as I (would) have in any other "English" related subject. Although I now live in Cornwall I am most certainly not a nationalist, but only interested in best practice. I also work to the legal framework that the individuals/party I am able to vote for represent Parish, District, County and the United Kingdom. Unlike Scotland, and to a lesser degree Wales (and potentially Northern Ireland), law applicable to England is solely formulated and executed in the Parliaments of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. As such I feel that UK is the correct political entity.

The manner in which anon accounts are used to solely to edit UK to England might suggest that this is a politically motivated campaign, whether pro English nationalism or anti Cornish nationalism or a combination of the two, which also indicates little possibility of concensus - anons are not good vehicles for discussion and reasoned argument. The number of anon accounts operating to a common ideal also precludes their edits being stopped by suspension or banning. Should a policy be adopted then it may be that Cornish (and any other entity so open to abuse) articles would have to be protected to stop anon (of either/any persuasion) reverts.LessHeard vanU 20:22, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it is safe to say that this issue is restricted to Cornwall and isn't affecting any other locations within Britain, so I see no need whatsoever to change thousands of enties over the issue of one county in one country over political motives, to make things more unclear than before and give them a less encylopedic quality. The entries for England, Scotland and Wales make is very clear that they make up the UK, and the entry for Cornwall has clear mention of the so called constitutional status issue. Summertimerolls 17:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think that comments like 'the so called constitutional status issue' show a degree of POV! There IS a constitutional status issue relating to Cornwall, whatever one's opinion of the various sides to the debate. Using 'weasel words' like 'so called' doesn't really help anyone. DuncanHill 19:16, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Its not an issue just relating to Cornwall - last week I watched as an anonomous IP went systematically through every university in the UK, and changed all the Uks to England. Various other people from across the wikipedia community went back through these and changed them back to UK. I'm guessing that this wasn't the work of Cornish nationalist, unless they've infiiltrated quite deeply into Wikipedia and go under cover by never contributing to Cornwall pages. There seems to be a movement by a few in Wikipedia to rob the UK of its political legitimacy - the Cornwall thing is just a symptom of that. Anyway, under the tiered government suggestion Cornwall would still have England in its tag, but just augmented with UK but there would at least there would be some method and logic to it. We could put a paragraph on the "nomenclature of UK place names in wikipedia" page I suggested about the status of Cornwall if need be, explaining that despite the constitutional status issue, under the current UK government Cornwall is administered as a county of England, (rightly or wrongly - make no juddgements) so that is why the entry is described in that way. At least then there would be an explaination on file that people could link to, rather than having this argument every few months with new people Mammal4 06:18, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can't say I really see the point or like the idea of putting UK on every location entry for Britain, it seems a bit silly considering it affects extremely few entries. It's fairly well known around the world where England, Scotland & Wales are and the entries for those countries state in the first sentence they make up the UK - stating UK again on every location would just clutter things, I feel. The Cornwall entry already mentiones the issue anyway. From looking at some of the Cornwall locations, it looks like entries that have been started as Cornwall, England have been changed to Cornwall, United Kingdom and entries that started as Cornwall, United Kindom have been changed to Cornwall, England. I say either have Cornwall towns as being in Cornwall, England or just Cornwall and make no mention of the country. I think the Cornwall, United Kingdom suggests that Cornwall is actually a country, which is possibly the intention. Summertimerolls 11:01, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"To change and dumb down every entry to suit a handful of Cornish Nationalists who prefer the term United Kingdom to England is ridiculous and would be doing an injustice to Wikipedia". I agree. It is a tad patronising to the reader to tell them that New York City is in the United States ("New York City, New York, United States" - yukkk!); that Paris is in France ("Paris, France" - yukkk!) or that London is in England ("London, England" - yukkk!). Equally, it is totally redundant to have a list of places where a place is, à la "Mrs Miggins house, Strawberry Lane, Backwater-under-the-Lyme, near Greater Cheesbery, Worcester, Worcestershire, England, United Kingdom, Europe, Earth, Solar System, Milky Way, Universe, the great unknown". If people really, really do not know where, or what, "England" is, then they just click the link, and - hey presto - Wikipedia tells 'em, in the very first sentence, that "England is the largest and most populous constituent country of the United Kingdom." The information is already there, for all to see, if they really need to, which most do not. We do not need to treat every Wikipedia reader like a primary school child by repeating ad-infinitum that England is in the UK: it would get just a tad tedious. And how artificial it looks: only an American could write: "Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK" - yukkk! --Mais oui! 11:21, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I do think it is interesting that Summertimerolls ONLY contributions to Wikipedia are posts in this thread. Maybe a single issue campaigner trying to use Wikipedia to promote a POV? DuncanHill 11:57, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, let's see if I can summarise where we're at so far:

We don't want a huge address-style list for each article
We do want a logical and consistant approach
"UK" is out; "England", "Scotland", "Wales" or "Northern Ireland" should be used instead
Using a local government-based structure is sensible (but we don't want to show every tier)

Can I suggest the following, then:

For counties and unitary authorities, use the country only. "Aberdeenshire is an administrative county in Scotland"; "Portsmouth is a unitary authority in England"
For cities, boroughs and towns (etc.) within the duristiction of a county's government, use county (or principal area) and country. "Colchester is a town and borough in the county of Essex, England"; "Truro is a town in Cornwall, England"; "Llanfyllin is a town in Powys, Wales")
For civil parishes and villages (etc.), include borough (if applicable), county and country, and perhaps civil parish. "Compton is a village in Hampshire, England. It is administered by the civil parish of Compton and Shawford, and Winchester City Council"; "Ballyrory is a small village in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland", "West End, in the borough of Eastleigh, Hampshire, is a village in England"

Wherever possible, write the location as a sentence, not a list.

Any thoughts? Waggers 12:05, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

DuncanHill - I resent your accusation. I'm not promoting a POV, and I chose to register to engage in this discussion after looking at the edit summaries on the Cornwall page, and came to this page after looking at your contribs. What Waggers is suggesting seems sensible and makes sense and would go with that. Summertimerolls 13:07, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Summertimerolls - well, I'm glad that some of my contributions led to you coming to this discussion - at least it means someone is reading! The way you've expressed yourself a couple of times, together with this being your only area of posting, led to me asking the question above - it wasn't meant as an accusation, and I'm sorry that it could be read that way - like you, I'm quite new to this, so sometimes I may not express myself as clearly as I should.

On the question of 'Cornwall, England' vs. 'Cornwall, UK', my experience is that in Cornwall the most common usage would be 'Cornwall, UK', with a significant number of Cornish people finding 'Cornwall, England' offensive, for reasons relating to the ongoing debate about the past, present and future constitutional status of Cornwall, together with many people's sense of a distinct Cornish cultural identity. On the whole, I incline to Mammal4's suggestions above - tho' I doubt very much if a compromise could ever be reached between the handful on either side who take hardline 'Cornwall as a seperate nation' or 'Cornwall is just another English county' attitudes. DuncanHill 13:31, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Curious. The original anon edits that I noticed (linked at the top of this discussion), were actually changing from UK -> England. Perhaps they were actually anti-Cornish Nationalist (if that is the right term). In any case, it looks like this discussion is proving useful. -- Solipsist 18:45, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Perhaps they were actually anti-Cornish Nationalist". That sounds about right to me.

Minor point, but Aberdeenshire ain't an "administrative county" of anywhere. Scotland has had no counties since 1975. The standard term is "council area". --Mais oui! 19:15, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Godd point Solipsist, about anon changes from UK -> England. DuncanHill 20:14, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(88.109.253.246 (talk · contribs) has been stirring the pot. I have reversed the edits and left a message encouraging the user to register and join the debate. Noisy | Talk 20:10, 3 August 2006 (UTC))[reply]

Just realised that I said that locations in England would still have an England tag under the tiered government suggestion but this is not actually true as there is no England government tier, so it would be Truro, Cornwall, Uk and Edinburgh, Scotland UK or Pontypridd, Wales, UK. I think I must have been half asleep when I wrote that! Mammal4

The one container suggestion does have some merit as it would avoid all arguments about designation and political POV as people can just follow the link s up the chain until they get to the UK page. What Waggers is suggesting is just a continuation of the status quo isn't it? It isn't going to stop people changing it back to UK. The problem specifically that I have with this is that, despite what Summertimerolls thinks, many non Brits have trouble with the internal geography of the UK. I've met Americans for example who don't know where Wales is, and when you try and explain it they say "Oh, so its in England then?" Even other Europeans use England/UK interchangably. Just using the home nation spreads the confusion! Mammal4 12:49, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As for what started first UK->England rv or England-> UK rv its sort of chicken and egg and has been going on for years, not just a few weeks.— Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}#top|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

The whole point of an encyclopaedia is to educate people, and it is hardly good pedagogy to say "all my pupils are daft: they don't know where Wales is - I know what I'll do, I'll just pretend that Wales doesn't really exist, and then the problem will go away!" A tad defeatist. Americans are not really that daft you know.

If we all knew everything anyway then Wikipedia would not have any links at all; in fact Wikipedia would not even exist at all. We would all be omniscient - God knows where Wales is, and I am certain that he doesn't read Wikipedia. --Mais oui! 13:05, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This reminds me of the time that somebody tried to remove the descriptor "Scottish" from the Ronnie Corbett article, with reason provided: "I had no idea he was Scottish"! Err... correct me if I am wrong, but is the whole point of an encyclopaedia not to teach us things of which we previously "had no idea"? That's the whole fun of the project. Wales implies United Kingdom, but the reverse is not true; therefore the use of "Wales" adds additional texture and depth to an article, whereas "United Kingdom" unnecessarily flattens and conceals. --Mais oui! 13:14, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think Waggers's suggestion above is the best solution. However, I'm sure it will still cause controversy among the minority of Cornish people who are virulently opposed to any suggestion that Cornwall might be part of England (as a proud Cornishman who is also proud to be English, I've heard all the tedious arguments many times over, and they still don't convince me). It's one of those things that is never likely to have a consensus. I should add that articles on unitary authorities should also state their former county. "Portsmouth is a unitary authority in England" is fine, but the fact that it also used to be in Hampshire (and is also a city) should still be recorded. I for one still consider Portsmouth to be in Hampshire. And I suspect that any suggestion that, for instance, York is no longer in Yorkshire because it's now a unitary authority would soon have Yorkshiremen everywhere rioting. And Truro is a city by the way. I do think it is perfectly reasonable, and in fact logical, to state which of the home nations a university is in. Why towns but not universities? -- Necrothesp 13:03, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi - time to throw my thoughts into the cauldron! (Thanks User:Mammal4 for directing me here). I'll just explain that I am a proud Cornishman, (who is an aforementioned anti-Cornish-Nationalist...Until any official decision is made (which is unlikely), Cornwall is still in England, just as though Brittany is technically in France, although they tend to become annoyed like the Cornish). I have also lived in the Unitary Authority of the City of York, which geographically is with in the boundary of North Yorkshire (is this an approach that can be used for unitary authorities (e.g. Portsmouth is a unitary authority in England, within in the geographical bounds of Hampshire). I think that whatever is decided, something should be made on the grounds of consistency. I like the government tiered suggestion, but it looks inconsistent to those who haven't read this article. I'd be happy with just using the home nations, but it does throw up problems with biographical articles too. Its a big issue, lets get it right. Can someone summarise this talk thread again? Its too long and complicated and has taken me 20 minutes to get through! I also used the "one container" solution until directed here. Mdcollins1984 14:05, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As stated, a large number of Cornish people do not identify as English or see themselves as from Cornwall, 'England' for reasons relating to the ongoing debate about the past, present and future constitutional status of Cornwall, together with many people's sense of a distinct Cornish cultural identity - see Constitutional status of Cornwall. Since 2001 the Cornish have had their own unique ethnic UK Census code '06' similar to the Irish, Scots, Welsh and English, 2001 Ethnic Codes. Additionally, on many official forms it is now possible to register as Cornish as opposed to English. 217.134.75.62 09:49, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The use of the home nation after the town, village etc should be used universally. The use of the home nation gives more info than stating that it is in the UK and there would probably be edit wars everywhere if we tried to push my town, UK (never mind trying to state that Samuel Beckett was born in the UK). This rule should include Cornwall. By not doing so suggests that Cornwall has an equal status to the other home nations. Despite the protestations of some editors, Cornwall's offical status is a county in England. By stating otherwise is following the POV of those editors. We cannot base decisions on percived culture or how some belive the world order should be but on cold hard facts. josh (talk) 14:45, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I totally agree. We cannot allow the (relatively speaking) tiny Cornish tail to wag the massive UK dog. It is a fact, perhaps to be regretted by some, but nevertheless a cold, hard fact, that Cornwall is a part of England. If some people do not like that fact then they are of course perfectly free to campaign for a change in the constitutional status of Cornwall, using their own web-based or other resources. But they must not be allowed to use Wikipedia to further their campaign. We will, indeed must, only report facts. It is not our job to put an angle on facts for the benefit of one side of a disagreement, over the other side. --Mais oui! 15:01, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can people stop trying to make out that this thread is only relevent to Cornwall - it is not only about nomenclature of place names in Cornwall, but across the UK. I'm not sure if people are trying to muddy the waters by bringing in all of this political crap, but its not really relevant to the question at hand. To summarise and try and get some focus here (as requested above)

Summary

1. There has been for several years a low grade revert war over UK geography nomenclature, this is not localised only to Cornwall but is most apparent on these pages because of the strong feelings being termed English incite here. I have seen this rv behaviour though on many other pages across the UK, albeit with lower frequency.

2. In order to contain the rv warring, we need a logical policy on what naming should be for all UK places. This would mean that everyone sings from the same hymmsheet, and any further rvs will be more clearly a case of POV pushing rather than content dispute.

3. I have suggested that after a policy has hammered out we create a page called "nomenclature of UK place names" in which the reasoning is clearly and logically laid out for anyone to see, so that anyone who want to change the designation on a given page can see that what was there before was not an arbitary decision, but is logically thought through.

4. The five useful suggestions for a solution so far are:

tiered government (a name for each level of local government e.g Truro, Cornwall, UK or Edinburgh, Scotland UK)
One container (e.g Cornwall only, and let the reader follow the links and work out for themselves the geography if they need to)
Home nation only (e.g Truro, Cornwall, England, or Pontypridd, Glamorgan, Wales, the argument being that it is more specific)
Sovereign state (The Uk is the sovereign state therefore Uk only used for all places e.g. Pontypridd, UK, Cornwall, UK)
Home nation and UK (Cornwall, England UK - has the most information about the place, but some feel is a little cumbersome)

5. As I think that reaching a consensus on this is going to be hard if not impossible, I now suggest that we put a time limit on discussion of say another week or two, and then open this up to a straw poll across wikipedia to come to an agreement.

I hope that this meets with everyones' agreement? Mammal4 15:37, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

BTW I have never suggested that American's were stupid, please don't put words in my mouth. I was illustrating the point with an example of a conversation that I actually had with someone (who happened to be American). It just as easily could have been someone from India or China with the same results Mammal4 15:37, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to point out that Mammal4 and I belong to the same Cornish related Wikiproject and we have always been able to arrive at concensus - one of the advantages of having and using talk pages. To date our Policy on this matter has been "Keep clear". I think we would be content to incorporate any concensus into our Policy, but we would continue to refrain from entering into any edit war (even within "our" articles) over the matter.LessHeard vanU 20:31, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just pointing out an interesting variation I have just come across, the Minack Theatre was listed as near Land's End, Cornwall, British Isles. Is that another suggestion???!!! Mdcollins1984 10:55, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It might be a suggestion, but I don't think it's a good one as it confuses political and geographical entities - it either makes British Isles sound like a country, or Cornwall sound like an island, or perhaps both. Waggers 11:26, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why don't we just condense our opinions here first, before opening up the debate. I'm not sure any more discussing will necessarily get anywhere, without people saying exactly what they want anyway. To that end, using User:Mammal4s excellent summary above, I will start by giving my choice (and briefly why). Mdcollins1984 22:23, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Black Mountains

Someone in the know should sort out the details of Black Mountains (Wales), Black Mountain (range), Wales and Black Mountains, Wales. There are a lot of links to the former Special:Whatlinkshere&target=Black_Mountains_(Wales) which should probably go to the latter. But the latter says that there is anoher range just as black that they maybe should link to. Rewards include:

Warm glow of satisfaction.
Er that's it

MeltBanana 20:03, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Just to thicken the mix, don't forget the singular Black Mountain. From Brecon Beacons, "In the east is another distinct range of hills called the Black Mountains, and in the west is a remote region known (confusingly) as the Black Mountain." Hours of fun.--Telsa 20:48, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've changed all the links from Black Mountains (Wales) to Black Mountains, Wales. If they are not about the mountains described in Black Mountains, Wales, that page will have to be turned into a disambiguation page, as we definitely shouldn't have two mountain ranges with the same name distinguished by punctuation alone (and geography articles tend to use commas rather than brackets anyway). Joe D (t) 21:18, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have a dream, a song to sing...

Ahem. Sorry been up too long, no sleep. I have an aim to fill out every county's List of places in... article so that all the places in that county are listed. the reason why I haven't is because I don't have a reliable resource for it. The only ones I have been able to do so far are List of places in Buckinghamshire, List of places in Cornwall and List of places in Northamptonshire. Just to confirm though I'm not aiming to write all the articles, just to provide the available red links. Does anyone know of a reliable resource? -- Francs2000 | Talk 30 June 2005 22:58 (UTC)

Just as an afterthought, what I used for Bucks was my own resources - I have a lot on Bucks history. For Northants and Cornwall I used a combination of the gazetteers at old-maps.co.uk and streetmap.co.uk. The latter method was extremely long and tedious. -- Francs2000 | Talk

30 June 2005 23:03 (UTC)

Oh, take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject_UK_geography/tasks, I've made a table there listing each county with a checklist for ticking off when the "List of places.." lists are complete. I've completed the lists for Dorset and Somerset using the lists of parishes from the census data, and the tasks page also links to parish census data for Norfolk which can be imported. Joe D (t) 30 June 2005 23:26 (UTC)

I've added Bucks, Cornwall and Notts info. Joe D (t) 30 June 2005 23:30 (UTC)

Why is the list of places for Norhern Ireland based on traditional counties, the list of places for Wales based on unitary authorities, and the list of places for Scotland based on defunct regions? Surely to save having to refactor these lists every time there is a local government boundary change they should all be listed on traditional counties? Owain 1 July 2005 15:08 (UTC)

You know perfectly well why not. G-Man 2 July 2005 18:24 (UTC)

I know there is a reason why I did that but I can't remember what it was. I think it had something to do with how the areas were listed as current government areas in the respective country's parent article... -- Francs2000 | Talk

1 July 2005 22:20 (UTC)

I coped them from another page, probabaly List of places in the United Kingdom. Joe D (t) 2 July 2005 12:45 (UTC)

To answer the original question, for the County Durham stubs I made I used the Gazetteer of British Place Names, which claims to be the most comprehensive around and hasn't failed me yet. It's the work of the pro-traditional Association of British Counties, but gives information on a place's traditional, ceremonial and administrative counties, so it's no problem to use it if we are arranging things by ceremonial county. This leads me on to Owain's point. I realise I may be in a minority here, and I've tended to keep out of this argument when it's come up before, but I'd really much rather we did things by traditional counties, for guaranteed stability. I think we've arrived at the status quo somewhat arbitrarily. Because of 90s administrative changes and the creation of unitary authorities all over the place, many of the ceremonial counties with their origins in the 1974 reforms have no relevance anymore except for the obscure business of Lord-Lieutenancy. There are also anomalies all over the place, like Cleveland appearing in 1974 and then disappearing entirely in about 1996, ceremonial functions included. The constant chopping and changing of adminsitrative and to a lesser extent ceremonial boundaries is what makes me think the present arrangement of our coverage is untenable in the long run. We tend to concentrate on ceremonial and administrative divisions and their associated articles, but meanwhile our article on, say, Yorkshire is really short and neglected (I'd love to see it featured one day) because we treat it as effectively non-existent, instead prefering to talk about things like South Yorkshire (was created as administrative, is now ceremonial only) and the East Riding of Yorkshire (made a recent comeback as a ceremonial county, and as an administrative but with Hull taken out as a unitary). The decision to do the county articles the way they are must have been taken early in the history of Wikipedia, but we needn't stick with it. It might well take quite an effort to redo the county articles but something will have to happen with them eventually. The infoboxes and general structure are looking a bit dated for many of them. Meanwhile there are various other countries with more straightforward structures of local organisation that have impressive well-designed articles for municipalities and such on the English Wikipedia that put the UK's to shame. I don't feel particularly enthusiastic about trying to improve things when our county situation appears to be in a state of limbo. Either we should decide it's administrative counties that matter, and focus our efforts on them (in which case we end up saying silly things like "Derby isn't in Derbyshire") or we use the traditional counties as a reference frame and make them the basis for our county articles, with administrative and ceremonial differences noted of course. Up to now I've tended to think the best way of dealing with the situation in the case of individual town and village articles is to treat the three systems as seperate, and to say that somewhere is in such-and-such a county for traditional and ceremonial purposes, but in another one for administrative purposes, or it's in this one for traditional but was moved somewhere else for ceremonial and administrative purposes in 1974, but was later split off into a unitary authority which was subsequently abolished again, etc, etc. I've avoided POV-pushing by going along with the status quo for the County Durham stubs I did. There are villages on the southern side of Teesdale (traditionally in the North Riding of Yorkshire) I've categorised as villages in County Durham, places in "Tyne & Wear" (traditionally in Co Durham) I've left out as not being part of the county, and places in the districts of Hartlepool Darlington and Stockton I've categorised as Co Durham even though they are administered seperately by their respective unitary authorities, all according to Wikipedia's view of things. What gets me though is the inconsistency. We talk about places covered by unitary authorities as if they were part of various counties when as far as the state is concerned this is only for Lord-Lieutenancy. I do think ceremonial was a bad choice for our county structure. I would even prefer strict adherence to administrative boundaries, including unitary authorities and all the rest of it, but ultimately I think there is going to have to be a switch to arranging things by the traditional structure, so that our article on Yorkshire, to use the example again, is the one that matters, with the comings and goings of administrative and ceremonial divisions being noted in articles that talk solely about those functions, instead of us all having to write about absurdities like the "culture of Bath and North East Somerset", then having to rearrange everything when someone decides to redraw the map. Sorry about the length of the comment - there's more I could say on the matter but I've tried to restrain myself. I've seen in the past people come along and try to create seperate articles on Warwickshire, for example, to suit their pro-traditional counties point of view, and then getting quite obnoxious about it. I have no intentions of being unreasonable, I just think our article arrangements as they stand are often unsatisfactory and lead to anomalies. Now there's a push to fill out the "list of places in" articles it seems a good time to raise the question before we find ourselves with a rather odd situation on our hands, in which we appear to list places according to their 1974 administrative designations, with some subsequent amendments, on the grounds that these are the "ceremonial" counties, which strikes me as the least relevant and most counter-intuitive of the three possible ways of organising things. Any thoughts anyone? — Trilobite (Talk) 5 July 2005 15:39 (UTC)

There is no reason why Wikipedia has to choose one meaning of county over another. Wikipedia should describe each county in its traditional, ceremonial and administrative forms and point out where each one differs. "Examplecity and Exampleton are traditionally within in Exampleshire, but since 1996 have been administratively independent as unitary authorities" should be common in county articles. The "List of places in Exampleshire" articles should also deal with this, either by having an extra section--"Places formerly in Exampleshire"--or with an * or ¹ and a footnote pointing out that those places are in the traditional but not administrative counties. Joe D (t) 5 July 2005 15:49 (UTC)

I've just edited List of places in Hampshire to demonstrate this, adding Bournemouth and Christchurch (traditionally in Hampshire, ceremonially in Dorset and administratively independent) and a footnote for the unitary authorities. Joe D (t) 5 July 2005 15:57 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree though. We should certainly try to avoid choosing one meaning of county over another where possible, but sometimes we can't help but choose. We have List of places in Hampshire, where Hampshire primarily means the ceremonial county of Hampshire, with the traditional and administrative differences duly noted. I've often used the way you outline of describing what county a place is in by talking about the three forms, and this solves the problem for individual articles on places (except where categories are concerned), but causes problems when it comes to articles on the counties themselves. Note also that we title the article on Christchurch "Christchurch, Dorset" in order to disambiguate it, so we are certainly choosing the ceremonial option for article naming here. I believe this is written into policy. Now let's say I want to add something about an important historical event that took place in Christchurch in the 18th century, of the kind that's worth noting in the county article. Do I put it in the Hampshire article because Christchurch was in no way in Dorset back then (unless there's some anomaly I'm not aware of), or do I take the standard Wikipedia approach and put it in the Dorset article becuase that's its ceremonial county? What if we get all the ceremonial county articles up to featured status? This would involve history sections no doubt, so would we end up with things happening round Manchester being discussed in the Greater Manchester article and not mentioned in the Lancashire article? If we're taking traditional, ceremonial and administrative as seperate entities existing in parallel, this wouldn't fit, because the Lancashire article would only talk about the history of the area covered by the ceremonial county. As I see it, we can't help but choose one meaning over the others when it comes to county articles and connected pages like "list of places in". — Trilobite (Talk) 5 July 2005 17:02 (UTC)

I'm sure this issue has been discussed in detail before. A big problem with using traditional counties (amongst many), is that many of them have fallen into disuse as geographic reference, and there inclusion can only cause confusion amongst readers, most of whom dont understand the fine distinction.

The readers are even less likely to understand the distinction between the various esoteric areas used for local government, Lieutenancy, and so on. What's worse, is that just as people may be coming around to understand it all, the local government boundary commissions change it all again. Yet traditional counties live on - counties such as Rutland and Herefordshire may have fallen into disuse between 1974 and 1996, but it was largely the fact that people still new about them that led to their re-introduction as administrative areas. Owain 5 July 2005 19:16 (UTC)

Using traditional counties consistantly would throw up its own absurdities. Who for example speaks of Birmingham being in Warwickshire any more (eccept for Cricket) in fact for that matter, parts of Birmingham used to be in Worcestershire and Staffordshire just to make matters more comlicated, so if we were to use traditional counties consistantly we would have to say something like "Birmingham is in Warwickshire, with parts in Worcestershire and Staffordshire" I dont think that would last long before someone removed it. And what would average readers make of it? they would probably assume we were nuts.

Eccentricities like that are part of what's Great about Britain! Detached parts of counties, the imperial system, &c. Metropolitan areas are always crossing boundaries, but the city's centre never moves. The city's centre is still in the traditional county it was when the place was still a village. Birmingham is in Warwickshire, with various suburbs in Worcestershire, Staffordshire, &c. That's unavoidable with large urban areas, and quite easy to understand! Look at metro areas in the US - they cross state boundaries quite happily. Owain 5 July 2005 19:16 (UTC)

Yes unfortunately nobody apart from you uses these boundaries. G-Man 5 July 2005 19:22 (UTC)

Er, right. That is a straw-man argument. Nobody but me... just keep telling yourself that. Owain 5 July 2005 21:18 (UTC)

If we put "Birmingham is in Warwickshire" many readers would simply assume it was an innacuracy, as with many other articles. Also ceremonial counties seem to be the ones most commonly used as geographic reference (i.e Leicester is in Leicestershire). And administrative counties and ceremonial counties exist officially whearas traditional counties dont (whatever their supporters might claim).

Ceremonial counties are the ones most commonly used where they happen to co-incide with traditional counties. The Leicester example works because Leicestershire is a traditional county. People in the Wirral would rather be thought of as part of Cheshire, people in Bolton would rather be thought of as in Lancashire, &c. Ceremonial counties are just a half-baked measure. Owain 5 July 2005 19:16 (UTC)

That's a matter opinion. G-Man 5 July 2005 19:22 (UTC)

If people were happy with administrative areas being used for geographical purposes there would be no need for 'ceremonial counties' at all. The fact that they exist at all is proof that people want to belong to geographical areas irrespective of local government boundaries. Also the fact that most of them borrow the name and are close in area to traditional counties shows that those are the areas that people relate to. Unfortunately these ceremonial areas are sufficently different from traditional counties that they are a half-way house - a strange mixture of traditional and adminstrative. Surely we should either think entirely in terms of administraive areas, or traditional areas. Ceremonial counties are clearly a step in the right direction of separating people's notions of counties from local government, but they don't currently go far enough. Owain 5 July 2005 21:23 (UTC)

Regarding history articles It doesn't seem to be a big problem in my eyes to discuss the history of the historic boundaries but note that they have changed see History of Warwickshire for example. It would plainly be absurd to have a history of Warwickshire article without mentioning Coventry or Birmingham.

I agree that the government has messed things around so much in recent years, especially in regards to Avon and Cleveland It also strikes me that any system we use will create a certain amount of anomalies, as far as I can see traditional counties would create as many as any other. A certain amount of discretion and common sense is needed IMO G-Man 5 July 2005 18:41 (UTC)

I agree. Common sense is the way forward. The various infoboxes for England, Scotland and Wales state each type of county unambigiously. Also the county articles for Wales (where the traditional and administrative are combined) explain each area in the same article. No problems there. The problems occur with 'List of...' articles and categories. That's where we need some kind of compromise... Owain 5 July 2005 19:16 (UTC)

I agree with G-Man. It's absurd to claim Leicester is not in Leicestershire (as we would if we were using current administrative counties), it's absurd to claim that Bournemouth is currently in Hampshire (as we would if we were using traditional counties), and it's absurd (for some purposes, e.g. discussion of local politics) to claim that Weston Super Mare is currently in Somerset (as we would if we were using ceremonial or traditional counties). Each case needs to be taken on its merits, according to circumstances. There need to be some standards, but on the whole it seems to me that Wikipedia has rather a lot of policies and guidelines about this sort of thing, and if you're not careful you end up defending absurdity because "them's the rules". Let the individual cases sort themselves out by discussion, and if we end up with ceremonial counties in some areas, traditional ones in some, and administrative ones in others, so be it. None of the systems is entirely natural. I'm certainly not in favour of using traditional counties unless they coincide with current or recent administrative or ceremonial counties. --Andrew Norman 5 July 2005 19:42 (UTC)

(Replying mainly to G-Man since he was the last to comment when I started writing this.) Well I wouldn't advocate just saying "Birmingham is in Warwickshire" and leaving it at that. We would be silly to deny the existence of administrative and ceremonial counties. For Birmingham I'd say something like:

Birmingham is traditionally in Warwickshire, with parts in Worcestershire and Staffordshire, but has been part of the West Midlands for ceremonial purposes since 1974. It was also formerly part of the West Midlands for administrative purposes, but the county council was abolished in 1986 and Birmingham has since been administered as a unitary authority.

Do you not see the absurdity of this? G-Man 5 July 2005 20:16 (UTC)

Absolutely, but the counties mess isn't my doing! — Trilobite (Talk) 5 July 2005 21:38 (UTC)

The wording is relatively complex because the situation is relatively complex - this can't easily be avoided. You say: "Also ceremonial counties seem to be the ones most commonly used as geographic reference (i.e Leicester is in Leicestershire)." Much of the time this is true, but consider more complex circumstances. For example (note that this isn't an anomaly - there are loads like this), there's a place called Kingswood that is traditionally in Lancashire, found itself in Cheshire when things were reorganised administratively, and is now covered by the unitary authority of Warrington. Neither Lancashire nor Cheshire County Councils have anything to do with this place anymore. What county do the people of Kingswood consider themselves to be a part of? I imagine there is confusion, with differences of opinion along generational lines. Under the present policy Wikipedia will have to list them as being first and foremost in Cheshire because that's the ceremonial county that supplies their Lord Lieutenant. This is an arbitrary rule for determining a place's county. Another example: probably many people in what was formerly Cleveland still consider themselves to be in Cleveland, because that's how it was known for twenty-odd years. Wikipedia says that nowhere at all is in Cleveland because it no longer exists under any of the three definitions of a county, even though some people probably do still use it as a geographic reference frame. In reality though, the Cleveland situation is barely any different from the West Midlands: neither have county councils, and neither have a traditional status. The only thing that differentiates them is that the West Midlands has a Lord Lieutenant. I would contend that this is pretty irrelevant to most people. What I am trying to get at here is not so much the way we word our place articles, but the way we arrange our county articles. I don't see much to recommend the existence of a list of places in the West Midlands over a list of places in Cleveland. Arranging our articles by ceremonial county is not the happy compromise it appears to be at first sight. What it really means is that we indulge the reader's inertia in accepting administrative boudary changes, that leads them to have a very vague idea of what the different counties are, that very roughly approximates those established in 1974, even though these have been changed significantly as far as administrative functions are concerned in recent years. We avoid pedantic administrative interpretations that would have us say Derby is not in Derbyshire (which it isn't, if local government is what we consider to be the most important factor) on the grounds that it's people's geographical reference frame that matters. Traditional counties are the only relatively stable reference frame (I don't say they're completely unchanging because some of the 19th century reforms predate living memory - it's unreasonable to say that many people consider various enclaves to be part of counties they haven't been in for 150 years). When people think about what county they are in I think there are two main areas of consideration. First is who they pay their council taxes to and who provides them with public services. This is the administrative approach. Second is the cultural/traditional approach when thinking about things like cricket, in which case plenty of people in Birmingham most certainly would consider themselves to be in Warwickshire. I don't think many people ask themselves who their Lord Lieutenant is, particulary where this corresponds to a defunct '74 county that has no traditional status and whose administrative functions were scrapped in the late 1990s or before. Ceremonial is a bad choice. — Trilobite (Talk) 5 July 2005 19:55 (UTC)

The West Midlands is still legally an administrative county, and still has a police force, a fire service, and a Passenger Transport Executive for example. So to say that the West Midlands exists purely as a ceremonial entity is not quite correct. If people see police cars with "West Midlands Police" or fire engines with "West Midlands Fire Service" written on them, it is perhaps not unreasonable that they come to the conclusion that they are living in the West Midlands.

The fact that they have a fire service and police service is of no consequence. They are joint boards. The South Wales police force and South Wales fire brigade exist as joint boards, but there is no 'administrative county of South Wales'. The fact the people believe something to be true does not make it true. Owain 5 July 2005 20:35 (UTC)

But if enough people think it's true, it suggests there's something there worth commenting on in an encyclopedia. Something similar could be said about traditional counties: that lots of people think in terms of traditional counties, when they aren't official entities, makes them worth commenting on in an encyclopedia. Joe D (t) 5 July 2005 20:46 (UTC)

What do you mean, "does not make it true". Are you denying that the West Midlands exists?, the West Midlands still legally exists. IMO the fact that you believe that traditional counties exist does not make it true. G-Man 5 July 2005 20:49 (UTC)

What I mean is that the existence or not of joint boards for local government services is not proof that people think they belong to a certain area. That the West Midlands metropolitan county still exists legally is an anomoly. It is not a corporate body. It cannot be sued. It does not actually administrate anything itself. It is merely an area for which joint boards of other corporate bodies voluntarily provide services. That is not in itself a valid reason for the West Midlands geographical area taking precedence over any other geographical area. Owain 5 July 2005 21:14 (UTC)

Another point to take into consideration is that many unitary authorities are still covered by some county-wide services. For example Nottingham is still covered by Nottinghamshire Police and Nottinghamshire Fire Service, so taken together with the fact that Nottingham is ceremonially part of Nottinghamshire it is probably not unreasonable to say that Nottingham is in Nottinghamshire. This is the sort of common-sense judgements which I'm talking about.

Certainly ceremonial counties throw up a few anomalies but overall their IMO the best comromise option we have. G-Man 5 July 2005 20:29 (UTC)

Except they perpetuate some unliked 1974 areas such as Merseyside and Greater Manchester, as well as all the unliked 1974 areas in Wales, and areas in Scotland that are mostly traditional counties but with some bizarre differences. Ceremonial counties are just a half way house between adminsitrative areas and what they are trying to be - which is traditional counties. Owain 5 July 2005 20:35 (UTC)

Who says they are unliked, that is entirely your opinion. Most people who have been born since 1974, for that matter most people under the age of 40, are quite happy to use Merseyside, Greater Manchester etc. In fact I believe that the government considered abolishing the metropolitan counties as ceremonial counties in the mid 1990s but judged them to be a success. G-Man 5 July 2005 20:39 (UTC)

What about the Wirral campaign to be moved from the L postcode area to the CH postcode area? That change was effected even though it had nothing to do with efficently delivering mail. It was entirely to do with Wirral people not wanting to be associated with the other side of the Mersey. As for Greater Manchester - ask the average person in Bolton or Wigan if they live in Bolton, Wigan or Manchester. People are fiercely proud of their own town and county. Whether the government judged metropolitan counties to be a 'success' or not has absolutely no effect on how the average person in the street feels. Owain 5 July 2005 21:07 (UTC)

I was born since 1974 and do not consider these administrative and ceremonial divisions to be legitimate counties (I don't deny that they exist, just that they aren't 'proper' counties), thus I for one cannot be said to be quite happy to use them as if they were real counties. Furthermore, since Wikipedia is not written for those under the age of 40, and the proportion of Mancunians who consider themselves to be from Lancashire is likely to be rather higher amongst the over-40s, we can't just go listing Manchester as being in "Greater Manchester" as if that was the end of it. I am assuredly not trying to push a political POV about counties or argue about the wisdom of the various reforms that have been made or the relative merits of arguments on either side of the debate (I have enough experience of Wikipedia to know that this is pointless and irrelevant), merely pointing out the real inadequacy of the ceremonial system as a way of organising Wikipedia's articles on counties. Now what I would propose in the case of lists of places is that we do it by traditional county, with those places that have been hived off into unitary authorities or some other administrative county being marked as such, by having them in italics or putting an asterisk against them or something. This means we can take into account administrative differences without having to have things like "list of places in Bath and North East Somerset". Ceremonial counties are the least relevant and can be mentioned in the articles themselves where there are differences. I think this much better reflects the complex reality than just pretending that ceremonial counties are the only ones that matter. You mention various characteristicts of the West Midlands that lend credence to the view that it's a legitimate county, beyond having a Lord Lieutenant, but quoting from the Cleveland article: "However, the name has not been entirely abolished: Cleveland Police, Cleveland Fire Brigade, BBC Radio Cleveland, the Cleveland Family History Society and Cleveland College of Art and Design still exist." Cleveland, however, does not have a Lord Lieutenant and so doesn't get a "list of places in" article, nor should it, as it is hardly a real county. At present, having a Lord Lieutenant is the qualification needed to have "list of places" article. This is pretty silly. — Trilobite (Talk) 5 July 2005 21:38 (UTC)

I have no particular desire to continue this argument. Suffice to say we are never going to agree and that this matter has been discussed in detail already at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (places). And the traditional counties approach was rejected by a large majority.

If you disagree with the present policy then I suggest you (Trilobite or Owain) raise it there. But for the time being the majority opinion seems to be that we use administrative/ceremonial counties. G-Man 5 July 2005 21:31 (UTC)

Reading the discussion so far has been interesting, but it provokes a sense of deja vu. I don't think anyone here has mentioned the exhaustive discussions and voting that took place a year ago to form a policy on British county names. We can't just ignore that debate, we should either accept the guidelines as they stand and use them as the basis for our county articles, or we should revisit it and if we can't come to a consensus view, take another vote.

At the very least, we should all read through what was written then and comment on it here. It's at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places).

Ha! I was pipped to the post on this by G-Man's last edit :-) Chris Jefferies 5 July 2005 21:37 (UTC)

I've already read through all the earlier discussion, and I just have not been convinced by the arguments for the prevailing way of doing things. At the very least I would like to see it clearly acknowledged that it's appropriate to talk about traditional counties in the present tense, provided of course that such references are qualified with the term "traditional county", so as not to mislead the reader about the administrative and ceremonial situation. It appears that some are quite happy with this. Joe D has for example said that "Examplecity and Exampleton are traditionally within in Exampleshire, but since 1996 have been administratively independent as unitary authorities" is to be prefered, and "list of places" articles should list places in the tradtional but not administrative county, with some way of marking them out as such. This is the formulation I always use myself and it hasn't been controversial, because the situation is made quite clear to the reader. The policy as it stands however is not quite clear enough, mostly maintaining that it's fine to talk about places being within the traditional borders of somewhere in the present tense (only prohibiting talk of traditional counties as counties without qualification, which I find reasonable) but saying that "Most of the pigeons were found at Abingdon, then part of Berkshire" is acceptable, when it misleadingly suggests that Abingdon is no longer in Berkshire, which is not the case, since as we're all aware the traditional counties were explicitly not abolished. This is not pro-traditional counties POV-pushing, but a desire to avoid simple inaccuracy in Wikipedia. The present policy is ambiguous when it comes to saying where a place is located, and woefully inadequate when it comes to writing articles about counties themselves, because for the reasons I've pointed out above and more, ceremonial borders are the worst of the three possible choices for defining counties. — Trilobite (Talk) 6 July 2005 07:20 (UTC)

I agree, the present policy of regarding administrative, traditional and ceremonial counties as single entities "whose borders have changed over time" is patently rediculous. Even the anti-traditional county contingent can't deny that there are at least two areas called counties that have different borders. In fact the infoboxes already acknowledge the fact that all three exist, so the policy as it currently stands is contradictory with the rest of Wikipedia. At the very least there should be differentiation in the "list of place is..." articles, and perhaps even separate articles where the is a wide difference in area, such as "List of places in Monmouthshire (administrative)" and "List of places in Monmouthshire (traditional)". Owain 6 July 2005 08:45 (UTC)

It's not logical to argue that a policy is wrong because a feature introduced since the policy (the infoboxes) disregard that policy. Clearly, as the policy was in place first, the infoboxes should have been designed in line with it or the policy reconsidered properly at that time.

This is exactly what I mean when I complain that the policy has been disregarded. This is not the Wikipedia way of doing things. 'Agree first and then act' is fine. 'Act in disregard of an existing 85% vote and then use your action to argue that the policy is wrong' is not fine. (Sorry, I forgot to sign - this was Chris Jefferies 6 July 2005 sometime.)

I don't see how the infoboxes go against policy. I'm not entirely sure what you're all saying we should do, if we were to use traditional counties instead, should we move Abingdon, Oxfordshire to Abingdon, Berkshire (even though this is patently absurd), or what would be the effect? The ceremonial counties are the ones actually used by people, they're the ones that appear on maps, aren't they? -- Joolz 6 July 2005 14:08 (UTC)

The infoboxes go against policy because they list administrative, ceremonial and traditional counties, whereas the current policy states For the purposes of Wikipedia, these are treated as single entities which have changed their borders over time, so refering to the historic county area as a still existing entity is not acceptable, as is stated clearly above. If a county is still commonly used as an area name in its historic area, and is relevant, than that should be noted

And sadly, Joolz, there is little agreement on what we should do. In my opinion we should abide by the existing policy. But if enough people challenge it, we should discuss it until we can come to a consensus, or if necessary vote on it again. Then we should all agree to follow the new policy, whatever that might be.

I think the OS maps use administrative county boundaries. The 1:25 000 OS map for St Neots says, 'Cambridgeshire County', 'Huntingdonshire District', 'St Neots CP'. Chris Jefferies 6 July 2005 15:39 (UTC)

I disagree with your interpretation of the policy, which also states "We should mention historic counties in articles about places [...], but only as an afternote". The infobox doesn't make comment on whether the traditional county is still existing or not, merely that place A is in traditional county B; place A is in ceremonial county C, etc. -- Joolz 6 July 2005 18:30 (UTC)

UK-geo-stub split

Currently, there are separate geography stub categories for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. A separate category for England has been mooted in the past, but it would contain some 3800 stub articles, considerably more than is regarded as optimum according to Wikipedia: WikiProject Stub sorting guidelines (which roughly state that stub categories should have between 100 and 600 items to be of best use to editors).

In order to remedy this situation, all 3860 current unsubcategorised UK geography stubs have just been tallied to see whereabouts they refer to. Discussions are now underway with regard to splitting off regions or individual counties that have over 100 stub articles.

Understandably, given the confusion between traditional counties, ceremonial counties, and the split of city areas over the last few decades, this is a thorny issue. We at WP:WSS would welcome any input that this WikiProject's members may have, at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Criteria#Further_split_of_UK-geo-stub. Grutness...wha? 03:19, 26 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This is such a difficult issue! I honestly don't know what to suggest :-( I can assure you that whatever decision you make will upset somebody. Can we avoid the counties issue altogether by using the English Regions as you suggest? Would this break them down far enough? If so I'd go for that. Chris Jefferies 11:51, 26 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There are over 200 places in Buckinghamshire alone, though fortunately they mostly have good articles now. I think regions though desirable may still be too populous by the guidelines above. -- Francs2000 | Talk

18:46, 26 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Insane parish project

Hi. I've started an insane project to create articles about all parishes in England (and communities in Wales). See User:Morwen/alldab for a list of links to all parishes and communities starting with 'A' - I want to turn these all into blue links, then we can move onto the next letter. And for all the ones that are already blue links we need to verify that the parish is the same as the article that it points at (and if not, have a dab note). This is a huge project.

I've also constructed a list of parish names that occur more than once - these are at User:Morwen/dupes. There is a further list of parish names that occur more than once in the same ceremonial county/principal area at User:Morwen/dupes3.

After this, there are two parish names that occur twice in the same district - Welburn in Ryedale, North Yorkshire, and Flixton in Waveney, Suffolk. Morwen - Talk 11:23, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's an excellent idea, just a couple of points - is this for civil parishes or ecclesiastical ones? Also, are you including non-parished areas?DuncanHill 14:33, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Civil. I'd tried to make a list of unparished areas at User:Morwen/unparished and User:Morwen/parish summary - any help identifying what is unparished would be good! Morwen - Talk 14:48, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Caile Hill

User Sunfazed has questioned the veracity of this place which is supposedly a suburb of Wolverhampton at the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. Given that a Google search for "Caile Hill" gets no Google results at all see [5], I am fairly certain that it is dodgy but am seeking the views of people with local knowledge to be sure. I have also posted about this at the UK Wikipedians board. Capitalistroadster 18:26, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Article now posted at AfD due to lack of verifiability. Capitalistroadster 18:58, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Suburbs and villages etc.

I'm at risk of opening a real can of worms here, but I guess it's best not to ignore the issue. I've been doing some work on the suburbs of Southampton lately and I thought I should get some comments about which "areas" merit an article of their own, if there are any guidelines, etc. I'm sure the situation in Southampton is mirrored across the country, so it's probably worth getting some thoughts here.

At present, the articles relate to loosely-defined areas (i.e. it would be hard to draw distinct boundaries around them) which would be recognised by some locals, but don't necessarily have any official status. I'm happy with the status quo, but I'm aware that the amiguity could lead to problems later.

An alternative would be to use parishes to define the areas. In Southampton's case, this would lead to the Portswood article being merged into Highfield, Townhill Park into Swaythling or Bitterne Park (I'm not sure which at the moment!), and so on - even though many locals see these as distinct areas in their own right.

Another alternative is to use postcodes. I used to live in the Palmers Green area of London, and the local concensus at the time was that Palmers Green was defined by the London N13 postcode (and not the Parish of Palmers Green). I notice that, looking at the current article for this area and its neighbours (such as Southgate), this convention hasn't been followed and there's a much more ambiguous definition. (For example, Broomfield Park which is in the N13 area, and in the Palmers Green parish, and locally recognised as being part of Palmers Green, is listed in the Southgate article's introduction as part of Southgate!)

Another inconsistency is with villages, when there are several villages within the same parish. Sometimes each village has an article of its own, and sometimes they are together (as in Compton and Shawford).

Considering that part of our project at the moment is looking at ensuring that we have an article for each civil parish, and there's also an article for many London postcodes, I'm concerned that there's going to be either a lot of repetition across articles or a lot of stubby articles if we continue without setting up some conventions.

So to recap, there are three options that I've suggested (and possibly more that you might think of) and it would be great to reach some concensus on how small areas like these should be handled:

Status quo - no rigid definitions, lots of ambiguity, possibly lots of arguments over boundaries but allows flexibility where needed and requires no clean-up.
Use civil parishes; merge sub-areas of civil parishes into the main parish articles, making sure adequate redirects are in place where necessary. May go against some local instincts but gives solid definitions of what's where and redirects would ensure that users are taken to the correct article(s).
Use postcode areas to define suburbs etc.

Any thoughts? Waggers 10:48, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What I've done is create seperate articles for the parish and villages in the case of where a parish contains several villages such as Brandon and Bretford and Bourton and Draycote. In cases where a parish is named after one village but contains others I've split the article into sections covering the village and parish (see Leamington Hastings and Wolfhampcote). That's my way of doing things, hope that helps. G-Man * 19:08, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that is helpful. I guess the equivalent for urban areas is the status quo, so that saves a lot of effort too! I think what I need to do is make sure that where a suburb or village gives its name to a parish (which also includes other suburbs/villages), to ensure that this is mentioned in the article. I think I'll go with that - thanks for your input. Waggers 09:52, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've had similar problems with the villages in the Chew Valley, Somerset. I've done short articles for defined villages even though they might be parts of the same parish eg Stowey and Bishop Sutton which are both parts of Stowey Sutton where there is a disambiguation page. Pensford is in the civil parish of Publow - even though Pensford is far bigger & much more likely to be searched for. I'm confused by this & I'm sure other users might be, it also causes problems when using the 2001 census data (Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOAs)) as these are by the wards of the local authority which often cover several villages. I've also had discussion about the area of a valley - the geographers answer is that it must be defined by water catchment area even though local usage includes a wider area (see discussion on Talk:Chew Valley) but this hasn't been an issue with the current FA nomination. Rod 20:04, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

cough* I'd just thought I'd note here that Southampton doesn't actually have civil parishes, and hasn't had since 1912 (the residual coterminous urban parish of Southampton was abolished in 1974). Morwen - Talk 14:26, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team cooperation

Hello. I'm a member of the Version 1.0 Editorial Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing articles using these criteria, and we are are asking for your help. As you are most aware of the issues surrounding your focus area, we are wondering if you could provide us with a list of the articles that fall within the scope of your WikiProject, and that are either featured, A-class, B-class, or Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Do you have any recommendations? If you do, please post your suggestions at the listing of all active Places WikiProjects, and if you have any questions, ask me in the Work Via WikiProjects talk page or directly in my talk page. Thanks a lot! Tito xd^{(?!? - help us)} 18:40, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New stubs

A bunch of UK geography stubs were recently created. I saved them from speedy deletion but they are quite short and could use more information:

Cheers, Fang Aili ^talk 14:17, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

UK infoboxes linking to UK

Template:Infobox England place (talk · links · edit)
Template:Infobox London place (talk · links · edit)
Template:Infobox Scotland place (talk · links · edit)
Template:Infobox Wales place (talk · links · edit)

Does anyone have any objection to these having a link to the UK? I've noticed many of the articles often do not have a link to UK anywhere on them. Mrsteviec 13:28, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That is a much better layout. I approve wholeheartedly of your version! Owain (talk) 15:36, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I see you are forcing these upon people without a consensus. There is no need to add United Kingdom to them, as the entries for each country make it more than clear they are constituent countries and your edits suggest that England, Scotland & Wales aren't countries. 172.207.144.139 16:42, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In what manner does these edits suggest that England, Scotland and Wales are not countries? --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 17:47, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

UK/England revert wars (Cornwall and others)

Can we agree that once a policy is agreed upon that Cornish articles, and any others suffering from this time consuming conflict, be protected from editing by anonymous/new editors (with the appropriate explanation) to stop reverts from those not interested in concensus?LessHeard vanU 10:05, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree with that - in fact I would suggest that UNTIL a policy is agreed upon, anonymous edits should be blocked.DuncanHill 22:37, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've noticed that a couple of users have been changing 'UK' to 'England' on many Cornish entries, citing the ongoing debate here as the reason to change - trying to pre-empt any decision? DuncanHill 22:37, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism of poll

Please can we leave this list alone until we close the poll - It makes more sense to tally up at the end when we close up an archive this poll and discussion. Doubling up on information in this way just makes it confusing and by disecting my comments away from my my vote you have subtley changed the meaning of what I have written. The (tentatively) in brackets is directly explained by the subsequent paragraph of reasoning - if you take away the reasoning then it leaves (tentatively) open to the personal interpretation of subsequent readers. I also don't appreciate a straight rv of my changes without discussion or explaination - this is just bad wiki etiquette. I don't think that putting my name under two different choices serves any purpose either. Thanks Mammal4 09:01, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Removing the votes of the 14 people who have already voted is vandalism, plain and simple. Stop it. --Mais oui! 10:32, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Trying to structure/re-structure a straw poll is hardly vandalism, is it? There's enough of a debate going on already, and it's still civil.

With the new format with the tally in place already, people are not bothering with the one-para statements that people were adding under the old structure. (The comments of Owain and Harrias might have contained forceful arguments.) I found those really useful, and might even have seen some new arguments that might cause me to change my opinion. I'd request that Mais Oui consider moving it back to the old structure. Noisy | Talk 11:49, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely no way: 14 people had already cast their votes before Mammal4 unilaterally decided to start the whole process afresh. He was not "re-structuring" it: he removed the votes of 14 people! If we keep his new format (and I think it is basically a good idea: much clearer to see the lay of the land), then those 14 votes must be duly recorded, in the date order they were cast. If "vandalism" is the wrong word to describe his removal of those 14 votes, then "dicking about" is perhaps a better way of putting it. --Mais oui! 13:34, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"I found those really useful" - people still have every opportunity to give their reasoning if they so wish. If they cannot be bothered that is their prerogative. --Mais oui! 13:38, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not really sure why I would attempt to vandalise a poll that I suggested and started to organise in the first place - All I did was put the page back the way it was before Mais Oui started 'dicking around with it' as it was so eloquently put. As far as i can see no votes were removed as they are all recorded in the paragraph I reinstated next to their reasons. As Noisy points out this was a useful setup, and now people aren't bothering to leave reasons anymore under the new structure. If I have inadvertantly removed any useful text when I tried to put back what Mais Oui had changed (without consultation) then I apologise - As I have said before I'm only intersted in ressolving this ridiculous geography dispute once and for all. After having finally managing to bring this to a head after six months, and getting some meaningful dialogue going I find it an interesting insight into human nature that we've now found something even more petty to argue about.

Mais Oui - Giving me a vandalism warning here and on my talk page for what is obviously me reverting your unecessary restructuring of the poll is completely over the top and really isn't helpful. W Anyone who doubts my intentions need only look at my past record to see what sort of editor I am - its there for all to see. hy not discuss here why you think your restructuring is better? Take care Mammal4 19:51, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 37: / Line 37: @@
 #[[User:Gulval|Gulval]] 18:14, 14 August 2006 (UTC) (or One Container)
 #*This is the first edit by {{User|Gulval}} since 9 April 2006. --[[User:Mais oui!|Mais oui!]] 19:06, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
+#[[User:Fooboo|Fooboo]] 20:27, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * '''2. ''One container''''' (e.g Cornwall only, and let the reader follow the links and work out for themselves the geography if they need to)
@@ Line 135: / Line 136: @@
 (please see [[Talk:Cornwall]] and the [[Constitutional status of Cornwall]]). [[User:Gulval|Gulval]] 18:22, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 :*This is the first edit by {{User|Gulval}} since 9 April 2006. --[[User:Mais oui!|Mais oui!]] 19:06, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
+'''1. Tiered government'''  It gives enough info for those outside of the U.K., who may not be familiar with the various regions, to see where you are talking about without including any contested references. Personally I believe Cornwall is a Duchy and not part of England. Tiered government reflects that without directly negating others opinions which I may disagree with...it's an accurate and conciliatory solution.
 ===Postdiscussion from straw poll===