Talk:County of Bute

Era of regions and districts

Wondering how the county area was accounted for during the era of regions and districts 1975 to 1996. Was it all within the Argyll and Bute district of the Strathclyde region? Laurel Bush 12:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC).

Yes, except Arran which was part of Cunninghame.

And the Cumbraes - in Cunninghame. Laurel Bush 09:21, 7 April 2006 (UTC).

Requested page move to Buteshire

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was no consensus, leaning against. —Nightstallion (?) ^{Seen this already?} 06:48, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

In the light of CheckUser findings, the result has been revised to don't move. —Nightstallion (?) ^{Seen this already?} 10:56, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

Survey

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

• Support - 'Bute' with no qualification should refer to just the island not the entire county. The island is less than one third of the total area of the county! Owain (talk) 17:07, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
• Support for the reasons above. Bute should redirect to Isle of Bute. Stringops 17:12, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose - I notice its the same guy going around trying to exploit wiki rules to push his agenda. Certainly, Bute should never be a redirect to Buteshire. Bute should be a redirect to Isle of Bute. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 22:13, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - then why are you opposing this move? If the move fails, then Bute will remain an article about Buteshire and not a redirect to the Isle of Bute. Stringops 22:56, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
    • I'm voting on the proposal, nothing else. Bute should not be a redirect to Buteshire. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 23:10, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
      • This is my proposal and, as I've already stated, I think Buteshire should be the home of the article about the county, and this namespace (Bute should redirect to Isle of Bute. How can you oppose moving the article about the county (currently at Bute) elsewhere and also state than Bute should redirect to Isle of Bute? Where would you like to see this article - in Bute (county) or County of Bute? Although I favour Buteshire, either of these would still be an improvement in my view. Stringops 18:07, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. If the nominators succeed in getting England moved to Englandshire then I may reconsider. --Mais oui! 22:15, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose Well, User:Mais oui! exagerrates, but moves to Devonshire, Dorsetshire and Somersetshire seem like a good start, and User:Owain edited at least one of those without asking for them to be moved; Hansard, and how much more official can we get, uses the County of Bute in 1830-1832, which is a reasonable indication of official usage 1708-1889; Game Over. Angus McLellan (Talk) 22:45, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - Google hits for Buteshire, 324,000/ Google hits for the 'official' county of bute, 607. I feel Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) is relevant here: "When choosing a name for a page ask yourself: What word would the average user of the Wikipedia put into the search engine?" Stringops 22:56, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
    • That is a bogus comparison. Bute + county produces 1,580,000 Google hits. You should rely less on chart-compiling and start learning a bit more about Scottish society. --Mais oui! 22:59, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
      • And that's another highly specious response. As i've already stated, searches without specificity are worthless. Without quotes, Bute nation produces 1,710,000 results. So is Bute therefore a nation? Stringops 23:09, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - As has been pointed out elsewhere "County of X" and "X-shire" are equivalent. Given that all counties in the mid 19th century were generally referred to as "County of X" in an official capacity, this proves nothing. Owain (talk) 18:56, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose - This is a simply not how we refer to things. These are not English shires, they are historic Scottish counties. This is akin to renamingh Ulster Ulstershire,simply because Ulster's currently in the U.K. Canaen 23:55, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose - Aberdeenshire is the shire of Aberdeen. Buteshire is not the shire of Bute. -- Derek Ross | Talk 03:20, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - Buteshire is the shire of the Isle of Bute. Do you think most people wanting information of the Isle of bute will search for a)Bute or b)"Isle of bute"? I think the former. Stringops 18:02, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose An Siarach
• Support - Buteshire is less much less ambiguous and Bute should be either a disambig page or a redirect to the Isle of Bute. Laurel Bush 10:19, 6 April 2006 (UTC).
• Support -- Avoids ambiguity with the island. MonMan 21:14, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

There seems to be a pretty clear consensus against this move, although there is some support. I'd suggest that those interested in a move come up with a specific proposal for what the names and topics of the articles Bute, Isle of Bute and Buteshire should be, and bring that up again. As for this, I'm considering that it does not have consensus to be done, and rm'ing the {{move}} tag. JesseW, the juggling janitor 02:45, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Ambiguity of "Bute"

County of Bute is currently available as a name space. If Bute were moved there then the Bute name space could be used for a disambiguation page, referring to County of Bute and Isle of Bute. Laurel Bush 09:27, 7 April 2006 (UTC).

Are we absolutely certain that this particular administrative subdivision was always a "county". As far as I am aware this self-same subdivision was a sheriffdom prior to, and alongside, being created a county in 1890 (and did it have other administrative functions too?). If it was a sheriffdom for several centuries, but a county for only 85 years (1890 - 1975), then why would Wikipedia want to label it as a "county"? That is a classic historiographical error: concentrating far, far too much on late history, and ignoring the historical context. Therefore may I suggest that Bute (administrative area) would be a more appropriate title. (Or, if we want to be really bang-up-to-date and modern: Bute (registration county), as that is its only extant use.)

Either way, Bute should definitely be a Redirect to Isle of Bute, with a disambiguation header there for this page. This page is by far the less required of the two: when someone types in "Bute" they want the Isle of Bute in 99% of cases, not this article about a registration county and historical admin division. So, you are correct in identifying that a page move is necessary.--Mais oui! 10:24, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, upon reflection, should it not be the other way around? Should we not be moving Isle of Bute to here, Bute? Who calls any of the "Isles of foo", "Isle of..." - we all just use the actual name of the island. Note where Isle of Harris, Isle of Lewis, Isle of Jura, Isle of Islay, Isle of Coll, Isle of Tiree, Isle of Eigg, Isle of Muck, Isle of Raasay, Isle of Rum, Isle of Canna, Isle of Kerrera etc. etc. redirect to. But also note the odd exceptions: Isle of Mull, Isle of Arran, Isle of Gigha, Isle of Skye. Weird! --Mais oui! 10:39, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

The argument above against County of Bute looks to me like a good one in favour of Buteshire. Bute is ambiguous, and this ambiguity issue can not be resolved without moving the article somewhere. And to use Bute as title for the article Isle of Bute would be to swap one ambiguity for another. Laurel Bush 11:28, 7 April 2006 (UTC).

It was not an argument against County of Bute, if that is truly what the article is about (ie. the county which existed between 1890 and 1975). I was proposing a more accurate name if we want to try to present to readers an accurate presentation of the nature of this historic subdivision of the country (which is far, far more than the Victorian neologism "county"). I would be quite happy to see it at County of Bute as long as that is all that the article is about. One place it certainly should not be is the utterly appalling "Buteshire" (sic). Bleuuuch. Montanashire, Bavariashire, Harrisshire, Franceshire anyone? --Mais oui! 14:14, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

As I've already stated, I'm in favour of any move that puts the article about the county in some more specific place than just Bute. Buteshire is more likely to be searched more than County of Bute, and would be therefore better in terms of naming guidelines, but either would be an improvement on the current location. Just because you personally don't use the term doesn't stop it from being the most commonly-used term for the article's subject. I do agree, though, that a redirect to Isle of Bute or a disambiguation page is the best thing for the Bute namespace. Stringops 16:44, 7 April 2006 (UTC) P.s. I'd also be quite happy to see Bute (registration county) in addition to wherever Buteshire ends up.

OK. I have moved the article to its current location, and I have turned its previous location into a disambig page. As regards the latter, it looks to me now to be long overdue: I have been finding numerous articles linking to Bute when they should be linking to Isle of Bute, or where what they should be linking to really isnt clear from context (and should be left linking to the disambig page until someone with better knowledge can decide otherwise). Laurel Bush 10:51, 10 April 2006 (UTC).

Also I have created Bute (county) as a redirect to County of Bute, because it is easier to pipetrick. (No need to retype "Bute" after "Bute (county)|".) Laurel Bush 11:02, 10 April 2006 (UTC).