Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography/Archive 2

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents 1 Suburbs and villages etc. 2 Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team cooperation 3 New stubs 4 UK infoboxes linking to UK 5 How to write about towns and villages 6 New template 7 OpenStreetMap invites this project to a party 7.1 Rutland wanted list 7.2 Update 8 Place-name meanings 9 miles (km) 10 New infobox maps option 11 Info Box - Llandudno and other Welsh Towns 12 Wow... 13 Update 14 Potential sub-project - King George's Fields 15 Congratulations to Weymouth 16 Is Corsham a B-Class article yet? 17 Contradictory guidance about infoboxes 18 Use of the England place infobox in Cornwall articles 19 Milton Keynes 20 Project directory 21 Shaw and Crompton 22 UK places coords 23 'Borough of X' versus 'X (borough)' 24 Bath 25 Categories - Natives of/People from 26 Wigan and surrounding areas 27 Hyde, Greater Manchester 28 Duplicate categories? 29 WikiProject 30 Image:Flag_of_England_(bordered).svg —vs— Image:Flag_of_England.svg 31 Category Naming 32 Proposed Project (or sub-project) for Cheshire 33 Wikipedia Day Awards

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:

1. Status quo - no rigid definitions, lots of ambiguity, possibly lots of arguments over boundaries but allows flexibility where needed and requires no clean-up.
2. 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).
3. Use postcode areas to define suburbs etc.

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

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)

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)

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)

• 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)

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! Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 18:40, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

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:

• Hornby, Richmondshire
• Graythorpe
• Wath, North Yorkshire
• Hunton, North Yorkshire
• West Hauxwell

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

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)

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

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)

In what manner does these edits suggest that England, Scotland and Wales are not countries? --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 17:47, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I have been encouraging people writing about Cheshire in the Cheshire Project to include the Latitude and Longitude of the places in the InfoBox (for example, as used in the Haslington entry.) This then leads to a different map, which I personally think is a bit nicer on the eye than the current colours, and the contrast is improved, I think. It does, however, have a disadvantage in being slightly less accurate, because the dot used seems larger. Is there any view about which style of InfoBox should be used? How easy might it be to vary this style of InfoBox to include thumbnails of the county and the settlement's position within that county thumbnail, for example?  DDStretch  (talk) 03:40, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

How to write about towns and villages

I'm working on a guide, here, if anybody has any suggestions. Joe D (t) 10:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The example is fine for somewhere like Northampton, where there is no controversy over its county. For anywhere where the ceremonial county does not match the administrative arrangements and/or historic county a far more workable consensus is to leave any mention of the county until after the physical geography. The first sentence would describe the location in terms of physical geography and uncontroversial terms, then a second sentence would give the administrative/ceremonial county first and then the historic one, if different. Examples of this include Hull and Totley (there are better examples but I can't think of them). Yorkshire Phoenix 10:18, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

This has already been thrashed out: see Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(places)#Counties_of_Britain. --Mais oui! 10:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd welcome this guidance especially about unitary authorities where the council is not in a county eg Bath and North East Somerset is not in Somerset as far as local councils etc is concerned - but parts of it are geographically & historically. Another problem is where other organisations use different areas/boundaries examples include; English Nature is the designating body for SSSI in England, and uses the 1974-1996 county system (Metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties of England), so sites which "should" be in List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset are in List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Avon and English Heritage which uses another system List of English Heritage properties uses "Bristol & Bath" ie the old Avon - I find this all confusing & I'm sure other users do as well - so clear guidance would be useful. — Rod ^talk 10:38, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps this discussion could be continued on the sub-page talk. --Blisco 11:56, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

New template

For talk pages to serve the following purposes:

• categorise articles according to WP 1.0
• add to do lists
• advertise the project

{{WPUKgeo|
quality=start
|priority=low
|todo=
|map=yes/no
|pop=yes/no
|infobox=yes/no
|photo=County
}}

Where quality and priority are defined here and here. "map", "pop" and "infobox" refer to whether the article has a map, population data and infobox, and puts those without in a category. If you set photo it will add to the requested photos category for that county. Joe D (t) 12:24, 22 August 2006 (UTC) (edited 12:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC), 15:08, 25 August 2006 (UTC))

I am a big fan of {{WPUKgeo}}. What is the photo parameter for? It doesn't seem to do anything. I have also left a request at Template talk:WPUKgeo --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 13:37, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

OpenStreetMap invites this project to a party

Hi Folks. OpenStreetMap are having a mapping party in Rutland over the weekend of October 14/15, 2006. Our plan is to make a map of the whole county in a weekend. We currently expect around 10 to 20 people to be there.

I'd like to invite members of this project, and any other Wikipedian who reads this, to come along and join the fun. You don't need any special skills or equipment and anyone to turns up could choose to help with the mapping or just add some more content to the pages about Rutland and it's villages on Wikipedia.

More details are at http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/WikiProject_Rutland_England.

80N 15:34, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Rutland wanted list

There are at least a dozen people from OpenStreetMap who will be on the ground in Rutland next weekend for the mapping party. Rutland is COTM for October. If anyone needs specific information, photographs or anything else about the county, or any of its towns or villages please list your needs here. 80N 10:25, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

• A representative photograph of every village in the county. 80N 10:25, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Have a look at Geograph (link) before you go. Most of the county, at least as far as villages go, seems to be fairly well covered, and the images can be reused on Wikipedia under the Creative Commons licence. --Blisco 10:44, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

• The name, denomination and a photo of each village's church. 80N 10:25, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
• I might not make it, depending on how much work I manage to get through before then. Looking through the Rutland category I see:
  • Tolethorpe Hall, grid reference TF023104
  • Hambleton Peninsula
  • Oakham to Kettering Line
  • Luffenham Heath
  • RAF Cottesmore -- dunno if an encyclopedic photo is possible though
  • Eyebrook Reservoir
  • Vale of Catmose
  • RAF North Luffenham
  • Oakham School
  • Uppingham School
• Joe D (t) 10:45, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Presumably anything in the Places of Interest section which doesn't have an entry/photo ie:

Barnsdale Gardens Burley on the Hill Clipsham Hall Lyddington Bede House Normanton Hall Oakham Buttercross Oakham "Castle"

Rutland County Museum, Oakham Rutland Railway Museum, Cottesmore Rutland Water Tolethorpe Hall Wardley Wood Whissendine Windmill

— Rod ^talk 15:39, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Update

There was an excellent turnout for the weekend. We got GPS logs for virtually every road. So far 30 out of ~50 villages have been comprehensively mapped, including both towns - Oakham and Uppingham. I have a few photos, but had battery problems, so not as many as I would have hope to get. I'll update the appropriate villages pages as and when I get some time. We are doing Surrey Hills next weekend if anyone is interested. 80N 22:55, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Place-name meanings

If anyone wants me to, I'll do place-name meanings in the articles, this could be helpful. --TheM62Manchester 10:22, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

miles (km)

Have we got it written down anywhere that we use miles first (and km second) for UK articles? Mrsteviec 19:02, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

If not, then we should! Owain (talk) 19:19, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the Wikipedia wide policy is that we have distances in both metric and imperial, but which comes first is an issue for individual pages (somebody may come and prove me wrong on this though). Unless anybody objects (I don't) you can add this to the county and settlement guidelines. Joe D (t) 21:07, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Well considering roadsigns across the UK are marked in miles, I think that's the way the articles relating to places should be. To include kilometres in brackets should be optional, or standard. But certainly miles first. --Mal 06:12, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I was under the impression that it was "miles (km)" by convention as the road signs in the UK use miles. I've been reverting an anon IP who has been swapping the two around and wanted some guidance to point to. It looks like we don't have such a thing yet. Mrsteviec 07:26, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Is there a UK-related Manual of Style in existence? --Mal 15:19, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

New infobox maps option

I have added a new maps option to {{Infobox England place}} (others may wish to copy it to the other UK infoboxes). The new fields:

 |LocalMap=        Dorset
 |LocalMapX=       110
 |LocalMapY=       50
 |UKMapX=          72
 |UKMapY=          140

Can be used instead of the Map, Image or MapX/Y fields. You can see it at work on Wimborne Minster.

A few notes:

• This uses {{GBthumb2}}, which is a smaller thumbnail than that used for the MapX/Y fields, therefore it will require different coordinates.
• The local map is named "{{{LocalMap}}}4dot.png". So far I have only made a map for Dorset. If you wish to use this in your local area you may need to make a map. I modified the numbered districts map for the ceremonial county found on the county's page -- quick and easy.
• I don't have the software to save .SVG files. Somebody might like to convert the maps and modify {{UKcountythumb}} accordingly?

Joe D (t) 15:44, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Will this work for places in Northern Ireland? --Mal 00:38, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Not yet, this is just the English Infobox. However, the code can be copied to the other home nations infoboxes (might need modifying: I'm not sure if all of NI and Scotland are covered by the map -- certainly Shetland is cut off). Joe D (t) 12:29, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Info Box - Llandudno and other Welsh Towns

I am an English speaking editor and resident of Llandudno but (like most of us) I know perfectly well how to pronounce the name of that town. If a reader is a trained linguist he may also know how to pronounce it. However, if in doubt the IPA may well be a help in pointing an inquirer towards correct pronunciation. At the moment this occasionally valuable information tends to occupy that crucial first paragraph of many articles about places outside England (or even within). It would therefore be a very great help to have a place for 'pronunciation' in the info box, Is this possible? NoelWalley 19:02, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I've worked out the code you'd need to add, I think. I haven't added it or tested it because I'm not entirely sure where would be the best place to put it. I don't think Wales is the only place that should have this field, many English towns and cities already have IPA in their articles.

  |-
  {{#if:{{{Pronunciation|}}}|{{!}}[[International Phonetic Alphabet|Pronunciation]]:{{!}}{{{Pronunciation}}} }}
  |-

Joe D (t) 19:36, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that, there doesn't seem to be a best place. Perhaps following 'historic county' under 'other' might be suitable? Regards NoelWalley 07:54, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Wow...

I see the schools are back. The amount of twelve year olds vandalising articles about their home towns has shot up today ;) -- Joe D (t) 16:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Try being told off by your school because you created an article on them... -- Dev920 23:12, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Did they really tell you off for that? I think your teachers should learn a bit about wikipedia. Tell them to read the Wikipedia:Schools FAQ. -- Nojer2 15:28, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Update

Given it is now September, might it be a good idea to update your proposed goals by June on your front page? Dev920 23:12, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Potential sub-project - King George's Fields

I was wondering about being bold and simply listing a comparatively minor potential sub-project - Wikipedia:WikiProject King George's Fields - on the main project page. But two things struck me. The first that it would be impolite to assume that this project would be at all interested in having a sub-project, and the second was that I was not sure quite where to list it.

The project is a mixture of history and geography. The King George's Fields, themselves are a monument, are a huge monument, to the UK's King George V. They are geographically dispersed, and there are 471 of them in the UK, with a very few in foreign climes. I have realised the enormity of trying to do this all myself, though have made reasonable progress. I am currently developing the project page itself, so thee will be a few edits to it to get it set up properly.

Even if you do not feel that it has a place here as a sub-project you may wish individually to put some time towards it. Fiddle Faddle 18:38, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

This looks like a very good candidate for a sub-project. Go ahead and get it started. If you want maps for it you could create a special project on OpenStreetMap as well. Here's the place to set up projects for special subjects: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/OpenStreetMap:Community_Portal#Specialised_Subjects. 80N 10:14, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I am started. I have also left a message on the Openstreet,ap talk page asking for help with protocol (etc) there There are only so many wikis one can play with. Fiddle Faddle 11:33, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations to Weymouth

On a successful Good Article review. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 13:33, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Is Corsham a B-Class article yet?

Last month, Corsham was tagged as stub-class by WP 1.0 quality criteria. Steinsky and I made some major upgrades in the last 24 hours. I am not sure if there is a process for upgrading it to a B-Class, so I just changed the tag (at Talk:Corsham). However, as I was a contributing editor, that is a conflict of interest, so perhaps a WikiProject UK geography member would like to take a look. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 13:47, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Contradictory guidance about infoboxes

The Resources and guidelines, Guidelines section has contradictory advice about infoboxes. There is a link to Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements, which recommends the use of Template:Infobox England place. The section also recommends the use a different infobox on Talk:List of places in England. Alan Pascoe 22:42, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

No-one appears to have a view on this matter, so I'll go ahead and make the changes needed to remove the inconsistencies. Alan Pascoe 14:22, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Use of the England place infobox in Cornwall articles

There is a discussion taking place on Talk:Cornwall about the use of the England place infobox in Cornwall articles. Alan Pascoe 20:27, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Milton Keynes

Oddly, the Milton Keynes article hasn't been rated. It would be great to get it up to FA in time for its 40th birthday in January 2007, but that needs to start with a list of what needs to change to get it there. Comments welcome at Talk:Milton Keynes --Concrete Cowboy 17:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 17:32, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm interested in joining the UK geo project - specifically for editting articles in Greater Manchester. However, is this project effectively defunkt (hope that does not offend if it is not)? I'm seeing little progress being made, and alot of the tasks etc are outdated. This leads me to believe this project needs a push and a little leadership being taken. Jhamez84 23:07, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Shaw and Crompton

Further to my comment above... I've contributed significantly and worked hard on the UK geo article that is Shaw and Crompton town in Greater Manchester. I would like it to become a good article and have requested a peer review to improve the article. The response has been poor to say the least... I'm hoping the UK geo project would be more interested in leaving feedback with regards to how to improve this article further. Hope someone is willing to help (and may sway my opinion as to my comments above the S&C subtitle), Jhamez84 23:11, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

UK places coords

These Lists of United Kingdom locations by name contain coordinates , with Template:Coor title d these can add geographical links to any pages on UK locations. GameKeeper 22:27, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

'Borough of X' versus 'X (borough)'

There is an attempt to create a consensus for a change in the present custom on names of Borough articles at Wikipedia talk:List of English districts to disambiguate. Please contribute. --Concrete Cowboy 21:33, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Bath

Bath is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy (Talk) 19:07, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Bath lost it's featured article status - there is now a survey on Talk:Bath about renaming the city to either "Bath (city)" or "Bath, Somerset" to enable the thing you wash in to have the article title "Bath". Those with expertise in UK naming conventions might wish to vote/comment.— Rod ^talk 14:20, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Categories - Natives of/People from

I would like to initiate discussion about these categories. A large number have been created covering settlements, such as Category:People from Loughton. I have been updating these, using a template, so they get included in Category:Natives of Essex etc. and Category:People by city or town in England. This mix of Natives of/People from is less than satisfactory as they have different meanings. I would like to hear views on how they should be arranged. MRSC • Talk 23:39, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, in general "natives of" has been used for counties and "people from" for towns. No idea why, but "natives of" may be appropriate for both. "People from" can also cover "once lived there", which isn't really a useful categorisation. -- Necrothesp 23:54, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

In which case a switch to "Natives of" would need a thorough check of all people in categories such as Category:People from London. MRSC • Talk 00:02, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Indeed it would. I have already gone through the cats for Merseyside, Greater Manchester, West Midlands, Tyne and Wear, Cheshire, Lancashire, Warwickshire and Cornwall and all their subcats and done just this, removing people who just live(d) in a town or county but did not grow up there. -- Necrothesp 00:15, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Great. I am happy to change over to a totally "natives of" scheme and filter through the London cat. Let's give it a little time to see if there are any other voices. MRSC • Talk 00:31, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

From what I've seen, in general editors have already been adhering to this policy. I didn't have to remove a great number of people from the categories I checked through. I don't think it will be a difficult thing to implement (although obviously some editors will continue to add articles to inappropriate cats - that can't be stopped completely). -- Necrothesp 00:54, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Just a thought. Take Madonna. She is most certainly not a native of London but it could be stated that she is from London, as she lives there. Could a better split be People born in X and People who reside(d) in X? Regan123 12:51, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Definately not a native of London & according to the article about her she lives at Ashcombe House, in Wiltshire - therefore not "from London" either. But on a more serious note how long does someone have to live in an area for them to be "from" - could get messy and difficult— Rod ^talk 13:37, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I thought she had lived in London - don't keep up with Heat etc :-) That is an issue but this is an interesting problem. What would be the dividing line? Should there be a timescale - a month, year, 2? I don't know the answer but individuals could be added to these categories.

The easiest solution is to just put people who were born in an area and not have a from category. Therefore should we change these to People Born in X? But does that cause a problem with people born in one town but actually from another? As an example people in Newcastle-under-Lyme are often born in the City General in Stoke-on-Trent. Where are they from then? Regan123 13:47, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I think anyone who was born in a town or brought up in a town (i.e. lived there for at least a few years at any time until they left school) can be reasonably categorised as a native of that town. People identify with the place in which they were raised more than any other (I certainly identify more with the place I spent most of my childhood than with the place I was born or any place I've lived since). That's certainly how I've been applying the categorisation. So, in answer to your question, both Newcastle-under-Lyme and Stoke-on-Trent, since both could, I think, legitimately claim them. -- Necrothesp 11:02, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to leave it a little while longer, and if no serious objections are raised, I will begin migrating the categories to a "Natives of..." scheme. MRSC • Talk 07:20, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I would just like to add that I agree that all 'People from...' categories should become 'Natives of...' (and the entries sorted out accordingly). This makes things much clearer. 'Native' has a definite meaning. 'From' is much too vague. However, I still think that categories for people who lived in a place are very useful. There are Scottish categories for both Category:People associated with Scotland by council area and Category:Scottish people by council area (and sub-categories for towns and cities). The latter are the natives (although some sub-categories unfortunately use 'People from...'). This seems like the way to go for English and Welsh counties too. Verica Atrebatum 16:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

While I agree that "Natives" may be clearer, I think it would risk losing some important information. If somebody who wasn't born or brought up in a particular place but later adopts it as their home town, I think they should be included in the category. There's a danger of over-defining things here. As an encyclopaedia we need to reflect what actually happens, and to exclude the "adoption" of home towns would be wrong in my opinion. It could even be seen as discriminatory. Waggers 11:15, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

This should only be done if it can be shown that the person really does identify more with their current home area than with their place of birth/childhood and has lived there for a long time. Otherwise we'll have well-known people categorised under every place they ever lived by obsessive partisans of that place (of whom there sadly seem to be rather a lot on Wikipedia), and that would make the categorisation pointless in my opinion. -- Necrothesp 11:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Hence why we have to stick to the strict meaning of native, beacuse everyone knows what that means and it is unambiguous. If 'Natives of...' (in their correct meaning) are not the categories you wish to create, use a different word or phrase. Changing the word's meaning is not helpful, it is confusing. If we do stick with 'Natives of...', I still believe that an equivalent 'People associated with...' category should also be created, as with the Scottish categories. People who adopt a town or were accidentally or by NHS design born outside the place they consider themselves to be 'from' may be included in one of these. Verica Atrebatum 15:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm up for that, sounds like a good compromise - although you could arguably merge "natives" and "associates" into "people from" (why have two categories when you can have one) and we'd be back to the status quo. I think the "NHS design" thing is interesting too - essentially it says that anywhere that doesn't have a hospital with a maternity unit would have no natives (apart from home-births and those that didn't get to the hospital in time etc.). I'm not convinced such a distinction would be helpful. Take Benny Hill for instance - born in Southampton (the nearest maternity unit) but to a family who lived in Eastleigh, brought up in Eastleigh, had a milk round in Eastleigh, from Eastleigh. I think calling him a "native of Southampton" would be misleading. Waggers 10:10, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

The NHS thing has also crossed my mind but also the effect of the post towns on the geography used to describe where people are from. Another issue has come up that has delayed any action on this: There are some categories that contain people by local government district such as, apparently Category:People from Knowsley. I really don't think using post-74 local government districts is a good way to categorise people (especially retrospectively). I propose we remove these and either find the individual settlement for each person or move them up to the county-level "natives of". MRSC • Talk 18:47, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Wigan and surrounding areas

Some of you may be aware of the current mess and ciruclar editing going on with Wigan, Billinge and associated famous people being from/not from the area. I am trying to resolve them by spliting Wigan and Metropolitan Borough of Wigan which I believe is appropriate. The issue is that anon IP after anon IP is basically changing the entries to whatever their POV is. I would try and engage in a constructive debate, but seeing as people have been called "prat" and so on, it would just go around in circles again. I would like to achieve a consesus so that we can stop this circular editing, and wondered if any other editors had an opinion? Regan123 23:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the issues are with Wigan, but we've had similar problems with the "Notable people from Southampton" list. There was already a Sotonians category, and the list on the Southampton article was overly long and unwieldly, and in danger of duplicating the category. We achieved concensus on the talk page to keep the list on the article as short as we could, possibly rotating through some of the people in the category. We placed a note in the article code to that effect, stating that any additions to the list should be discussed on the talk page first and achieve concensus. Any changes to the list without discussion are treated as vandalism and reverted. This approach seems to work fairly well. Waggers 11:10, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I have been trying to get a compromise going but every time we get close some edits are made and the whole cycle starts again. Apart from continuing to wikify articles there is an ongoing circular edit war going on. Neither side is prepared to compromise and I don't think they will agree to an arbitration. Are there some experienced editors who could come over to Talk:Wigan and lend a hand? Thanks, Regan123 22:40, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Hyde, Greater Manchester

Please come to Talk: Hyde, Greater Manchester and give your views on the proposed move. -- Beardo 16:58, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Duplicate categories?

Hi. I found a couple categories that appear to be redundant, but I thought it might be a good idea to run it past you guys before nominating them for a merger. There's Category:History of England by locality and also the more recently created Category:Histories of cities in England. Should they be merged? If so, which one should stay? - EurekaLott 17:21, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't disagree with a merger. History of England by locality strikes me as the one that should survive. Regan123 17:36, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

In the interests of demonstrating consensus, I agree totally with Regan123. Waggers 09:54, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Is this going ahead? --Regan123 01:08, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject

Just a query, is this WP:UK or only about the geography...? Simply south 23:25, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

It depends how strict you're being about the definition of "geography" - the project includes articles about places (cities, towns, villages etc.) which include historical, cultural and other sections, as well as purely geographical features (hills, mountains, rivers, etc.). The project doesn't cover articles on British people, organisations or event (other than those which are included in geographical articles of course) so is not WP:UK. Those are all my perceptions, other editors may think differently. Hope that helps, Waggers 09:52, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Image:Flag_of_England_(bordered).svg —vs— Image:Flag_of_England.svg

Hi - I've been trying to go through various articles and (mainly) templates to see if Image:Flag_of_England_(bordered).svg should replace Image:Flag_of_England.svg - it's very time-consuming as I don't have any special software like popups or know how to program a bot. If anyone does, please could you give me a hand - thanks!! — superbfc [ talk | cont ] — 01:21, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Category Naming

Interested editors may like to look at Category Talk:Merseyside, where there is a discussion ongoing about how to name categories for local government districts.Regan123 14:23, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposed Project (or sub-project) for Cheshire

I hope I haven't trodden on any toes by doing this, but I took as a precedent the project about Cornwall. I've listed a proposed project concerning Cheshire on Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals. I think it can easily co-exist with this project, which I would not want to diminish or withdraw from myself at all. If you are interested in contributing to this, please add your name to list at the appropriate place. If you think it might be better placed as a sub-project of this project, please say so, and let us discuss it. Many thanks. _DDStretch talk 17:39, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Given the support shown, I thought it useful to create an initial project page for Cheshire. It can be seen here. Obviously, I think it will be necessary for any project to continue to liase with this and other related projects, and so I was wondering what to do about the templates currently created by this project which are specific to Cheshire? Could someone just move them over to the Cheshire project? Once again, I do not want to cause any disagreement between this project and the Cheshire project at all. DDStretch (talk) 22:04, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 21:11, 29 December 2006 (UTC)