Wikipedia talk:UK Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 13

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Request for comment about units in UK in the MOS

There is currently a discussion about how to handle units of measurement in UK-related articles. To be fair, this discussion should involve as many UK editors as possible. As UK editors would have the best perceptive and should have the most input on how UK articles are handled. The discussion is found here in the MOSNUM Regards, —MJCdetroit (talk) (an American on the Canadian border) 03:10, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposal - views sought

A discussion is taking place over whether to merge Flag of the United Kingdom and Union Flag, and which article should be merged into which. (A related discussion is also taking place over the name of the article Union Flag, specifically whether it should be Union Jack.)

View are welcome. --sony-youthpléigh 02:23, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I am surprised that the Union Flag article does not have the template for this project. Brunnian (talk) 07:52, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Dadabhai Naoroji

I find this incredibly frustrating, but I cannot see how to add your project tag to the talkpage for Dadabhai Naoroji. He was elected to Parliament in 1892 (yes, not 1982) and his article deserves some attention. Could you please tag it or add it to your list, and for my own education, please could you explain how to add your project banner or whatever it is called. BrainyBabe (talk) 19:29, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

naming convention for churches?

Is there a naming convention for churches (buildings, rather than denominations)? Or even, more specifically, for UK (anglican) (parish) churches? I can see nothing in [[WP:NAME]. Looking at Category:United Kingdom church stubs (OK, so it's stubs rather than established articles, but shows a wider range than other cats I could find) shows a nightmare. "Church of" or not? "St" or "St."? "St Name" or "St Name's"? "St Name Town" or "St Name, Town"? The "DEFSORT"s for those churches must be a wide variety too, seeing how it sorts. I can't find a naming convention, but it seems unlikely that this hasn't been thrashed out somewhere. Any ideas? PamD (talk) 09:42, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I think there's some telepathy going on here! This was raised at Talk:Grade_I_listed_buildings_in_Greater_Manchester#Naming_convention within the last week or so. I've approached the Wikipedia:WikiProject Anglicanism with this but there was little desire to follow it up there. I do think this should be looked at and codified however. -- Jza84 · (talk) 13:31, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I had some similar discussions when doing Churches in Bristol and most of Category:Churches in Somerset which include both "Church of St X" & "X church, parish" variants & 4 different churches named "Holy Trinity" each with different variants. I think much of the problem is because of "common usage" and the different ages in history when different conventions were adopted. It would be difficult to achieve standardisation when sources such as Pevsner & Images of England use different forms of the titles. The category Category:Churches in the United Kingdom contains lots of examples of different types & also indicates something of the size of the task if someone takes on standardising the names of all of these.— Rod talk 13:51, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the reassurance that I haven't missed anything! I'm not sure about a new page which has been created for Headingley Parish Church, and wondered if there was a convention to quote. I'll have to argue "use the most common name of a person or thing" - though this leaves lots of options! Scope for a fistful of redirects, whatever we go for. PamD (talk) 15:45, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
The CofE website (and remember there will be variation between denominations!) uses the convention "PARISH, DEDICATION", so for example "East Crompton, St James" rather than the "Church of St James, East Crompton". We also have to consider that "PARISH" isn't the same as "PLACE", so would we want "Shaw and Crompton, St James", "St James, Shaw and Crompton", "St James, Greater Manchester" (which wouldn't be feasible because of duplication, or official), etc etc?
Then, (ordering aside) is it Saint, saint, St, St., or st? What about Church or church? Is it Parish Church or just church? Is it St James or St James's? What about cathedrals? Manchester Cathedral is an unofficial name for example!!! It's an absolute minefield! However, the longer this issue is left, the larger the task will be to standardise the system. A massive task it might be, but I do think we need something in place. -- Jza84 · (talk) 15:53, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Bristol Cathedral is officially "The Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity" & Bath Abbey is really "The Abbey Church of Saint Peter, Bath", so if you have "Cathedral Church of ...", then presumably "Parish Church of ..." works. But its Holy Trinity Church, Nailsea not "Church of the Holy Trinity". I don't think you can use St X's church because of examples such as Church of St Michael the Archangel, Compton Martin where the saint has something else after their name & Church of the Holy Ghost, Midsomer Norton doesn't have a "st" name in it. Is this supposed to cover Priories etc that als include a church? Are we proposing page moves to a consistent name or just recomending that the article includes the official name in a proscribed format? - as you say a bit of a nightmare.— Rod talk 16:09, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Have just found Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(names_and_titles)#Clerical_names, the last point of which says: "Cathedral and church names, unless they individually use something different, are written as St. not Saint. Hence St. Paul's Cathedral not Saint Paul's Cathedral, St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral not Saint Mary's Pro-Cathedral, etc. " - mandating use of a full stop after "St". Why? I was taught that you don't have a full stop after an abbreviation if the last letter is the last letter of the word, as it is here! PamD (talk) 17:04, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Then again, if you look at Category:Grade I listed churches, for a nice cross-section of notable churches, there are far more "St" than "St." in among a very varied collection of names . I think the most common form is "St A's Church, B". PamD (talk) 17:12, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) I believe you're right on the use of full stops. I don't think that's common at all in Britain. Though it's a helpful pointer, that naming convention certainly needs updating. Is anybody bold (or wise) enough to put together a proposal on that talk page for an update? -- Jza84 · (talk) 17:17, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I've been in some discussions about placing a dot after contractions before - it's conventional in the U.S., but uncommon in the UK. My favoured format would be either Dedication, Place as it can easily be used for church dedications which do not include a saint's name or Dedication Church, Place (with a possessive 's if it is dedicated to a saint). An exception should be where a church has a common name in a different format (e.g. Place Minster is fairly common in Yorkshire). Incidentally, a possible problem with using parish names is that some multi-church parishes have rather long names which are often little known. Warofdreams talk 10:36, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Have just found official sanction for either "St." or "St" at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (abbreviations), and full stops after abbreviations are discussed at Wikipedia:Mos#Acronyms_and_abbreviations PamD (talk) 14:38, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
A further need for clarity might be to realise that, as well as "parish" not being the same thing as "place" (as Jza84 stated), we must be clear whether we are meaning "civil parish" or "ecclesiastical parish". The two are not the same and are certainly not guaranteed to have the same name. In fact, "civil parish" may be more closely associated with "place" (and more often have the same name) than with "ecclesiastical parish". Trying our utmost to be clear about these distinctions may well have a bearing not only on the way in which the articles are named, but also on the text within the articles (i.e., being explicity about what kind of parish is being mentioned in the text, etc.)  DDStretch  (talk) 11:33, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Requesting assesment of Russia-United Kingdom relations

Hi, could someone from the project asses the Russia-United Kingdom relations article please, I'm thinking about working on it. Ryan4314 (talk) 21:50, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Warning on use of "This is <place>" as a source

Hi, just like to issue a warning on the use of references to articles published by the "This is <place>" series of newspapers in the UK. These sites remove the article contents after a period of 6 months while leaving the page layout intact (basicaly the adverts). The page link is effectivelly live but is of no use as to verifying the information it is intended to support in articles. They have also blocked archive of their material so the way back machine is of no use to recovering the original article. Keith D (talk) 14:27, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Good call on this. I've never used this, but will try to remove it if I come accross it. -- Jza84 · (talk) 23:19, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Reginald Maudling

Reginald Maudling has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. One Night In Hackney303 05:41, 15 February 2008 (UTC)


Alternative words for British

Alternative words for British is a bit of a mess and could use cleanup. -- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 17:20, 16 February 2008 (UTC)


Discussion about addition of Welsh names to articles about English settlements

There have been additions on a number of articles about English settelements, of what are said to be the Welsh names for the settlements. (I use "said to be", since I don;t know Welsh, and appropriate verification using citations for the additions are usually not supplied.) Since this has happened to a number of pages now (at least 4), and is ongoing, I think it best to refer people to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements#Addition of Welsh names to English articles and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements#Addition of Welsh names to English articles (2) where the matter is being discussed. There are a number of sub-issues, including (a) should the names be added? (b) if so, which settlements should have their Welsh names added? (c) How can the information be appropriately verified and cited if it is to be added? and (d) whereabouts in the article should it be added, if it is to be added at all? If you would like to take part in this debate and help reach some kind of consensus, then please feel free to take part.  DDStretch  (talk) 18:09, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:UKNATIONALS

Following from an extended discussion at "Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (biographies)" on how people from the United Kingdom should be described ("British", or "English", "[Northern] Irish", "Scottish" or "Welsh"), which did not result in consensus, an essay entitled "Wikipedia:Nationality of people from the United Kingdom" (WP:UKNATIONALS) has been prepared. You're welcome to provide your comments on how it can be improved at the talk page of "Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies)". — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 16:50, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

United Kingdom project banner

As things stand, several projects related to the UK do not have banners which allow them to engage in assessments of articles. Would the participants at this notice board object to having the project banner adjusted to provide separate assessments for these groups? The include projects or work groups for the geographical regions of Berkshire, Bermuda, Brighton, British Indian Ocean Territory, Cambridge, Cornwall, Devon, Gibraltar, Greater Manchester, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey, Leeds, Lincolnshire, Sheffield, West Midlands, and Yorkshire, and culture projects relating to the British Government, British Motorsport, British TV channels, British TV shows, and Music of the United Kingdom. John Carter (talk) 18:49, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Can you please explain what you are proposing here? As for the Yorkshire project we are already assessing articles. Keith D (talk) 20:07, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Sorry about the mistake there, I was going on the basis of an evidently flawed version of the directory which I'm in the process of updating. Basically, it would be possible to adjust the existing UK project banner, Template:WikiProject United Kingdom, to include separate assessments for any number of related projects, up to say 40 or so. With the exception of the one you mentioned, and I'd double-check before adding any others as well, the others don't, and it would be possible to set up the banner like, for instance, the Template:Football to include separate assessments for each of the projects which don't yet have assessments, maybe a few more as well, but probably not all of the UK projects. I could set up the various categories and such as well for the projects included in the new banner, if it were to be adjusted in this way. John Carter (talk) 20:12, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict)This proposal seems sensible to me. At WP:SOMERSET we have assessed all 1760 articles which are relevant to the county - but many also have WP:UK, WP:UKGEO &/or WP:England & this seems like duplication (as well as making for messy talk pages). I think the discussions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject reform (see various discussion in lower third of the page) show the way to go & even includes a discussion entitled "Let's start with Category:WikiProject United Kingdom" as an example of the place to start with rationalisation of the various wikiprojects. Could the project banner for the UK include parameters for counties - but if this is adopted please can a bot (or other method) adopt the assessments already done rather than having to go through them all again to reassess?— Rod talk 20:23, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
The banner can probably be adjusted to virtually anything, including incorporating the existing assessments from other banners. The only real reservation I have about trying to include all those projects which already have assessments is that, by my count, I see about 60 projects within the UK, many of which do not yet have assessments. That might be a bit more than the server can handle. I could try to set it up, but it would take a few days probably and I can't guarantee full results for everybody all at once, if at all. John Carter (talk) 20:29, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
It is not clear to me what the first sentence in the first paragraph is trying to say. However, there are Wikiprojects for Greater Manchester and West Midlands, e.g. wikipedia:WikiProject_Greater_Manchester and wikipedia:WikiProject_West Midlands. I sometimes edit articles with their assessments on the respective article talkpages.Pyrotec (talk) 20:48, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Like I said earlier, the list I'm working from is a bit outdated, and I'll check to verify that the first projects to be included don't already have assessments. Then, if there is still space in the template available, and individuals are interested in using the same banner, others might be added as circumstances permit. Also, much as I hesitate to say this, some of you might be interested in perhaps creating for the the regions of England not yet with separate projects: South West England, South East England, East Midlands, East of England, Yorkshire and the Humber, and North West England. I know that there are individual projects that deal with parts of those areas, but creation of a basic regional group might help, as it were, prevent the creation of further smaller projects later. John Carter (talk) 21:08, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Small projects is not necessarily a bad thing as editors may associate themselves with a county rather than a region & feel more able to contribute to a smaller area. If this proposal was to be taken forward I think other projects should be informed/invited to contribute ideas before any action is taken. As a minimum this should include all those listed as "UK related WikiProjects" on this notice board - but there may well be others for whom this proposal would be relevant & significant (eg the sub project hierarchcy on Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography as it seems to include some not on the first list.— Rod talk 21:15, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Each of the projects has a different area of focus and so why attempt to roll them all up into a single project/banner. The separate banners are no problem when wrapped in a banner shell. Each level of project (UK, Country, County, City) will have different priorities and focus and we should be spending our resources on each level assessing an article from their own standpoint and not combining things up into a single project. Keith D (talk) 21:27, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
There is a bit of a point above. It should be noted that it should be possible to allow each project, up to a point anyway, to provide its own individual importance assessment. However, quality assessments tend to be standard across boundaries, a stub being a stub whoever assesses it. Also, clearly, it won't be the case that many articles fall within the scope of more than, generally, three or four projects at the outside, so there won't be that many cases when different groups would each have enough interest in an article to assess it. John Carter (talk) 21:31, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Several edit conflict later. Those two examples date back to February and January 2007 respectively. However, I'm not sure that I agree that creating WP regions as a "blocking move" for smaller projects is a good way forward. Pre-1975 everything was county-based, well apart for Yorkshire which was split into four riddings. (Super) Regions such as Greater London, West Midlands and Greater Manchester were created because that was thought to be a good thing, but were later abolished by Margaret Thatcher because she could not control them. We now have some regions again. I'm sympathetic to creating WP regions, but not as a blocking move. I am a member of WP Somerset, amongst others, which I consider dose a good job, I would be against creating, e.g. WP South West England if its intended purpose is to block the creation of the relevant WP counties, such as WP Somerset, WP Devon, WP Cornwall, (WP Avon), etc, although many of these WP counties already exist.Pyrotec (talk) 21:33, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

(<--) I'd have no problem with a UK WikiProject, if, say, it was intended to better organise and tackle things like British nationality law, Union Flag, British people, Culture of the United Kingdom etc etc. With these things there is always some overlap with others (so United Kingdom also falls under WP:UKGEO for example) but that's no real problem, so long as we identify it. -- Jza84 · (talk) 21:39, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Two of my main interests are canals and railways. Articles such as canal and railway articles can have any combination of assessments from: UK Waterways, WP Trains, WP Transport in Scotland, WP Scotland, one or more WP county assessments, WP England and UK Geo. If its a road article, it can have WP country (England, Wales, Scotland), WP county(ies), WP roads and WPTIS assessments. I think User:Jza84 makes a valid point; but possibly the relationships between WP UK, the WP for UK regions and UK counties needs to be clarified. Is WP UK going to "claim" for instance every canal, railway line, railway station, road, bridge, river, power station, etc, etc, in the UK? Are we going add regions and Counties flags on top?Pyrotec (talk) 21:51, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree too with Pyrotec; whilst I support such a project, I think it's scope needs to be clearly defined. Though I think it could, should and would work alongside other projects, there is little to be gained by (re)tagging every locality, building, person or object associated or within the UK. -- Jza84 · (talk) 21:57, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict response) The banner would be set up in such a way that it would appear on the talk page like the Australia banner does on Talk:Sydney, or the Football template on Talk:Canadian Soccer Association, as examples. And please note that this notice board is the UK project, or at least is the page linked to from the Template:WikiProject United Kingdom. Regarding "overlapping scope", that would be a matter for the individual relevant groups to decide. John Carter (talk) 22:00, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
There are some local projects that have strong Anti-UK sentiments... (WP:SCOTLAND)... I think an amalgamated banner with those may face fierce opposition. -- Jza84 · (talk) 22:03, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) There are many cases where an article would be part of an area project but not part of the UK geography project. For example biographical articles that are relevant to the area but have nothing to do with geography. These articles are tagged with the area project banner but would not want to be tagged with the UK geography banner. Keith D (talk) 22:10, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Agreed to both of the above. Like I said earlier, the banner would only be able to accomodate a limited (large, but still limited) number of projects anyway. It would probably make most sense for the Scotland, and for that matter Wales and Northern Ireland, projects to not be included. Also, on a purely practical level, the banner might only be able to support the "England" projects and overseas regional projects anyway. John Carter (talk) 22:13, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
How are you proposing to handle the articles that fall into the area projects but not into the parent project which appears only geography related are there a separate template for these?
Also are we not getting into the problems of the biography project of having a very large top level project with several lower level work groups which causes problems for the bot having to go through the whole list twice and taking far too long to achieve a run. Keith D (talk) 22:29, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I happen to be a member of WP Scotland, but I'm not going to respond to those particularly points. I also happen to be a member of WP Transport in Scotland (or WPTIS for short) and we do (for instance) share a banner fairly often with WP trains - such as this one Talk:Ladybank railway station; and there is a UK link on the banner, but it is to UK trains not the UK. We could also add WP Scotland, WP Fife (if it exists) and WP UK bannerflags - but does it add anything? I'm not anti WP UK, it has a place, I'm just not sure that its banner flags needs to go everywhere, even if you choose to limit it to England. This one for instance Talk:South West Coast Path has three county WP's banner flags, does it really need need a UK WP and/or WP England, banner flag as well?22:41, 25 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pyrotec (talk • contribs)
If I might be so bold, the purpose of the proposed banner would be, in effect, to function as the banner for those projects which do not yet have such a banner, and to placed on articles which don't necessarily fall within the scope of any other projects, not to be the single banner for the entire country. I'm not sure if that point was necessarily understood earlier. Considering that every part of the main islands of the UK is already covered by either the England, Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland project, there would be no particular reason to place a redundant banner there.
So, in response to Keith, I honestly don't know exactly what your first question means, so I really can't answer it. Regarding the second, if it were wanted to make all the extant banners also provide assessment for the UK, and note I used the word if, that could be done. The problem at this point the Biography project has is basically due to the fact that it deals with roughly half a million articles. I have serious doubts that this single banner would ever get to that point. Also, I note that the simple fact that the banner says it is part of the UK project doesn't necessarily mean that all the articles would appear in a single statistics page. It isn't required that the banner necessarily place every article in a single "UK articles by x" group of categories.
In response to Pyrotec, I think you're making assumptions which aren't necessarily indicated as well. Like I said, the purpose of this banner would not necessarily be to be a banner which would necessarily be placed on every article relative to the UK, only to really function for those projects which don't already have assessments, basically being placed on those articles which fall within a field not already covered by another project. Potentially, in the future, if the banner can be made to support it, perhaps it might be able to support separate assessments for every possible UK project, but I personally doubt it. So, in that sense, the banner would only be placed on any article if the article fell within the scope of one of the projects specifically using that banner. The other project banners wouldn't necessarily be changed at all. John Carter (talk) 01:20, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Would there be any objections to altering the existing Template:WikiProject United Kingdom in the way described above? John Carter (talk) 21:57, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I would support such a move (on the understanding this would be to better organise those topics directly related to the UK - which I believe is the proposal). -- Jza84 · (talk) 22:01, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
That's the idea, realizing that it is to deal with all the UK, including the parts not on the main islands. If requested, I could also alter the other extant banners which do assessments, and, at the request of the individual projects, try to add some to the main UK WikiProject banner, but the first step would be to provide assessments for any UK projects which want assessments which don't already have them. John Carter (talk) 22:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I still cannot see what you are trying to achieve here. Why are you not doing it the other way round. For those projects that have banners that do not have assessments enabled just change those project banners to incorporate assessments. I think you need to explain in much more detail what you are proposing before making any changes. Keith D (talk) 22:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Date of formation of the United Kingdom?

After much debate, the editors of the United Kingdom article seem to have settled on 1707 as being the foundation of the state (I note with concern though that this date lacks any external referencing, per official Wikipedia policy WP:VERIFY).

But this article - List of countries by formation dates - claims that the UK was actually founded in 1603 (again, completely unreferenced). Both articles cannot be correct, so which is it? Please come to the party armed with some proper external refs, because I am not sure if we can stomach yet another verbally diarrhetic Talk page splurge with largely consists of ad hominem attacks and statements of totally unsourced opinion. --Mais oui! (talk) 23:17, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Both dates are kind-of right (and so, arguably, are a few others) - it depends on what is being meant by the words "formation" and "country". In 1603, the crowns of England and Scotland were joined into a personal union when James VI of Scotland also became King of England as James I; but the two nations (& crowns) remained separate until that Acts of Union 1707, which created the new nation state of the Kingdom of Great Britain. By another Act of Union, this was replaced by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801, which lasted until 1922, when following Irish independence, the remaining UK became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This has also been raised at Talk:List of countries by formation dates#United Kingdom. -- AJR | Talk 01:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the comments made by AJR; I would also amplify those comments by pointing out that in deciding the date of formation everyone must be clear what is meant by "UK", is it the UK of Great Britain, UK of Great Britain and Ireland, or UK of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? Possibly these arguments over date(s) of formation arise due to unstated assumptions about what is meant by UK; it would also (partially) address the concerns raised by Mais oui!.Pyrotec (talk) 19:55, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Ah i see Mas Oui is on the ball as usual and has picked up on the nonsense going on at List of countries by formation dates alraedy. However the situation is worse now than before. 1603 would be bad enough but User:TharkunColl is now attempting to enforce an edit which places the formation of the United Kingdom at 927 under Athelstan. siarach (talk) 11:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Request to merge English & British monarchs list

A discussion at List of British monarchs is currently taking place. All opinons are welcomed. GoodDay (talk) 17:10, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Scotland's Map

I'm still concerned about the 'map' at Scotland article. The maps at England, Northern Ireland & Wales rightfully show those constituent countries as being a part of the UK. But, the map at Scotland does not. GoodDay (talk) 15:17, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:UKNATIONALS (2)

Seems to be whole sale removal of material from Wikipedia:Nationality of people from the United Kingdom without discussion. I've requested discussion at [[1]]. Looks like there is objection to the term British Isles which is leading to large sections of historical examples being removed. --Jza84 |  Talk  16:53, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Lord Ballyedmond - request comment

Request comment [[2]]. Similar argument that went on over that comedian who died last year (can remember his name right now unfortunately!). Issue is over nationality tag.Traditional unionist (talk) 20:56, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Maps for the constituent countries in the UK

I have created the above maps. I hope you all don't mind that I was WP:BOLD and added them to the relative articles myself. I really don't want to create any edit wars I just want to see what others think and hopefully bring this to a nice consensus on what to use. I hate the idea that other countries seam to be more organized then us with these things, so I hope you think the new one looks professional... I'm actually kinda pleased :-) Please voice your opinion over at Talk:Scotland#Straw_Poll I know I'd personally love to hear your opinions! Thanks -- UKPhoenix79 (talk) 05:12, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I like them. Good work.Pyrotec (talk) 13:17, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the compliment :-) If you could comment on the Poll that would be appreciated. -- UKPhoenix79 (talk) 15:49, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

A little off-topic, but an anonymous IP address user has just begun to edit out whole swathes of information from Constituent countries which would, if left unreverted, make these maps a bit moot and inaccurately described. I don't know what to do about this, but it might be an idea to take a look at what is being done there.  DDStretch  (talk) 15:58, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Long and Lat entry not being picked up correctly when double clicked.

Can someone help me correct the Geographic lat and long on the "Waltham Chase" location Stub? It has been entered correctly as a '-' longitude of '-1.203056W' but when this is clicked on the resulting map is out in the English Channel as the minus sign has been dropped. Is this a case of entering the minus twice or something?--Martin1786 (talk) 14:25, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. The co-ordinates were slightly off. I added an infobox too. Hope that helps, --Jza84 |  Talk  14:39, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Infobox Country styled

Template:Infobox Country styled has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — --Jza84 |  Talk  11:18, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

User:Helpsloose2 and British vs. English

A new user User:Helpsloose2 is going around changing tonnes of instances of "United Kingdom" and "British" to "England" and "English". I'm not sure what your exact policy is about when to use each, but someone from your project should look over some of those changes to make sure they match standard usage. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 15:04, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

See WP:UKNATIONALS. My personal opinion is that English/Scottish should be in the intro, British in the infobox. --Jza84 |  Talk  15:06, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
If the article in which the changes are made is covered by WP:UKCITIES, then in the first bullet point of section 1.2 (Lead) it states that the lead should include: "Name of settlement, type of settlement (e.g. suburb, town, city, civil parish), its contemporary local government district / council area, contemporary/ceremonial county (see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places), for the use of counties), and constituent country." The constituent country in this case would be "England" and not "United Kingdom". Though of course, both could be used if it did not result in something clumsy. If you disagree with what this user is doing, then you can either leave them a message, pointing towards the guidelines, or revert their changes with a note that you disagree, including, ideally a link to WP:UKCITIES and that discussion on the talk pages is required, or both. Jza84 has summed up the position quite well.  DDStretch  (talk) 15:50, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

The users Roomstep444 (talk · contribs), Vitalshown9999 (talk · contribs), and most recently Triedsouls7 (talk · contribs) have all made similar changes. Some of the changes are probably correct (e.g. WP:UKCITIES) but not sure about other articles. --Snigbrook (talk) 15:14, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Ofsted template?

It would be very helpful if there was a template used for external links to the Ofsted website. It could work similar to the {{IoE}} template: {{Ofsted|000000}}. The six digit number would be the 'Unique reference number'. If anyone could create this template, as I have no idea where to start, it would be much appreciated. - Erebus555 (talk) 15:08, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

As requested, {{Ofsted}} will now give you:
Ofsted details for unique reference number 51359. Warofdreams talk 01:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Succession to the throne

If Peter Phillips goes ahead and marries his Catholic fiancee, he'll be removed from the line of succession, correct? Are there plans for somebody to go through every article in the line of succession and move each person up a notch? Corvus cornixtalk 21:03, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

She's converted to Anglicism, so no problem for him or for us. -- Derek Ross | Talk 15:52, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

X British

Could somebody take a look at Freize1 (talk · contribs) and his/her work? I thought we had agreed to to keep things like Kosovar British off Wikipedia, and merged into broader articles. --Jza84 |  Talk  12:18, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

More of this stuff being created by 90.216.159.3 (talk · contribs) --Jza84 |  Talk  18:51, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

An Invitation from the Philippine Wikipedia Community

Hello folks,

The Philippine Wikipedia Community will be holding its 1st Meet-up in Cebu City (the fourth one in the Philippines) on June 23-24, 2008. This coincides with the first Philippine Open Source Summit, also to be held in Cebu. The Philippine Wikipedia Community is an Implementing Partner of the Open Source Summit. We invite you to join us in this event. If you are in the IT or IT-enabled services industry, this would be a great opportunity to meet people from the 4th best outsourcing city in the world. This is also a good excuse to visit our beautiful beaches :)

If you're interested in joining the Wikipedia meet-up, please join our discussion. You can register for the Open Source Summit here. If you would like some assistance with local accomodations, you may email User:Bentong Isles.

The Philippine Wikipedia Community
WP:PINOY

Ive created Anglo-Turkish relations

its not too good at the moment and it could do some work. Especially with the layout. I was wondering if someone could help improve the article. Thanks Ijanderson977 (talk) 18:37, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Page move

Hi. I'm not certain where this project discusses page moves, deletions etc., so I thought I'd post a note here. At Talk:Newmarket (disambiguation), I've proposed two page moves:

I've specified the reasons on the discussion page. Feel free to announce/move this message to a more relevant project if need be. Thanks. (I've also posted this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography.) Mindmatrix 21:46, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

University Challenge userbox

UCThis user watches University Challenge
Jeremy Paxman: "And here's your starter for ten..."This user took part in University Challenge for the University of Birmingham in 2007
Leonardo da Vinci's rhombicuboctahedronAnd here's this user's starter for ten...

For anyone who's interested, I've created a University Challenge userbox – visit {{User:UBX/University Challenge}} for instructions on how to use it. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 15:38, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Nice but needs a pic of Bamber Gascoigne for anyone who took part in the older series -- Derek Ross | Talk 17:30, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately there isn't a free one available at the moment. Another editor has requested one on Gascoigne's user talk page (yes, he edits Wikipedia too!), so let's see what comes of it. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 16:50, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Help needed for discussion on the creation of a category for WAGs

Hi all. I initially created a category for Category:WAGs and started adding the category to the usual suspects (Cheryl Cole, Victoria Beckham, and anyone else mentioned on WAGs). This caused an American Wikipedian to report me for vandalism, unaware that WAGs does not mean the same as what it means in the UK (see my talk page. Fortunately, a kindly soul named  Netsnipe  saw sense, realised what had happened, and recommended that I bring it up for discussion. So, I created Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2008_June_6 but I appear to be the single Brit on that discussion area, and they are all saying delete because it's trivial. Of course, as any UK Wikipedian knows, it is a very big category and certainly far more worthy of categorisation than many others that are made. Therefore I could do with some UK influence on said discussion. Many many thanks, and apologies if I am going about this the wrong way, this is the first Category I have created (have been creating many articles over the past few years, but no categories... I just felt one was badly needed). I am sure you will agree with me that renaming to "Wives and Girlfriends" would make little sense, as a WAG is not just one of those, it is much much more. (Even on the Weakest Link the other day, they had a "Celebrity WAG special"!) Cheers. Tris2000 (talk) 10:22, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


FYI - Times Digital Archive

The Times Digital Archive (1785-1985) has for some time been available for free for UK residents at public libraries and at home by using your library card PIN number on-line. I believe it was also previously available from the News International site at a cost of £1 per article or thereabouts. It has just been made available for free (registration required) from the TimesOnline site at http://archive.timesonline.co.uk/tol/archive/ . It's still available on-line using you library card pin number, just go to the website for your local authority libraries and click through to on-line services. There are other good things to be found using you library PIN number like the complete Britannica. Jooler (talk) 08:42, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

The comprehensive Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is another resource available for free through library cards. Leithp 14:11, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
My library service still lists the Times archive as a resource only available within libraries - not generally available to all library members online (and that's to the Gale/Infotrac version, not directly via the Times website). David Underdown (talk) 11:17, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

SOS!

Can anybody possibly salvage the Gangs in the United Kingdom article? It's one of the worst I've come across in a long time. --Jza84 |  Talk  23:31, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Photo Request

Resolved

Taifarious1 05:59, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Has anyone got or is it possible for someone to get a photo of The New Zealand Memorial in the United Kingdom? It is located in London at Hyde Park Corner, diagonally opposite the Australian War Memorial. Someone has started an Anglo–New Zealand relations article, but it was very poorly written so I have decided to expand it as there is a mountain of information on it and it is quite important for New Zealand, and I hope the UK also. Cheers, Taifarious1 04:58, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

There is one here--Harkey (talk) 05:33, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Commons has Commons:Image:New Zealand War Memorial.jpg. Man vyi (talk) 05:37, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Ah, so there is, thanks very much for your help. Taifarious1 05:59, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia: Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-06-22 United Kingdom

I hope ya'll can give us your imput. GoodDay (talk) 21:13, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Edit-warring on the name of a diocese

Two editors have been engaged in an unhelpful and disruptive edit war concerning the name of a diocese in theUnited Kingdom. I have issued an RfC and fully-protected the page against page moves by anyone until the matter has been fully discussed and a consensus reached by more editors than just the two involved in the edit-warring. Anyone able to is invited to engage in the discussion to help wikipedia improve by reaching a better solution than the unstable edit warring that has previously happened. See Talk:Roman Catholic Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle#What should the name of this article be?. The two names that were being used were "Roman Catholic Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle" and "Diocese of Newcastle and Hexham". Thank you.  DDStretch  (talk) 13:58, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

The same is happening with the Archdiocese of Birmingham article too. - Erebus555 (talk) 15:17, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
Indeed, I have now realised, after a message from another administrator and looking at various editing histories, that the same thing has happened mostly today but over the past week for almost all of the dioceses concerning the Roman Catholic church in England and Wales, and it has mostly involved the same two editors.  DDStretch  (talk) 21:02, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Main page error Gin Act 1751

There's an error on the main page. That needs fixing asap. I really don't have time right now. I'm looking after my young son. The featured picture/s are the Beer Street and Gin Lane but the main page and the article on the Gin Act 1751 say that the act made the production gin illegal. this is completely wrong, it merely licensed the retail trade. Jooler (talk) 09:53, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Poll on merging Subdivisions of the United Kingdom to Countries of the United Kingdom

A poll is talking place on Subdivisions of the United Kingdom and Countries of the United Kingdom. The Merger proposal is here, and is where all the options (merge, redirect to or from etc) can be voted for. --Matt Lewis (talk) 18:57, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

NOTE: The new article is "Countries" of the United Kingdom, by the way - not "counties", as it it may first appear. --Matt Lewis (talk) 13:18, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 928 articles are assigned to this project, of which 228, or 24.6%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 14 July 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. More than 150 projects and work groups have already subscribed, and adding a subscription for yours is easy - just place a template on your project page.

If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page; I'm not watching this page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:09, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Charities - new External Link templates

Hallo. I've just created two new templates, {{UK charity}} and {{Scottish charity}}. (Yes, I know the former is inaccurately named as it covers England and Wales: if I can work out the wiki technicalities I'll combine them into a single template at that name.) If you are creating or editing an article about a registered charity in England, Scotland or Wales, you might like to include this in the External Links - it leads to the record at the Charity Commission or Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, which seems to me to be a valuable asset to the article, as evidence of its genuineness and a link to its accounts etc. They're similar to the templates for links to IMDB.

I've added them to all the "A"s under Category:Charities based in the United Kingdom, and will carry on extending their use to other pages eg Category:Charities based in England etc), gradually. AWB can't help much to semi-automate the process, as the registration number may or may not be included in the article already, sometimes isn't even visible on the organisation's own page (The Art Fund), and in one case so far I can find no trace at the Charity commission site (AfPP) so doubt whether it's a charity, and in another (Association of Colleges) so far have had to amend the article because it's an associated trust, not the named organisation, which is a charity. Interesting work!

If anyone can find me a similar online list for Northern Ireland charities, I'd be delighted - please let me know. PamD (talk) 11:20, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

"Transformational Government"

The article on the government's lamentable "Transformational Government" initiative -- ID cards, database centralization, and so on -- currently reads like a government press release.. See here and here for alternative views on this. -- The Anome (talk) 21:42, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:BISLES (British Isles Terminology task force)

I've added this new task force to the 'UK related Wikiprojects list' (its actually a sub of WP:GEOG). Didn't see a task force list to file it under. --Matt Lewis (talk) 22:11, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

List of Olympic-size swimming pools in the United Kingdom

List of Olympic-size swimming pools in the United Kingdom has been nominated for deletion - you may have opinions on this. --mervyn (talk) 08:14, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Same applies at List of Olympic-size swimming pools in the Republic of Ireland. --mervyn (talk) 11:31, 4 August 2008 (UTC)


Wikimania 2010 Oxford bid

This is a general call for any wikimedians in the UK who would be interested in getting involved with and extremely active venture to finally bring Wikimania to the UK. To join the team simply sign your name here. It would be good to join the Wikimedia UK mailing list, view the mailing list archives or to join the irc channel at irc:wikimania-oxford. Information on how to access IRC can be found here. We really are pulling out all the stops this year and any help we could get would be most appreciated. All the information about the Oxford bid can be found at meta wiki here. I and the others in the team look forward to working with you. Seddσn talk Editor Review 23:16, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Missing Projects

Just looked at the list of Projects and Noticed WikiProject Derbyshire was missing from list (now fixed). wonder if any more are missing ? - BulldozerD11 (talk) 01:41, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

New WikiProject proposal: Biota of the UK and Ireland

I've proposed a new WikiProject named WikiProject Biota of the UK and Ireland which would encompass all species (flora and fauna) and conservation efforts within the United Kindgom and Ireland, an extremely interesting area. The project would include vegetation classification, Category:Lists of British animals, Category:Conservation in the United Kingdom, Category:Ecology of the British Isles, Category:Forests and woodlands of the United Kingdom, Category:Fauna of the British Isles and anything else to do with the flora and fauna of Britain. If anyone is interested just leave your name on the proposal page. Cheers, Jack (talk) 14:47, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

GB or GB & NI?

Please see:

Thanks.--Mais oui! (talk) 13:51, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

See previous discussions here, here, here and here. Basement12 (T.C) 14:07, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Use of UK flag Icon

What is the policy on the inclusion of the UK flag Icon (and other countries) in the Info box of Companies as they are being systematicaly removed from article and being replaced by the use of a UK wiki link, when the Lead for the article generally also has the country as part of the text. The removal is being cited as valid under WP:Flag - not for decoration. (Editor hiding behind a IP address) ? example here Land Rover and Tesco , as after that a couple I a reverted were changed back with same comment. The use of the flags in Company info box was a quick visual Q, and has nothing to do with knowing what the UK or any other country is, it visualy shows the country of the company. (I had reverted a couple Id seen removed as considered it a negative step, so would like some opinion on the issue please. (had a look at the company portal and no guidance given on the templates about Y or N for inclusion). -BulldozerD11 (talk) 15:50, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

See WP:MOSFLAG. Although that ip has made a few unconstructive edits, I'm inclined to agree with their interpretation of the guideline: I think the union flag or subnational-flags are needless in these articles. --Jza84 |  Talk  15:59, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
I think there are issues there. The country where a company is registered is useful to know and include, but isn't Tesco Swiss under that method? There is would be very useful to have the flag. However this runs into difficulty when we look at Delaware. Most US companies are registered in Delaware due to it being a regulation desert, so it is less useful to know that a company is incorporated in the US, which strictly speaking it isn't, it is incorporated in a state, than it is to know the state.Traditional unionist (talk) 16:08, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't believe the flags add anything. I wouldn't bother taking them away, but there's no great point in their existence in this context.--Breadandcheese (talk) 18:17, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikimedia UK v2.0

Hi all, you might be interested in the formation of a new Wikimedia UK chapter, to replace the now-defunct previous attempt. At this point we are looking for people generally interested, potential members, candidates for the board and particularly people who have experence with charities. the wub "?!" 16:55, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

British place names in other countries

I created a template for Scottish place names in other countries, however after I noticed that there were articles with English place names I decided to move the template and add those, for two reasons firstly because people looking for Scottish names would be likely to be interested in English ones and vice versa, but also because the of the fact that the British Empire means the two are very closely linked. However User:MacRusgail does not seem to agree and requested I stopped adding the English names to the Scottish articles, I replied on their talk page but they have not replied they simply removed the template again. In my opinion the template makes it easier for users to navigate between the two sets of articles, but is the template appropriate or not? Darryl.matheson (talk) 19:35, 31 August 2008 (UTC)