Wikipedia talk:WikiProject London/Archive 10

Archive 5 Archive 8 Archive 9 Archive 10 Archive 11 Archive 12 Archive 13

Guild church, definition wanted

What is a "guild church"? I have seen the term used in the introductory paragraph of two articles on Church of England churches in the City of London this morning. I am not an Anglican and I have no idea of its specific meaning in the Anglican vocabulary. In the St Lawrence Jewry article the link was to "guild church" which led me to the Wikipedia article entitled "Church"; in the St Katherine Cree article the link was to "guild" which discussed "Guilds". In neither one of these articles did the expression "guild church" come up. Could you please be more informative to your wider audience.

Regards --Oldontarian (talk) 13:35, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Every guild had and has a church where services were held, & often members were buried. They contributed to building & running costs. There's not much more to it than that really. Johnbod (talk) 13:54, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
With respect to Johnbod, in the context of the City of London this isn't correct. In the City, "guild church" has a specific legal meaning defined by statute under the City of London (Guild Churches) Acts; a church which is formally redundant (that is, one which no longer has a parish), but which continues in use as a church. (Because the City was almost totally depopulated in the 20th century, there are a lot of churches which are of no use as local parish churches but which are too architecturally and historically significant to demolish or deconsecrate.)
There are lots of different uses to which guild churches are put: e.g. St Lawrence Jewry which has no parish of its own but instead serves Corporation of London staff; St Benet's, Paul's Wharf which intentionally refuses to allow female priests so as to serve conservative evangelicals uncomfortable attending their own church if it has female clergy; St Mary Woolnoth and St Margaret Pattens that instead of Sunday services hold weekday services for the benefit of shift-workers at the banks who missed out on their own local parish services; St Edmund, King and Martyr which serves as a "spirituality centre"; All Hallows-on-the-Wall which serves as a London base for assorted Christian charities, etc… The most famous of them all is probably St Ethelburga's Bishopsgate. If anyone wants I can knock up a Guild church stub and link it on to 20-ish churches formally designated as Guild Churches, but I'm not sure there's really a demand for it. ‑ Iridescent 14:23, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
Ok, but these acts are 1952 and 1960, so rather late in the story. Johnbod (talk) 15:03, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
The OP is asking about the meaning of the term as used in the articles on two current churches (St Lawrence Jewry next Guildhall is a Church of England guild church and St Katharine Cree [was] formerly a parish church, it is now a guild church); in this context it's undoubtedly the current use of the term that was intended by the article writers, not a historic usage regarding patronage from a livery company. ‑ Iridescent 15:39, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Call for portal maintainers

Are there any editors from this WikiProject willing to maintain Portal:London? The Portals guideline requires that portals be maintained, and as a result numerous portals have been recently been deleted via MfD largely because of lack of maintenance. Let me know either way, and thanks, UnitedStatesian (talk) 05:26, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Bow / Bethnal Green sockpuppet damage

Could use some assistance from any editors who know the Bow and Bethnal Green areas of London well enough to clean up any damage from an unhelpful sockpuppeteer at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Hopeful2014/Archive, who was blocked this week. For at least a year this person has been moving articles back and forth between different areas of London (changing categories and opening sentences), using different accounts and without any discussion or edit summaries. From the number of times they've changed their mind and moved something back (sometimes months later) it looks like they weren't sure themselves if any of the edits were correct.

Globe Town, London could also use a pass from a local expert to see if anything stands out as wrong. The article was written entirely by the sockpuppet user, and (although lack of edit summaries makes this hard to check) may contain content which has been moved, perhaps incorrectly, from other local articles.

Thanks. --Lord Belbury (talk) 15:24, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

This includes articles about railway and DLR stations in the area. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 05:51, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
They're ignoring the block and continuing to make the same back-and-forth edits with sockpuppet IP addresses (eg. User:86.163.220.72) so any advice on how inaccurate these edits are, or how best to tackle them, would be appreciated. --Lord Belbury (talk) 14:10, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Aldgate, Tower Hamlets is another article created by this user alone, comprised almost entirely of paragraphs copied from other articles. Since its creation in April it's seen the same lengthy one-man indecision over whether Aldgate is a locale or district or sub-district of Whitechapel or a locale within Whitechapel and Spitalfields or a part of those other areas or, today, a standalone district again, at odds with past WikiProject discussions on how best to refer to areas of London. I'm not even sure whether the page should exist separately to the main Aldgate article at all. --Lord Belbury (talk) 09:47, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

As an IP they're now relocating tube and DLR stations, as well as other buildings to be in "Aldgate, Tower Hamlets" rather than Whitechapel, City of London or Shadwell. From the history on Aldgate East tube station the same sockpuppeteer has ditheringly relocated it from Spitalfields to Whitechapel to Aldgate to Spitalfields to Whitechapel to Aldgate, in the past year. I don't know this area of London very well: is this harmless zooming in and out, or a problem? --Lord Belbury (talk) 08:27, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
I'm now seeing this user's articles (The Quarterdeck) being deleted on the grounds of "created by a banned or blocked user". If the deleted articles were created by copying and moving long-standing paragraphs from other articles without mentioning this in edit summaries (as Aldgate, Tower Hamlets seems to have been), this means that valid London content from other contributors is being lost from Wikipedia. Can I get some support for or advice against either (finding and) endorsing the user's created articles so they don't get deleted as sockpuppetry, or restoring the content to where it was and deleting the articles? --Lord Belbury (talk) 16:58, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
Can I endorse Lord Belbury's plea for advice/comment/discussion on what to do about this sockpuppeteer. Under their various usernames and IP addresses they have made well over 6000 edits, mainly to East London related topics (and continue to do so, currently as 86.161.106.117). I suspect they are acting in good faith, and some edits have been valid; but a high proportion have not (being either pointless – e.g. repeated cycles of nitpicking and self-reversion over whether particular locations lie in particular districts or not – poorly written, or positively inaccurate). Combined with an unwillingness/inability to leave edit summaries, cite sources, or otherwise follow editorial good practice, their contributions overall have undoubtedly been more disruptive than constructive. As Lord Belbury says, the creation of several new articles by moving blocks of text from existing articles without explanation creates further significant problems, including the risk of losing valid encyclopedic content. What can we do to stop this, and to repair the damage? A blanket rollback would be excessive, but surely there is some protocol we could be following? Is there some other forum where we should be discussing this? GrindtXX (talk) 14:01, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm very happy to help out here as best I can, as I have become quite familiar with the local area and terminology, however I'm not really sure where to start; this editor has been VERY prolific. Is there a more experienced editor who might have a suggested course of action? Would creating a list of all the affected pages as a starting point be useful? I think ideally this would be done in the context of a wider clean-up and harmonization of East London articles, replacing words like "district" with "ward" and clarifying the distinction between officially designated areas (like Bethnal Green which is a ward in Tower Hamlets[1]) and informally named areas (like Old Ford and Fish Island, which are the common names for areas in the Bow East Ward and are only loosely defined in various other local planning and development documents). Also a lot of the history sections should essentially be the same across a lot of these places (like Roman Road, Old Ford, Bow and Fish Island, which are all in the same couple of square miles) so ideally this would be somewhat harmonized as well. Does that all sound reasonable? TheSLEEVEmonkey (talk) 17:07, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

I have started a list of the affected pages on my sandbox (sorry, not sure where else to do it really): User:TheSLEEVEmonkey/sandbox I'll start patrolling these pages. It is mind boggling the number of edits these accounts have been able to make.

Also I'm fairly sure that this 86.161.106.117 (talk+ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log)) is the same sockpuppeteer, or at least is editing in the same way. They are still active.

To understand the edits, it appears that the editor has a very strong and very specific idea of how to classify East London, however this does not actually agree to external sources in the majority of cases. They also seem to have a strong desire to promote East London. As a result, the disruptive edits tend to be mostly one of three things:

  • Changing the intro section or the categories of areas and locations to "move" them to a classification which they feel is better (for example describing Brick Lane as not in Shoreditch but rather in Spitalfields)
  • Cutting and moving whole paragraphs across articles based on where they think that subject falls within their own categorization system
  • Adding local trivia and promotion of local business

The specific area of interest is East London, and their editing seems to focus on Tower Hamlets and the Docklands

TheSLEEVEmonkey (talk) 13:11, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

References

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Question over at Talk:St James's

I appreciate any help at Talk:St James's#Naming questions. Thanks! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:08, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Replied there; the James in question is James the Great. ‑ Iridescent 00:30, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

City Lit

Someone from City Literary Institute seems keen to update the article, as I've had to softblock two accounts for their names and revert pasted content. In July, an account called User:CityLitComms removed the "Accolades and criticism" section, pasted in text about fellows (presumably from their website), and made a few other updates: [1]. I reverted and softblocked the account in accordance with WP:COI, WP:COPYVIO, and WP:USERNAME. Now, another account called User:City Lit made extensive edits including pasting in promotional text about fellows. I have again reverted and softblocked. There might be helpful content in the reverted material and if anyone has contacts at City Lit it might be useful to give them some advice. Fences&Windows 07:51, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Discussed at Wikipedia:Help desk#Edits to. City Lit page. Fences&Windows 12:32, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
I have reviewed (and reversed some) edits by a further City Lit staff account User:Buggiba at Talk:City_Literary_Institute#Updating_City_Lit_Information. TSventon (talk) 00:09, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Geographic location in neighbourhood articles

Various issues around neighbourhood articles seem to be cropping up with editors changing en masse London to Greater London or giving former counties as if they were current. This appears to have been going on some time with conversations scattered over talk pages. I'm creating a talk section here to direct any discussion to. MRSC (talk) 08:11, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Changing 'London' to 'Greater London'

I think many articles of towns and districts within the ceremonial county of Greater London should have the place in its lead section changed from London to Greater London. Towns in outer Greater London, and outside the London postal district (e.g. Uxbridge or Sutton) are outlying towns with their own identities (i.e. outside London post town) and are better suited to have Greater London. For example, we could change Ilford from the current:

to:

This kind of naming is also a more favourable (and neutral!) approach to articles like Romford where many residents consider the town to be strictly in Essex and not "London". Nor is it false - these places are after all in Greater London, just as much as for example Wigan is in Greater Manchester.

It is also encyclopaedic: we see this in the lead of articles like Wigan, which reads Wigan is a town in Greater Manchester, England, on the River Douglas, 10 miles (16 km) south-west of Bolton..., or Stockport which reads Stockport is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, 7 miles (11 km) south-east of Manchester city centre. Ilford and Romford are the same case as Wigan and Stockport: they are in a borough, in a county called Greater London/Manchester, and are X miles away from central London/Manchester.

What do other people think of this suggestion?

--MetrolandNW (talk) 13:30, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

MetrolandNW, you should not have made those sweeping changes across so many London articles. It was not an improveent and contravened established consensus and guidelines. It may have been well intended but the changes were close to being disruptive edits. Using London to refer to the Ceremonial county of Greater London is well established consensus based practice. The indirect root cause of the issue you raise is here, specifically, In respect of England, Scotland and Wales, a fundamental part of this guide is to reaffirm the long established position that we do not take the view that the historic/ancient/traditional counties still exist with the former boundaries. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 18:21, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
The situation in London/Greater London is not analogous to Manchester/Greater Manchester. MRSC (talk) 10:38, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Some specific wordings to be avoided:

  • for administrative purposes
  • but for administrative purposes
  • part of the traditional county of
  • within the historic county of

Thanks. MRSC (talk) 10:35, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

But "London" as shorthand for the Greater London area is universally accepted, so I don't see what the issue is. The article on London deals with all boroughs inside the Greater London area, so linking them to that points readers to the right article regarding the particular suburb's position in relation to London. In addition, in most articles Greater London as a separate article is mentioned in the second sentence. The only thing that happens by removing the link to London and replacing it with only links to Greater London is it reinforces the bias that anything outside zone 3 isn't really London, as if we are still living in 1965. --Michail (blah) 11:02, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
While I'm prepared to accept there might be exceptions for clearly distinct settlements (e.g. Hazelwood, London) these should be discussed separately, the default should be London, especially for anywhere within the contiguous urban area such as Ilford, Uxbridge and Walthamstow. What counties places were in prior to the creation of Greater London is almost never going to be relevant in the first sentence and often not in the first paragraph. Thryduulf (talk) 12:21, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
I agree that the default should be London. By default it already refers to the entirety of the Greater London area. --Michail (blah) 13:46, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Four months is a long time in Wikipedia, so I overlooked an earlier attempt by MetrolandNW, [2], to change the lead of GL articles. I mention it here only to put this discussion in context. By 'contiguous urban area',Thryduulf, I assume you do not mean this, or do you, seeing as you think an exception could be made for Hazelwood? How do you think, Michail, we can support the statement that "London" as shorthand for the Greater London area is universally accepted, if anyone challenges it, as Metroland and Thryduulf already have? When you say, MRSC, that we should avoid saying that a place is, or was, part of the traditional county of..., or, within the historic county of..., how do you see us incorporating that with the guidelines, [3], that tell us the lead should normally cover Historic county (if in England or Wales and if different from current county), and a brief paragraph about historical roots / founding. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 21:36, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I mean that part of the Greater London Built-up Areathat is (a) a single contiguous urban area, and (b) within the City of London or a London Borough. MRSC says (and I agree) that we should avoid saying a place is part of or within a historic, traditional or former, etc. county. Saying that a place was part of or within one of those formerly extant areas may be appropriate to mention, but usually not in the lead section. Thryduulf (talk) 21:52, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
Also I have not challenged the statement that ""London" as shorthand for the Greater London area is universally accepted", I agree that is the case. My point is that the word "London" has multiple meanings and for settlements within Greater London that are not part of the contiguous urban area it might be preferable to use "Greater London" instead of "London" if it is desirable to make clear it is not part of that contiguous urban area. It is never incorrect to describe a place within Greater London as being in "London". Thryduulf (talk) 22:01, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for that explanation. My understanding of the guidelines is that it does not matter whether 'is' or 'was' is correct, but rather what it says in the quotation above. In that case, the lead for all articles about places in GL should mention the HC the place was in because by now being in the county of GL they are by definition in a different county, ie not in the historic county. This would seem odd to me because we would then have to mention in the lead that, say, Kensington, was in Middlesex, something that would far better being mentioned in the history section. But then we have places like Hazelwood where it would be equally odd to say it is in London, as we sit sipping our late summer pint looking out over the leafy meadows of Kent. I am still a bit confused about how your definition of London would work in practice. You use as your guide to an exception whether a place is built up or not. There are many other possible ways to differentiate and whether a place is rural or urban in nature is surely a matter of personal opinion? I think what we currently have is better than allowing editors to decide on a case by case basis how much a given place has been Londonised. I agree that London has many meanings. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 23:54, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

We can keep consistency by having Greater London, as in towns of Greater Manchester. --MetrolandNW (talk) 22:36, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

More of this at Surbiton again. MRSC (talk) 06:16, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

It seems there is not well enough consensus for adding historic counties to the lead so I am taking that out of my suggestion. But I am still hoping for consensus on having "Greater London" for distant suburbs with their own post towns. --MetrolandNW (talk) 22:36, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

The Great Britain/Ireland Destubathon

Hi. The Wikipedia:The Great Britain/Ireland Destubathon is planned for March 2020, a contest/editathon to eliminate as many stubs as possible from all 134 counties. Amazon vouchers/book prizes are planned for most articles destubbed from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland and Northern Ireland and whoever destubs articles from the most counties out of the 134. Sign up on page if interested in participating, we have over 44,000 stubs! A good opportunity to improve stubs for your area!♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:03, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Photographs of Ilford

Ilford has quite some notable landmarks and tall buildings (like the Pioneer Point) but I've realised there aren't many free use photos that show the Ilford skyline properly, or a vertical photo suitable for an infobox montage. If anyone is willing to share good photos of Ilford for use in its article, that would be great. Thanks. --CastleCapt (talk) 13:21, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

And Hounslow!

Hounslow is also somewhat lacking. There is not a single free use photograph on Flickr or elsewhere of the newly built Hounslow House, which is clearly now a major landmark of the town. Would love to see anyone share. --CastleCapt (talk) 00:44, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

London before 1964

I originally posted this at Category talk:1963 sports events in London, but it might be as well to have it here as well for greater discussion and visibility and also because it effects other categories. Should sporting events which took place in areas not part of the London County Council area, but which came into London with the creation of the Greater London Council be in Category:1963 sports events in London (and any early years categories should they be created). For instance the 1963 Wimbledon Championships, which is currently in Category:1963 in London and I was planning to move, technically took place in Surrey as Wimbledon was in Surrey until the GLC was created. This would have an impact on a number of events including the 1963 FA Cup Final as for instance Wembley was in the old county of Middlesex. However many people and sources do speak about these events as taking place in London, and a lot are already in London categories. Equally I notice that Category:1959 in London and Category:1960 in London include two Harrow by-elections when again these seats were not technically in London at the time. My gut is to go with the current GLA area, but would like views and clarification on this. Dunarc (talk) 21:01, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

It's not clear-cut and I'd think it would be impossible to have a hard-and-fast rule even for today let alone for historic events (a significant number of the venues for the 2012 London Olympics are technically outside the current GLC/GLA boundary, for instance, and even unquestionable London institutions like the old Boleyn Ground were technically outside the pre-1965 boundary). "At the time the event in question took place, was it within the contiguous built-up area?" is usually a decent rule of thumb for whether something should be considered "London" or not. ‑ Iridescent 21:19, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
As someone who was living in Wimbledon in 1963, then as now it was in SW19 (and SW20) and had London phone numbers. Also Met police. See Municipal Borough of Wimbledon. That's London enough for me. Johnbod (talk) 21:32, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. I think the point about the Boleyn Ground is a good one and thinking more if we stuck to political boundaries then most of the 1948 Olympics was not in London including the main stadium (I don't think anyone would suggest calling them the Wembley Olympics). Equally the postcodes and phone numbers are a good point, and of course London Transport is another example of a much wider definition of London. So I'll work on the assumption for these categories that it is "within the contiguous built-up area." Dunarc (talk) 22:38, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

As someone who works a lot on categories, this comes up all the time (particularly in Eastern Europe where it gets really messy). There are definitely two schools of thought between the historical purists and those who are more flexible but in general I take the view that categories are primarily for navigation above anything else, and things like consistency and predictability are more important (especially for eg templates) than historical purity. So for instance it is a lot easier to eg have just "Ruritania" categories rather than worrying about whether it was the Kingdom of Ruritania or the Ruritanian Republic at a particular point in time. Or in this case, should we be having categories for Londinium and Lundenwic? Categories including words such as "London County Council" etc should use the precise definition, but I'd use a more flexible WP:COMMONNAME interpretation for "London" categories that would include the contiguous urban bits of Middlesex and Surrey as appropriate.Le Deluge (talk) 10:15, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks - I think your approach is a sensible one. Dunarc (talk) 22:34, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Stratford City

"Stratford City" is a development project, but the article has an infobox like any settlement as if Stratford City is actually a district. This is wrong and misleading. My suggestion is to completely remove that infobox (and keep the coord map if useful). I once saw a "Common" park article that was also like this, and I removed the infobox because it looked like the article was presenting the park as an area/district instead. What do you think? --CastleCapt (talk) 15:47, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

London portal

Portal:London had not been updated with new content for quite some time, so I have expanded it. It would benefit from more updating, such the addition of more articles, DYK content, etc. A detailed summary of updates that have been performed exists at Portal talk:London § May 2020 portal updates. Feel free to post comments about the portal there, if desired. North America1000 00:16, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Take photos!

If you're wondering what to do with yourself at the moment, the next 2-3 weeks is always the best time of year to take photos outdoors - you get a better view of buildings without leaves on the trees (particularly important in towns I find), but there's daffodils etc in flower. And the weather forecast for the next week looks good - everywhere always looks nicer with a blue sky! Special:Nearby is a good place to start (and also good for generally finding local articles that need work), WIWOSM is a map that includes all the geocoordinates in lists of eg listed buildings. It's also worth a quick reality check to make sure that geocoordinates are accurate - it certainly used to be the case that they weren't always. Relatively few articles are tagged in Category:Wikipedia requested images (in particular Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in London) but that's another place to start. Also worth noting that a lot of rural places in particular only have low-resolution 640x480px images from Geograph, which would be good to replace. A good excuse to go for a walk/cycle/drive when you've nothing else to do! Le Deluge (talk) 11:17, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

If anyone is doing this, please do so with appropriate social distancing. Joseph2302 (talk) 18:03, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
I would appreciate if anyone has a photograph of The Mall Walthamstow. I could not find a single photo of its new entrance for free use on the internet. --CastleCapt (talk) 15:48, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
What do you mean by "its new entrance"? The fire was at the rear of the building near Asda, not near either of the two entrances; the only thing that's changed about the entrances is that the sign which formerly said "BHS" now says "Lidl" following the anchor unit's change of use. ‑ Iridescent 16:44, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
Apologies as I have not visited Walthamstow since 2010 and my vague memory doesn't remember a shiny glass entrance on the High Street. I may be mistaken. --CastleCapt (talk) 14:29, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Valentines Park/Mansion Merge

Hello, I'm considering merging Valentines Park and Valentines Mansion. There's a discussion here and I would appreciate any input. Thanks :) --Paul Carpenter (talk) 08:12, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Heathwall Sluice

We appear not to have an article on one of London's lost rivers, the Heathwall Sluice. Someone wrote a book about it last year. Mjroots (talk) 18:07, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Good idea. But what should it be called? The new book appears to just call it the Heathwall, supported by a treatise on London's drainage (1854). The Institution of Civil Engineers (1875) and Metropolitan Board of Works (1882) have it as the Heathwall Sewer. A modern book on Victorian London has it as the Heathwall Ditch (1972). Curiously, the sewer isn't shown on Rocque's map of 1746, but it is on Milne's of 1799.  — Scott talk 14:49, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
Seems from Category:Subterranean rivers of London the precedent would just be to call it River Heathwall and to have the other names redirect there. --Paul Carpenter (talk) 08:25, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Featured article Great Fire of London requires work

The featured article Great Fire of London is close to missing the featured article criteria. It has multiple issues, including a lack of proper citations, and outdated information. I'll give it a few weeks before opening a featured article review. Renerpho (talk) 20:44, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Featured article review for Restoration Spectacular

I have nominated Restoration Spectacular for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. -- Beland (talk) 00:49, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Photos of cricket grounds in London

Hi all, just over from WP:CRICKET (we're always looking for new members too!) and wondered if anyone on this project would be able to lend a hand taking photos of the following cricket grounds in London which currently don't photos?

Any photos greatly appreciated :) Cheers. StickyWicket (talk) 19:04, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

FAR East End

I have nominated East End of London for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. DrKay (talk) 15:19, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Whyte Chemicals

 

The article Whyte Chemicals has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Company that went bankrupt in 2018

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Bearian (talk) 18:43, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Standardisation for all London Neigbourhood / Area Pages

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


I started my discussion here: User_talk:Magnolia677#My_Outer_London_Edits but what I am calling for is standardisation to all the opening paragraphs for all the area articles. An encyclopedia should have some kind of standard, otherwise you end up with a mess. I want to get a nice big discussion going here so we can solve this, for once and for all. Justgravy (talk) 23:06, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Adding to this, the issues are numerous, some places have a compass directions (North London, Southeast London) etc. some just say "Greater London", this is confusing. Then there is the whole issue with the historic counties (Roger loves this, but I find that he has a bias for certain areas, editing some, whilst completely ignoring others). I want to propose a formula here on which we can achieve consensus i.e. X is a town|village|district (to be decided based on area) of North|East|Southeast etc. London (compass direction not "Greater") within the London Borough of X (except obviously Royal boroughs and the 2 cities) etc. then we can roll this out ASAP. Justgravy (talk) 23:14, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Bait taken, even though I do have better things to occupy my time. If you want to avoid confusion and if the default area is the ceremonial county, why is Greater London being changed to London? If Greater Manchester doesn't change then neither should Greater London: stands to reason? You seem to be digging yourself into a hole with your own logic. Unless of course you want to through in a hefty dose of your own personal opinion? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 02:14, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Of course you need to join in this discussion. Otherwise, a consensus will be reached here without you, the changes will start to be implemented and then you’ll get annoyed and try to revert them again.

The thing is the nuance is quite different, so your point about Greater Manchester is not really valid. Greater Manchester and Greater London are very different from each other on an administrative level. Greater Manchester is a Metropolitan County, Greater London is not. Greater Manchester is made up of Metropolitan boroughs, Greater London is made up of London boroughs (which are unique in England). Another point is that Manchester and Greater Manchester do not cover the exact same area. Far from it actually, Manchester is one of the aforementioned Metropolitan boroughs of Greater Manchester. Whereas, London and Greater London do in fact cover the exact same area. You may remember a discussion a little while ago here to rename the entire article for London to Greater London? However, it was decided that it shouldn’t, as “London” is far more well known across the World, whereas Greater London is just a government obscurity that most people in other countries (and most British people actually) do not really understand. The same thing applies here. Justgravy (talk) 10:30, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

About your Third Opinion request (and one more thing): Your request has been removed (i.e. denied) because there's already a RFC pending here and no more than one dispute resolution process may be used at one time. Once the RFC has run its course, typically 30 days, then you may reconsider other DR methods if there is still a dispute. Second, just a comment about "standardization": Bear in mind that even if this WikiProject adopts a standard for these articles, such a standard is merely advice that has no more weight than an WP:ESSAY and which no one is required to follow. WikiProjects are not allowed to set rules which require articles to be written in one way or another. The standards that they set are only advisory. See the consensus policy and WP:PROJPAGE for the policy and guideline on this issue. The way to set such standards is to make them a policy or guideline and the proper place to do that is not at a wikiproject but at the Manual of Style following the process set out in the Policy policy. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 18:22, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Okay I understand that. To be honest I did not know that only one DR type is allowed to run at a time.

Maybe what I am looking for is not “standardisation” per se, but just permission to be able to amend slightly. The main issue here is “Greater” (as I previously mentioned) and there are many arguments I have made for this (none of which have been refuted) including the past example of the campaign for renaming the main article for “London” to “Greater London” being refused. Justgravy (talk) 22:21, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

This is already a settled matter and one settled a long time ago as well as being well documented in this project. The whole city is described as London and not Greater London. We use current geography. So mention the borough before getting into the history. Compass points are fine, "but x miles y of Charing Cross" is a good way to be accurate. If any of this is unclear do read the project archive. MRSC (talk) 10:21, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you MRSC. Can we now call this "consensus"? Justgravy (talk) 21:29, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

No, Justgravy, with respect, we can not. You started this discussion, and although you may not have organised it as well as you could have, that is no excuse to draw a conclusion based on absolutely nothing. Where is that or those discussions that led to this 'consensus'? If this 'consensus' does exist, does it comply with policy? There are other questions that arise from this GL=L decision, none of which are handled by your casual acceptance that a 'consensus' exists. I expected a bit more bite from you than this. Yes, making headway on this and other naming topics related UK geography is not easy, but that is surely no excuse to throw in the towel before the first bell has rung. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 08:57, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

You have no respect Roger. You completely disappear when people refute your arguments, there is nothing wrong in assuming your silence means you concede. Yet when I try and confirm everything is sorted (which it was as both me and MRSC agree and nobody else bothered to comment despite a RFC running for almost an entire week) low and behold out you pop again for another tirade of absolutely nothing!

MRSC has already said this is a matter that has been settled already. Any questions that have arisen, arose a long time ago and have been discussed ad nauseam, I do not need to discuss them again (please read the archive, all your answers are there). The fight has been fought, won and the then battlefield is now covered in daisies… Yet here you are with the inability to accept what has happened. Justgravy (talk) 21:38, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

I will say it once again, I believe consensus has been achieved here. Justgravy (talk) 21:07, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

What exactly do you want to standardise, bearing in mind the comments above by TransporterMan? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 00:37, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

If you recall, I realised that what I was suggesting was not standardisation per se, but just some slight amends. After conducting some research, I realised that these would mostly just be reverts of what MetrolandNW added at the beginning of the year. This individual made changes which nobody really agreed with, but allowed to happen anyway. I also notice that this particular user disappeared soon afterwards… Justgravy (talk) 21:34, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Roger I haven't heard anything from you for a whole week! Can you please respond. Justgravy (talk) 10:32, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

User:Roger 8 Roger, I'm adding some extra formatting to Justgravy's 23:14, 8 November 2020 comment, which should make it easier to spot the proposed changes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:03, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Why has nobody still written anything? I am taking this silence as concession. Justgravy (talk) 15:22, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

If you want to close the RFC and apply its findings, see WP:RFCEND and pick one of those. I don't really understand what you're asking for comment on here: you opened the RFC by saying how you "want to propose a formula here" but didn't propose one? --Lord Belbury (talk) 15:32, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
Apply what findings exactly? This RFC has essentially been a conversation with myself! Like I said an hour ago, nobody has bothered to say anything. There are editors with years of experience, and not a peep has been heard from them. Despite this RFC running for almost an entire month. Statistically, if nobody bothered to comment when I first created it, the chances of them doing so now are almost none.
To be fair, Roger did a bit, but as soon as I (and MRSC) made points that he could not refute, off he disappeared again! Justgravy (talk) 16:43, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
By "apply its findings" I mean you editing article leads this afternoon citing this RFC as your reason for doing so, when the RFC was still open. It's inappropriate to close your own RFC yourself, declaring that everyone who disagreed with you has now conceded. --Lord Belbury (talk) 17:03, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
Also, you will find I did provide a formula above. Which WhatamIdoing kindly highlighted in green for me (thank you for that). Justgravy (talk) 16:46, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
JG, the reason nobody is bothering to reply to you is that you are retracing ground so well trodden that it has turn into a muddy slush: nobody willingly steps into quicksand. Leave behind your little one-off examples and dig deeper to find the roots of the problem. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 20:10, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
Yes you are correct, this topic has been discussed many times and an outcome has been reached from it (many times). Which is the the exact same outcome! Yet despite this you still get editors, like MetrolandNW, who crop up from time to time. They completely disregard the previous discussions and begin mass editing. Then they disappear again forever. I was away from Wikipedia during MetrolandNW’s time. I do not know why MetrolandNW was not challenged by somebody else though, and all their edits reverted?
And now here we are, left with this mess that they created. Yet when I try to revert everything back to before they disrupted everything, people challenge that?! So in answer to your final statement, the roots of the problem are editors like you and MetrolandNW who cannot accept the findings of previous discussions and completely disregard them! Justgravy (talk) 12:10, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
The reason people like Metroland and very many others keep cropping up is because the guidelines on how to handle UK places, especially counties, is flawed. If they were not flawed we would not be gettin such consistantly regular disputes happening. At least one of the old school stalwarts has admitted that fact here but has otherwise kept quiet and not proposed amendments. Look at MRSC's comment above "This is already a settled matter and one settled a long time ago as well as being well documented in this project. We use current geography." Massive piece of original research that London is Greater London. "Based on current geography", whatever that is supposed to mean (sounds like more OR). These pieces of OR, or guesswork, are there because otherwise the flawed guidelines would simply not work at all. You can rant and rave as much as you want JG but if something is broken in it original state and it becomes further broken, putting it back to its original state means it is still broken. Some might say that current geography is defined by the Lieutenancies Act 1997. That whole less-than-adequate article is little more than personal opinion backed by personal interpretations of statute law, by non-lawyers, ie most wiki editors.) That act defines GL as a county, not a city, but so what? We can find something else somewhere to back up our OR assumption that GL is in fact London. So, JG, if you want to be helpful, why not press for a proper debate, review and overhaul of the current guidelines. If you can do that then you have my admiration, and support. You could start by finding out where those guidelines are and having them posted in a very clear, unmissable position. If you can find it, there is one discussion from many years ago where editors were reading 150 year old Hansard to find out what the 1889 LG Act actually meant from seeing what MP's were saying about it at the time when it was still in bill stage. And some of these people wrote the guidelines. A mess? We agree on something at least, even though your mess and mine are not the same.Roger 8 Roger (talk) 13:39, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
What you do not realise is that I've got your number! You’re happy to send me off on a wild goose chase. Something you know is almost impossible, just to occupy me and waste my time whilst your distorted facts are still here for the World to see. Yes I have sussed you out my adversary and you will not best me that easily. Now, back to the matter at hand, have you never heard of something called de facto? The acceptance that London <=> Greater London is de facto.Justgravy (talk) 17:38, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I know and have used de facto writing in English as well as in Latin. It needs to be handled with care because it can too easily be a cop out for editors who cannot argue their point succinctly or cannot find unambiguous sources. A good example of its frequent use is an official language. English is supposedly the de facto official language of the UK but not of the USA. What's the difference? Nothing except person opinion of what constitutes an official language, ie the definition of official. I agree that London is often used to refer to the GL county. However, this is usually in low to middle grade sources and much less so in quality RSS's. There is also a strong argument for saying that when L is used to refer to GL, the writer is simply taking a short cut by omitting the word Greater and that he really means GL, not L. It is no different from us using United Kindom instead of UK of GB&NI. If you want to follow that line then you should get rid of all the low grade refereces used to prove that say, Crayford, is in London and find top notch academic sources that refer to Crayford and read whatever is written in context so as to avoid the possibility of using London when the source actually referes to Greater London. And do not forget that common usage in RSS's trumps guidelines. Although hard to present as a RSS, go and stand outside Maccas in Crayford and ask twenty people if they are in Kent, Greater London or London. I think you will find the answers will be in that order, with London languishing at the bottom. A survey like that is a pretty good example of why the current guidelines are flawed and need to be rethought. But, I agree if you do the same survey in Lewisham the findings will be reversed. Another example of why this one size fits all approach to GL locations needs a rethink. Wild goose chase? Well, who started this discussion? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 19:03, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Well I am glad that you understand what that means, really I am. However, that little social experiment you thought up is flawed. I agree with what you said about Crayfordians and their way of thinking. However, if you dive in deeper to actually ask them WHY they gave their answer like that, most would use something along the lines of “that is how I write my address”. Yet this is not an argument at all (something which is mentioned in articles here in fact) because the Royal Mail itself clearly states that “an address is not a geographical reference of where a place is located”. Therefore, the issue here is that the grounds for what they believe is flawed, based on confusion and lack of awareness on what postal addresses actually mean. Certain institutions are to blame here for this of course, the Royal Mail included. Answer me this, if the Royal Mail changed Crayford’s Postcode from DA1 to SE30 and then you conducted your aforementioned social experiment, do you think it would result in a different outcome to what you first said?
I find your backhanded politeness to be wearing quite thin to be honest Roger. So I’ll cut to the chase. Do you agree with my above formula in green, yes or no? Justgravy (talk) 22:18, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
JG, I agree that a large number of people associate where they are with there adress which will distort the figures for any DA postal area. However, that is a side issue, that adds to the melting pot of confusion, and it misses the point. Postal areas are dangerous because they mislead people into thinking they know what the problem is when in fact they do not. If we had to change one thing of all the factors that contribute to the confusion, then IMO it should be the statement in the project guidelines UK-geography/counties, which says, from memory, that "we do not take the view that the historic counties still exist". This grossly opinionated statement, heavily influenced by low-grade references and misreading of other references, leads to all sorts of problems in trying to juggle around detail to fit any given article. If this statement was removed many of the edit wars would stop and we would have a far better encyclopedia. Your gripe about wanting Crayford noted as being in London, not Kent, would disappear and you would get what you want. Crayford would be noted as being in its admin county, which I agree with, but it would also be noted in the lead that it is in the historic county of Kent. (The two are not mutually exclusive as so many people seem to think.) Kent would be noted in the lead due to Crayford's close association with Kent. For the Lewisham article, it would also be noted that the town is in the historic county but in the history section, not the lead, due to Lewisham's weaker association with Kent. The same reasoning would apply all around London (and UK) articles. The matter of whether to use London or Greater London, then becomes a seperate debate not tangled up with the mess of historic counties, which it currently is. If you look at it like that, we would both get what we want: you having Crayford 'in London' and me having Crayford in Kent. Why not focus your attention on getting that false statement about the HC's not being extant entities? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 19:47, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
“A large number of people”? Even this is an understatement! This is the sole argument that anybody from an area without a compass direction postcode will use to try to claim that their area is not part of London. To be honest, I believe that you have completely missed my point in what I am trying to do here (which is based on my earlier point of standardisation). At least we agree that Postal data from the Royal Mail forms no basis of argument. However, you talking about “Crayford's close association with Kent” whereas Lewisham having a “weaker association with Kent” is nothing but POV. What “association” are you talking about here? Where people who grew up in these areas claim it to be? Because as we have both just agreed, their opinion is completely skewed by something we both know to be incorrect. I for one actually know many people from Crayford who have always said they are from south-east London and not Kent. But I am not using this as an argument here, unlike what you seem to be trying to do.
On another note, I agree with the current Wikipedia guidelines stating that the historic counties no longer exist. You have been consistently going against this with your comments and editing (I do not know why an admin has not pulled you up on this before)? Also, I do not agree with this binary splitting i.e. that somewhere like Crayford should have the historic county in the lead whereas somewhere like Lewisham should not. What would your proposition for how the splitting should be implemented even look like? When even you admit that “association” is a spectrum and not something that is black or white.
Either every single London area article should have their historic county in the lead or none of them should, this is the standardisation that I was trying to argue for when I first opened this… Justgravy (talk) 11:35, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Just to bring it to everyone's attention, I have filed for dispute resolution here: Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_London#Standardisation_for_all_London_Neigbourhood_/_Area_Pages Justgravy (talk) 17:12, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

JG, please see Wikipedia:WikiProject_UK_geography/How_to_write_about_settlements#Lead and scroll down a few lines to find tucked away this guideline about what to put in the lead: Historic county (if in England or Wales and if different from current county), and a brief paragraph about historical roots / founding. So, do you still think that Kent should not be in the lead for Crayford> In fact, do you now think we should mention Kent in the lead section of Lewisham? After all, we are just following guidelines, as you want us to do. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 22:11, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Roger guidelines are there for a reason. If this is the will of Wikipedia then we need to follow it. Also, please re-read what I wrote before. "Either every single London area article should have their historic county in the lead or none of them should". I never said that historic counties should not be in the lead. All I said was that if this is deemed the correct way (which you have just pointed out is) then every article should follow this - whether it be Crayford, Lewisham or Westminster! Can we now call this (the removal of "Greater" and the adding of historic counties in the lead for all articles) consensus? Justgravy (talk) 12:45, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
My point, as my example above illustrates, is that the guidelines are a mess everywhere, with inconsistencies, contradictions, factual errors and opinion all mixed in together. Your wish to solve the L-GL 'problem', is merely a consequence of this wider muddle, and 'fixing' that L-GL problem will not get rid of the underlying cause. But, to focus on your suggestion, I have trouble with your proposal because you are doing what so many editors try to do, namely to put related articles into neat, tidy boxes, and to justify that on the grounds of consistency. There is a limit to how far consistency can and should be used. For example, there is a very clear difference between Crayford and Lewisham in how close each town relates to its shared historic county of Kent, meaning that in one of them mention of Kent should go into the lead (and expanded under History) and in the other it should go only in the history section. Treating both the same in an effort to create 'consistency', is not possible in a neutral enclopedia without distorting reality (making the encyclopedia less neutral). In a similar way, it is wrong to call all towns within GL county, as being in London. Lewisham may be appropriatly described as being in London, but Crayford associates more with GL, not London. I presume that is one reason why the county was called GL, not London. So, I think the guidelines, that you want to reinforce, to call everything within GL London, is doing a disservice to this encyclopedia. We should treat each area on a case by case basis. If there is to be any consistency I muse that we could call everything in inner London, London, and everything in outer London, GL? About sources using London for everything within GL - those sources need to be carefully checked for quality, and even then there is no meaningful reason why we should not assume it as a given that reference to London is mere acceptable shorthand talk, when GL is what is really meant.
Thus, rather than accepting your proposal, which says nothing more that what consensus has already established, we should look at revisting that consensus, which will hopefully result in the removal of calling everything within GL, London! That means editors would have to stop making blanket robotic changes to all articles about towns within GL, to beef up their edit counts, and actually think about how best to describe each of those towns, realising, for example, that Crayford is different from Lewisham, which is different in turn from Kensington. Do that and we would have a better encyclopedia. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 21:13, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
Roger you keep using words like ‘’relates’’, ‘’associates’’ and ‘’should’’ with absolutely no factual backup. You even used the word ‘’presume’’ when explaining about the naming of “Greater London”! Like I said before, all this talk amounts to nothing more than your own POV. You provide no argument other than your own POV and the POV of others. You seem to want me to do your dirty work for you to encourage others to bend the guidelines to your will? You mention that you want to “call everything in inner London, London, and everything in outer London, GL”. This is nothing more than trying to bend their definitions to your own POV. You accused me before of adding “a hefty dose“ of my own “personal opinion”. Now you are trying to do exactly the same thing. Crayford, Lewisham, Westminster and Kensington are all in both “London” and “Greater London” fact. “London” and “Greater London” cover the exact same area fact. You seem to make the mistake a great many people do and are confusing “Outer London” with “Greater London”. Let’s take an example of your application, one that might contradict your ‘opinion’ right away, let’s take Stratford. Being part of Newham it is in Outer London. However, under your ‘’opinion’’ as a built up area within Zone 2/3 you would only think of it as “London” and not “Greater London”, am I correct? You trying to change these guidelines to make a “better encyclopedia” again is your personal opinion. What is ‘’better’’ to one person is not at all necessarily what is ‘’better’’ to another!
This is all irrelevant anyway, as you said yourself these are already “the guidelines” that I want to “reinforce” and this “consensus has already established”. There is nothing more discuss… Justgravy (talk) 17:58, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
In reply: when I insert into a sentence words like 'I presume' and 'I muse', it means what it says. Evidence you call for? There is plenty of it but it requires slightly more thought to interpret that evidence properly than it does with most other, non-UK geography related articles. That lack of a deeper insight creates distorted articles, like London. You still have not carried out my Maccas test that should tell you there is a disconnect in common usage between saying Crayford is in London and what most people say that it is in Kent. You could, for a bit of fun, walk a few hundred yards along the road from Maccas till you get to Princes Road and carry out the same survey with 20 more people, 10 on one side of the road and 10 on the other side. IF these guidelines comply with the common usage principle, you should get two distinct answers, 10 saying they are in London and 10 saying they are in Kent! Go on, give it a go! Roger 8 Roger (talk) 19:49, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
  • I have no intention of reading all this waffle, but is what's being proposed removing "Greater" from the placename in every locality within Greater London? If so, I obviously oppose it; the country boundary is literally an arbitrary line on a map drawn through what was then the middle of the green belt, and would lead to remote country villages like Downe and North Ockendon being described as "London" without qualification, which would obviously be a perverse outcome. Bear in mind also that this would impact the way we handle outlying areas which are nominally in "Greater Whatever" elsewhere in the UK, so this isn't the appropriate place to discuss it—as a UK-wide change that would affect somewhere like Saddleworth just as much as it affects Havering-atte-Bower, it needs to be raised at the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United Kingdom noticeboard so those people with an interest in other places that would be affected are also aware. ‑ Iridescent 20:04, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
    • I totally agree with Iridescent, this is part of a wider picture and the debate should be held in the appropriate place, not here. JG, seeing as you started this discussion why don't you arrange that other discussion in the Project UK section. I am sure others would help if needed. Your first task, I suggest, is to know exactly what you want to achieve and state that succinctly and without ambiguity - there might need to be some discussion on that first - I gave a suggestion above, about a phrase in the guidelines if that helps. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 02:34, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
@Roger 8 Roger So are you saying that you do not actually know? Could you please provide this evidence here. I do not mind if it “requires slightly more thought to interpret” please provide it here anyway. In regards to your “Maccas test” I told you before that it is completely flawed. I told you before that the ‘’common usage’’ you described is due to the complete misinterpretation of Royal Mail data by the local populace and as such is not credible to draw a conclusion from. I told you before that the opinions of local people are irrelevant in describing where a place is located.Justgravy (talk) 22:02, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
@Iridescent Maybe if you had actually read “all this waffle” you would have not needed to post what you did. So please allow me to retort, It does not matter what you “oppose” these are the guidelines and consensus and we have a duty to uphold them. These were created through extensive discussion over a long period of time. There is nothing new that you can bring to the table, every angle has been visited already. You mention Downe, but what about Orpington? You mention North Ockendon, but what about Hornchurch? You mention a “perverse outcome” again this is an ‘’opinion’’. I have many opinions about this matter (I believe places like Downe and North Ockendon should be completely removed from London) but I do not use these as a grounds for argument here because my opinion is irrelevant. Only facts are relevant here, so please stick to them. Finally, this does not affect “elsewhere in the UK“. As I mentioned in one of my first posts on this matter, London is unique within the UK and as such the rules of definition applied here cannot be applied elsewhere in the UK.Justgravy (talk) 22:02, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

JG, please see this and this Belvedere, which relates especially to the title of an article but the principle is clear. Refer to a place by what it is called, not by what it should be called (or not called)! This is why the Maccas test is important. Like Crayford, the large majority of people would say Belvedere, Kent, not Belvedere, London. Another simplistic test is to google them both. We then have a problem if we start trying to say Belvedere (and Crayford) is in London (certainly in the heading). The debate over this over time have focussed to much on what is technically correct (or not correct) which is why WP articles on London have been missing the point. That is precisely what you are trying to do. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 02:59, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Roger I think you may have some issues with reading? I told you, probably about 3 times now, it does not matter what “the large majority of people” refer to a place as, they are still wrong. Many hundreds of years ago “the large majority of people” thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. This is not an opinion this is a fact. Wikipedia is supposed to be an Encyclopedia. Encyclopedias are supposed to be a resource for credible facts, not warped opinions. My advice, why do you not move away from Wikipedia and focus on Reddit instead? I think this would suit you better. This is just advice of course, you do not have to take it :) Also, I made a DR page here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_London#Standardisation_for_all_London_Neigbourhood_/_Area_Pages
so could you please use it. Justgravy (talk) 10:25, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Since this started as an RfC, is it time to formally close it as one? Justgravy has just taken me to ANI for reverting their removal of the word "Greater" from the lead of Crayford, which they've twice claimed has consensus here (once while the RfC was still open, again when a bot expired the template). --Lord Belbury (talk) 11:29, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Yes because if I reverted your revert I would get accused of edit warring again! Clearly it's absolutely fine for you guys to revert my edits, go against Wikipedia guidelines etc. but as soon as I try to do the same I get reported, what a liberty!
You are not understanding Lord Belbury. The consensus has already been reached here and had been reached long ago, just have a quick sift through the archives and you will find it. All I am doing is re-implementing it.Justgravy (talk) 12:52, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
You're now making these lead edits again and being reverted by uninvolved editors, so it would help to get a formal close of this RfC, I think, if the consensus is as obvious and long-standing as you believe it to be. You linked to this discussion to prove your point about Kingston and your reverter said "Seems to have been rejected", so a formal close that established consensus would help a lot here. Any "quick sift" is better done by whoever formally closes this (I can't see any obvious decisive past discussion myself). --Lord Belbury (talk) 10:13, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
That's right, I am only trying to restore the articles to how they appeared just over a year ago - before MetrolandNW came on the scene. I am really not the enemy here. As I started this, I will nominate myself to be the one to close it. The formal close to this can be found here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_London/Archive_10#Changing_'London'_to_'Greater_London'
Which highlights the previous consensus and how these articles should be restored. Justgravy (talk) 17:35, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
WP:RFCEND and WP:ACD suggest that this RfC would be better closed by an uninvolved editor. --Lord Belbury (talk) 17:48, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
I made a RFC so hopefully somebody will resolve this soon.Justgravy (talk) 11:14, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
Justgravy, you need to start an RfC to request a closure. Please fill out the parameters in the {{Rfc}} template so subscribed users are triggered via the notification system. — Yours, Berrely (🎅 Ho ho ho! 🎄) • TalkContribs 14:20, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
A bot removed it some weeks ago, after the thread went stale. I'll put it back. --Lord Belbury (talk) 15:38, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
He means a Request for Closure not Request for Comment. I will remove the Request for Comment and I already created a Request for Closure here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Requests_for_closure#Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_London#Standardisation_for_all_London_Neigbourhood_/_Area_PagesJustgravy (talk) 15:49, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
I also realised that I formatted the Request for Closure slightly incorrectly, but I have fixed it now.Justgravy (talk) 16:21, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
No... I did mean Request for Comment, it should be kept open if you have started a closure request. — Yours, Berrely (🎅 Ho ho ho! 🎄) • TalkContribs 18:10, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Consensus needed on multiple move requests

I have proposed four London districts page moves for qualifying as being primary topics:

Along with another for both consistency and notability:

I'd appreciate users here to take a look at these proposals and state their support/opposition on their talk pages. --Jf81 (talk) 18:37, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Geographic location in neighbourhood articles / Changing 'London' to 'Greater London' Continued

Continuing on from the bottom here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_London/Archive_10#Changing_'London'_to_'Greater_London'

It clearly says here that they are "still hoping for consensus on having "Greater London" for distant suburbs with their own post towns". This means that there never was any consensus for this. Yet despite this, this user still edited a whole bunch of articles and they were allowed to remain, why? And now I am trying to revert them because of this, I need consensus to do these reversions? What logic is this?Justgravy (talk) 15:30, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Oh JG, you're back. I can smell through my laptop screen pungent whiffs from the rotting carcus of this long dead horse. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 02:02, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
Also can you please stop using these ridiculous metaphors as it is just counterproductive.Justgravy (talk) 09:43, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
Justgravy, I suggest linking diffs when talking about an uncommunicative user. — Yours, Berrely • TalkContribs 07:48, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
I will bear that in mind, thank you.Justgravy (talk) 10:52, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
By saying that I meant to do so — Yours, Berrely • TalkContribs 11:43, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
I do not fully understand what you are saying I'm afraid?Justgravy (talk) 14:40, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Featured Article Review for The Country Wife

I have nominated The Country Wife for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. -- Beland (talk) 20:23, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Merger proposal of Tom Aikens (restaurant)

Ongoing discussion at Talk:Tom Aikens#Tom Aikens (restaurant). --George Ho (talk) 22:32, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Consensus needed again on Enfield move requests!

Consensus on the previous move request was that the article did not meet WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY for Enfield. This move request, however, focuses on the key issue I had with the article name:

Please see the current Enfield Town talk page. It would be great to see any support/objections from London WikiProject users! PlatinumClipper96 (talk) 21:26, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

London Borough Council articles - Finances section

Each of our 32 London Borough Council articles has sections on Powers and functions and on Finances, eg Southwark London Borough Council#Powers and functions and Southwark London Borough Council#Finances. I think all 32 articles have identical wording. There's a discussion at Talk:Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council#Finances section which would apply to all 32 articles and it would be good to find consensus there. We're discussing whether (a) the material currently in the section is useful and appropriate to a Finances section or (b) it repeats material in the Powers and Functions section and a Finances section should only exist if it had a different focus. NebY (talk) 16:26, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Photo request–3-7 Ray St., Clerkenwell

 
If only this photographer had been kind enough to walk down the street on the right...

Hi, I have a request for a photo if anyone is going to be near the Clerkenwell area. I've just rewritten the article of Vincent Figgins, a nineteenth-century industrialist and influential creator of fonts, and have submitted it for GA. His company's factory building at 3-7 Ray St., Clerkenwell, is still in existence, and a Grade II listed building, so it would be lovely to have a picture of it in the article and in the Wikidata entry. There isn't any photo on Commons of the street, so if anyone is in the area and feels they could safely take some pictures (and perhaps a detail shot of its railings, which retain the firm's monogram) I'd be really grateful. (As a stretch goal if anyone is near Nunhead Cemetery, his tomb has been very well photographed and has a commons category with many pictures....apart from the side listing his daughters, which is awkward to photograph as it adjoins the next tomb. If anyone could upload some really good close-ups of the text on all four sides, and ideally one showing clearly what it says under "Louisa wife of James Figgins", I'd again be grateful.) Blythwood (talk) 09:14, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

@Blythwood: I have uploaded five images for you to chose from. Please click on the link: "Wikimedia Commons has media related to 3-7 Ray Street, London." Best wishes. Dormskirk (talk) 15:25, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
@Dormskirk: – incredible, thank you so, so much! I've built a Wikimedia Commons category for Ray Street for them to be located in and linked one to the entry on Wikidata. Blythwood (talk) 17:48, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
@Blythwood: Great. No problem. Best wishes. Dormskirk (talk) 17:51, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

RfC of interest

This RfC may be of interest to members of this group. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:05, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Consensus needed on Enfield move requests

I have proposed the below Enfield-related page moves:

The article about Enfield is currently called Enfield Town, but the name "Enfield Town" refers only to a specific part of Enfield (the town centre). For example, Bullsmoor, Freezywater, Enfield Lock and Ponders End are within the area covered by this Enfield Town article (Enfield), but not in Enfield Town. I also believe the subject of the article qualifies as a primary topic for "Enfield". I would appreciate London WikiProject users to get involved and share any support or objections! PlatinumClipper96 (talk) 20:15, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I see this discussion is now closed, but you could say the same thing about the Chipping Barnet article, which also includes information about New Barnet and East Barnet, even though those have their own separate articles. I would suggest therefore that we have articles dealing separately with Enfield Town, Ponders End, Enfield Lock as the different settlements that together are commonly said to comprise Enfield (which is itself part of the wider borough of the same name), and that typing 'Enfield, London' should lead to a disambiguation page between these individual areas as well as the London Borough of Enfield. Similarly we could also have articles dealing separately with Chipping Barnet, New Barnet, East Barnet, and that typing 'Barnet, London' should lead to a disambiguation page between these individual areas as well as the London Borough of Barnet.Uakari (talk) 22:02, 19 August 2021 (UTC)