Talk:Swansea/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Comment

In the page on `Swansea` it describes a healthy proportion of the population are Welsh - speaking. The vast majority of people in Swansea are non-Welsh speakers. I have lived here for 48 years in several areas ( or districts) and have only met one person who can speak Welsh.

You've lived a very sheltered life, then. Seriously though, it's true that most of the Welsh speakers are in the Swansea valley and outlying areas rather than the city centre. Deb 21:01, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

According to the 2001 census 13% of Swansea (City & County) residents reported themselves as welsh speakers - and this was the same as the 1991 census results.

I realise that personal experience isn't enough to base an article on, but I hear Welsh in the city centre regularly. More usefully (well, I hope!), I do have some statistics about the language locally. Worth digging out? Telsa 09:26, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Duly dug. The additions to the article come from "Spreading The Word: The Welsh Language 2001", John Aitcheson & Harold Carter, Y Lolfa, 2004, which lists every council ward in Wales. Telsa 15:37, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

has the name "swansea" anything to do with the german area called "schwansen"?

Probably not. Deb 19:06, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Swansea was referred to as the city's 'English' name. This is incorrect, and so I've deleted it. As the article points out, the name has a North European origin. It was not that the city had two names, one given by the Welsh and the other coined by the English. Swansea is just the name that evolved from the original settlement. It has no connection with the English language. Incidentally, does anyone know when the Welsh name, Abertawe, first started being used? I can't find any historical reference for the name. Steve

Don't know about that, but one could argue that Swansea is the English name on the grounds that (a) it is an anglicised version of the original Scandinavian name, and that {b} it is the name English speakers use for the town. I'm not going to change it back, though. Deb 12:05, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• Yes, you make some good points. However, I still argue that referring to Swansea as an English name is incorrect, as it is not an anglicised pronouciation of the original Scandinavian name (as in, say, 'Beijing' being called 'Peking' by British missionaries), nor a name given to the city by the English, but is how the name evolved within the community itself. Only a few hundred years ago, the name was spelt Swanzee. It seems more of a coincidence that the final name sounds like a combination of two English words. As you know, the people of Swansea, while not being English by race are also not Welsh speaking (Here, I'm referring to the original town around the castle, not the northern suburbs), and those who settled on the Gower were predominately from Flanders. So, it is quite reasonble that the name would be less Welsh sounding than say Llanelli, which is predominantely a Welsh speaking town. Furthermore, Swansea is not only the name used for the city by English language speakers, but of all nationalities except the Welsh. Anyway, this is just a light hearted discussion about a topic that I've often wondered about. It would, however, be interesting to research when the name 'Abertawe' came into use and for what purpose it was introduced. Can anyone offer any imput on that? Anyway, thanks for your response, Deb - much appreciated. Steve

Unfortunately I can't reply on your talk page, as you don't seem to have registered. However, I would recommend you take a trip over to the Welsh wikipedia (we don't all speak Welsh fluently - in fact, most of us don't) and see if anyone there can shed any light on the origins of "Abertawe". Deb 20:09, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• Thanks for the suggestion. I'll give it a shot. - Steve

• • I didn't see anything about the origins of the name on the Welsh wikipedia. Is it still needed? If so, I'll ask a friend who seems to have more books and articles on the subject than your typical library. Telsa 09:26, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

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I am surprised to hear of people who don't realise there are a lot of Welsh speakers in Swansea. I hear it all the time. Maybe people who don't speak the language don't necessarily realise it is being spoken. I often find that I can't be sure which language local people are speaking when I cannot quite hear what they are saying. I have a whole set of local friends who I don't usually speak to in English. As for the name Abertawe I have no idea when it was first used but it seems to be a natural name that describes the area "mouth of the tawe". It describes the place by a geographical feature. There are "pen-y-bryn"s all over Wales for example. It just means "The top of the hill".

neilj

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living the dream?

There's a link to Morgans (the big hotel) under the title "living the dream" in the Famous People section. Should there be? Telsa 09:26, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Having now read Wikipedia:external links, it seems likely that the Morgans link is not the only one that shouldn't be there. I'm going to get rid of it and a couple more, and add more wiki links into the text. Hope that's okay. Telsa 15:08, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Muahaha. Added lots of internal links, removing the external links as I go. I don't know what to do about the sports and castles links. I don't think they should really be there, but I am only new here. Telsa 11:24, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Stuff to add

Before adding any more to this article (and there is lots to add! my current list includes Swansea Jacks, Swansea Valley (well, a bit), a bit more about the regions within the town, the old railway line(s) and Victoria station, Clyne Valley, Singleton Park and the botanical gardens, Twin Town, and about a thousand years' worth of history), I am going to rearrange it into paragraphs which can then have nice headings put on them. Hope this is alright with people? Telsa 11:24, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Sources for figures

The sources for the figures I just added to the article about education: I got the comprehensive schools from a November 2004-dated PDF off the local council website. And I've just removed the figures about full-time students because I got them from the UK government statistics website and on reading the about-this-site-and-these-stats pages, I am apparently supposed to obtain some click-use licence before using them. (Uhhh?) My naive reading of this suggests they're useless for wikipedia articles as a result. Can that be right? Telsa 16:44, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure but I'd guess the licence thing is only if you want to use them commercially, eg. for market research. I can't see how the government can stop us using them in wikipedia articles -- or why they would want to. Deb 17:14, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

I have just messed around on the [1] website which provides these licences. You have to make an account there before you can even apply for a licence! I have now created an account, and the possible licences look completely unusable from a wikipedia point of view: time-limited among other things. This statistic will self-destruct in five years, and so on. It seems that the data is public, but the aggregations from all these different sources are Crown copyright. I expect I can get individual statistics from the council quite fairly, however, so I shall make long phone calls on Tuesday morning. Sorry if all this is over-careful, but it is always easier to add stuff than to try to unpick stuff which shouldn't be there out of it.

Is there a more general place I can raise this issue? I can't be the only person on Wikipedia who uses statistics.gov.uk: it is utterly fascinating! So someone else must have had this idea for a source before. The Swansea talk page seems a silly place to ask, though. Where can I raise this?

Telsa 18:32, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Answering my own question, I have had half an answer from the Crown copyright people, but it is in direct contradiction to the responses someone else on Wikipedia was getting, so I shall try and figure out what's going on before blithely assuming. Telsa 14:00, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

External links: regiochannel

(Incidentally, I just realised why my titles weren't showing up and have turned all my titles with three = marks into titles with two to make them show up properly on this page)

Can User:84.137.32.245 explain why s/he is running around putting regiochannel.co.uk links into various UK city articles? I removed a pile of others recently, following the "Wikipedia is not a web directory" suggestions of Wikipedia:external links and I would like to remove this regiochannel one too. If no-one says I shouldn't, I shall remove it in a few days. I have to admit that I think the ones I removed originally were much more relevant and encyclopaedic than this one, which seems to be content from DMoz. Telsa 14:00, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Expand section or create new page?

Advice please. I have put an extremely terse summary of Swansea history in as a section, but I actually have some 1500 words on the subject, including more about people as well as which industries started when. I think it might completely unbalance the Swansea article to put it all here. It must be as long as all the rest put together. Should I put it in anyway, to replace what I have already? Or should I create a History of Swansea page and put it all there?

Telsa 10:05, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

I'd go for a new section if you've got that much material, and just cross-reference it from here. Deb 11:55, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Transport links?

Precious little (nothing?) about transport at all - surely an important place like Swansea should have a section on that! It is on a motorway; a mainline station with cross country links; docks including ferry to Ireland; and an airport! Peter Shearan 15:44, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree. It was on my list of things to do (see the stuff to add) above. I have added a stubby start. Feel free to augment. :) The railways history in particular seems to be very complicated; I have 1850s and 1904 OS maps of Swansea which show all manner of links and companies which are not there now, and I am still disentangling them. I am also utterly baffled that the Heart of Wales can start off from Swansea -- which it does, I see it there all the time -- and yet apparently technically Swansea is not part of the Heart of Wales line.

Stuff I know I have omitted so far. Trains: St Thomas station (gone now), Landore is where the depot is, the Post Office sorting trains (now gone, but are they coming back?), local services, request stops. Buses: who runs the new Gower buses? How true is it that all the Gurkhas who lost their jobs in Llanelli ended up on the Gower run? I think pensioners in Wales get free/cheap travel courtesy of the Assembly: worth a mention if true? Who are the company running the "other" bus to the university, the £1 one? Waterways: well, everything about non-people transport, for a start, I know nothing about it. And what gets sent from the docks would be interesting, too. Cycle paths, Sustrans (Swansea's part of something in that; also it has what may be the shortest cycle path in the world, perhaps I shall go and measure it for laughs). The silly toy "train" on the old Mumbles railway. Links generally: we now have the beginnings of Swansea/rest of world and round Swansea town services, but Swansea-rest-of-county is completely lacking. Anything else?

This will all be much easier when the transport museum re-opens!

--Telsa 13:07, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

With the arrival of Swansea railway station (not my choice of names; I just took the stub as a useful peg for a little detail about the growth of the railway system), I think there is really only water transport left to do. Unless you know of anything else? --Telsa 17:57, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

I wish I knew more about the canal, but I'm afraid my contribution on that topic would begin and end with the sentence that's already there. Deb 19:58, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Under 'Culture', you mention :'Swansea's diverse and interesting past has helped weave a city of character and charm, and as one would expect, the land has been very fertile in producing famous personalities', however, I fail to see how a city of character and charm necessarily equates to the production of famous personalities. If anything, the proportion of famous personalities is lower in cities of character and charm than in those lacking charm and character - take Peter Kay's Bolton heritage for instance. 163.1.227.76 22:54, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Good point, but why didn't you just change it yourself? Deb 17:00, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Some answers:

• Pensioners in Swansea do get subsidised travel on busses in Swansea. They need to carry a transponder card which they present to the ticket machine on board local busses to get their travel subsidy. Hint: chat to a pensioner when you see them use this on a bus.
• There is a disued canal called the tennant canal beginning at Port Tennant, Another branch called the "Glan-y-wern" canal starts at Crymlyn Bog nature reserve and joins the Tennant canal just north of the Visteon Factory, the canal then runs all the way up to Aberdulais.
• Modern Fishing Trawlers can be seen in Swansea Docks - clearly fishing is transported to Swansea docks.
• Swansea Docks currently has coal exports from Tower Colliery to Ireland. Steel (in large steel ingots) from Port Talbot steelworks is exported as far afield as Detriot, Michigan (car industry use).
• Swansea Docks was used to dispatch chemical products and Petroleum products from BP Llandarcy and Baglan Bay, you can still see the large containers with the BP logo. This trade has declined in recent years. Is Llandarcy now closed? What about Baglan Bay? What is the state of the petroleum export trade from Swansea Docks today? Any shipping clerks out there who can help?
• Known cycle tracks: 1. Swansea Bay Promenade, starts at marina, ends near Mumbles Pier. 2. River Tawe footpath, starts near Sainsbury's Superstore road bridge east side, ends at morfa near traffic lights junction to Pentre-Chwyth by pass. 3. Clyne Valley Cycle Track, starts at Blackpill, ends at Gowerton.

User:213.105.224.16 00:56, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

County details and the first paragraph

Hi everyone, I'm concerned about the opening paragraph of the Swansea article. I made a change on 29th June to bring it in line with Wikipedia policy, but it has been reverted twice.

The guidelines (look for 'Lead section') recommend that the lead section of an article should concisely set out the main points. In my view this does not include details of the traditional county, we should simply say that Swansea is a city and county on the south Wales coast, east of the Gower. Traditional county information, if it seems useful, should go in the main body of the article, not in the opening paragraph.

There are also agreed guidelines on naming conventions which the article should meet (look for 'Counties of Britain').

Take a look at my [version] and let me know what you think, I've included the Glamorgan details in the 'Geography' section. Thanks Chris Jefferies 30 June 2005 18:45 (UTC)

In the interests of balanced debate, I would like to put forward my thoughts. I personally think that the traditional county information is much more useful as a geographical indicator of where a place is, that the legal status of the local authority (i.e. 'city and county'). The former is much more useful in defining where a place is, and the latter provides no useful information at all. As a compromise, the Encyclopaedia Britannica provides both pieces of infomation in the opening sentence: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9070596 "Welsh Abertawe city, Swansea county, historic county of Glamorgan (Morgannwg), southwestern Wales". This format should suit both parties and is consistent with the naming conventions. Owain 30 June 2005 19:08 (UTC)

Why can't we just have both? Deb 30 June 2005 20:34 (UTC)

We can have both of course, but I would prefer to put the historical county information in the main body of the article so that the lead section stays concise and simple. Owain's suggestion is unnecessarily complex for an article's opening paragraph.

For some more examples of balanced debate, take a look at Talk:Cardiff and Talk:Betws-y-Coed Chris Jefferies 30 June 2005 21:08 (UTC)

It's not unnecessarily complex for Encyclopaedia Britannica! Your desire to move it away seems to stem from a misunderstanding of what a traditional county actually is. Your [version] states "Swansea was part of Glamorgan prior to local government changes". This is simply untrue. Swansea was part of Glamorgan before county councils were created in 1889. Moving around local government boundaries doesn't change this fact, as the Government have pointed out on numerous occasions. Owain 1 July 2005 08:38 (UTC)

It would be a pity to clutter the Swansea Talk page by covering this at length here. It was discussed in great detail a year ago and then voted on, and the Wikipedia policy is that historical counties are just that - history (A quote from the policy - refering to the historic county area as a still existing entity is not acceptable.)

Anyone interested can read the definitive text at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places). Having agreed, we should now abide by the agreement. And Owain, I know you think 'voting has no place in a factual encyclopaedia', but Wikipedia is based on the idea of free debate and joint decision-making. Voting on issues is a core reason for its success, along with consensus, NPOV, and the noting of minority opinion. You are one of only two people who voted against at the time.

I see no reason to debate this further here on the Swansea page. Chris Jefferies 1 July 2005 10:20 (UTC)

A bunch of people agreeing with that statement does not make it a fact! If it was true, then Wikipedia would not have separate articles on Traditional counties of England for example, which, referring to local government acts, states "it did not formally abolish the 'ancient and geographic' counties. Furthermore, it is questionable whether Parliament could abolish many of them, given that many were not created by Parliamentary bill or Royal edicts, and, as such, could be argued to have an "untouchable" Common Law existence". Owain 1 July 2005 11:07 (UTC)

Voting is acceptable on issues such as layout and ordering, classification, etc. but not on defining what is right and wrong! There is ample evidence on Wikipedia itself to dismiss this one-size-fits-all approach, not to mention Government statements. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places): "This page is fledgling. It shouldn't yet be thought of as final". Even if I were to accept the validity of determining facts by popular vote (which logicaly is nonsense), the policy has been edited after it had been voted on! Owain 1 July 2005 11:07 (UTC)

Feel free to re-open the debate on the Naming conventions page if you want, but I'm not actually breaking the conventions, I'm using the exact wording suggested there. Your continual reverting of the page seems to be based on your opinion that you want the traditional county information hidden away from the first paragraph. A policy of including it there which is good enough for Encyclopaedia Britannica and doesn't contravene the naming conventions of Wikipedia is not good enough for Chris Jefferies. I'm sorry, but that is not sufficient reason. Owain 1 July 2005 11:07 (UTC)

I will answer these points on User_Talk:Owain. Chris Jefferies 1 July 2005 13:26 (UTC)

Districts of Swansea

There is a slow accretion of names to a section "Districts of Swansea". I can't find the term districts actually used by the council. Am I looking in the wrong place? And so far, the choice of what to add to this section seems a bit arbitrary. I'm not sure that Wikipedia needs an article on every single area of Swansea each on its own page. If we do, then there are dozens and dozens more to add: we have Treboeth but not Landore; Blaenymaes but not Cadle; separate entries for Brynhyfryd and Cwmbwrla, both in the same council ward, but no mention for Cwmdu, Gendros or Manselton in the same ward; no Bonymaen, no Clydach, no Garden Village, no Killay, and that's barely a start. Further to this, Wikipedia already has articles for West Cross and Slade which are not listed in this "districts" effort, which show up if you look for the pages in the Swansea category. This way madness lies. Can we discuss what sort of criteria are appropriate before adding Sandfields or the lons/lonnau as yet more red links? (Incidentally, that link to Mount Pleasant is to a disambiguation page which notes that there are over 100 Mount Pleasants in the UK alone. So it's not a terribly useful link at the moment!)

There are definitely regions of Swansea we don't cover which we should. Morriston has a history of its own as a planned town, for example, before its swallowing into Swansea. And we have nothing about the lower (or upper, for that matter) Swansea valley, which I think is very much connected to Swansea. (As a subject, Swansea valley, and possibly the entire LSV reclamation scheme, can probably go into River Tawe easily enough.)

But generally, I'm not sure that starting at the level this list is doing is going to be sustainable long-term.

--Telsa 17:57, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

The stub on Brynmill arrived a fortnight after I asked for some discussion about what districts were appropriate to list. Whilst there is probably quite a bit that could be written on Brynmill, again I wonder whether it is better to create a "Districts of Swansea" sort of article that deals with all of them. There are some natural divisions which could make sensible-sized sections and which could be discussed together, providing more context for the reader from Zagreb, Podunk or Macao. At the moment, lots of the little articles don't even say where Swansea is, and aren't categorised, so people are not likely to find and expand them. I think a single article is also more maintainable. Comments? Telsa 13:01, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Oh, come on! We now have one-sentence articles linked on half the list of about fifty areas of Swansea, divided into (overlapping) districts, wards, notable regions and beaches. I'm not sure this is an improvement on red links. Some of these areas are one street long. And yet there's nothing explaining how these tiny little places fit into more general divisions: Swansea/Swansea valley; east Swansea/west Swansea; predating industrialisation or a consequence of it. I love local history, but it can't just be me who is quailing a bit at the thought of going through and adding details and categories for every single one of these regions? Let alone those which are single streets and shopping centres. I have to say that I think the one for Blaen-Y-Maes is not exactly neutral point of view and some of the others could do with some specific referencing to buttress comments like "middle class". I know it's boring. I have done my share of wading through sources looking for statistics in the past. But we do need to justify some of these. At this rate we are going to end up, like Ballymena did, in the local media (see Talk:Ballymena), and it won't be a favourable report. Or is it just me who is concerned about this approach? Comments (as ever) welcome. With absolutely no response at all, I'm beginning to feel that I am typing into a void here.

Another thing that concerns me is the amount of copy-editing which may be required if all of these stubs stay, and that's not just in the article contents but in the titles. The capitalisation and hyphenation of Blaenymaes are disputed, I know that. But does User:213.105.224.16 have a specific reason for choosing that way? A cite for why s/he has chosen this spelling would make this so much easier to check, but in the meantime I don't think the 'y' is capitalised, whether it's hyphenated or not. Similarly, I've seen Fforestfach and Fforest-fach, but you can't just stick a capital into the middle of a Welsh word: it would be like BlackPool or NewCastle. Some of the beach names are misspelt. I haven't fixed them because, well, really, I'd like to get some discussion on whether they should remain (in the form of single articles). I personally would argue that they should be in a Gower beaches or Geology of Gower article or treated as part of specific areas. By putting them into lots of separate articles, I think you actually lose a lot, because you're divorcing the beach from the rest of the context. For example, the Rhossili article has stuff about the Burrows, the besanding, and how the geography of those and the Downs fits together (not much, admittedly, but it's a start): is there really a need to separate the beach back out into its own article? Whilst we are listing schools, post and claims about custard (can we have a cite for that, too, btw? I refer to the suggestion of Sandfields Swansea as the source of the invention of custard...), we're not giving any context here. Telsa 17:37, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Winsh-wen? I've never seen it spelled like that; on road signs it's Winchwen or Winch-wen. However, I wouldn't get too hung up on the existence of small articles. We do need to keep the main article to a manageable size, and that's normally done by cross-referencing to individual articles. I don't think we should worry about it at this stage. Deb 19:07, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

I've seen Winsh-wen. I think it's pretty common. I suspect it's an attempt to represent the sound in Welsh and English, as "ch" is very different in each, and "sh" the same(-ish) in both. Telsa 14:51, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

• "Winsh-Wen" is how you will find it spelt in the A-Z street Swansea street atlas (ISBN 1843481502) and Ordnance Survey Map Pathfinder 1127 (SS 66/79), however the Royal Mail PAF file has it spelt as "Winch Wen" in both English and Welsh files. Which is the higher authority on this?

• "Blaen-Y-Maes" is spelt as "Blaen-y-Maes" in the A-Z Swansea street atlas, I think "Blaen-y-Maes" with the small y is the correct form according to Welsh Language grammar (maybe consult University of Bangor on this.) In the Royal Mail PAF file it is given as Blaenymaes in both English and Welsh, and the street "Blaen Y Maes Drive" which is clearly named after the locality, is clearly of a different form again.

• "FforestFach" is clearly wrong. On the Ordnance Survey Pathfinder 1127 map it is shown as "Fforest-fach". This form found in the A-Z Swansea street atlas is also "Fforest-fach". In the Royal Mail PAF file in both English and Welsh it is "Fforestfach". I would say "Fforest-fach" is the correct form.

• Since Wikipedia seems to use Ordnance Survey grid references, perhaps Ordnance Survey place names be used where possible?

• The article on Blaen-y-Maes contains statements of fact and the statements form no political bias. I'm sure the local community would like these problems addressed by the authorities. Maybe comparitive crime statistics would be more appropriate here.

• The point about custard being invented in Swansea may be open to more research. This point is often claimed in Swansea "pub-talk".

• Area descriptions like middle class are clearly useless. Maybe stating income levels would be more appropriate?

User:213.105.224.16 23:55, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Aha, a response! Thanks!

On names: it's all a horrible mess :) If the Royal Mail is really claiming -ch in Welsh, I am inclined to treat it as dubious. On the other hand, I have seen the OS accused of dropping some real clangers too. (The OS-favoured Sweyn's Howes gets two pages in Gwynedd O Pierce's magisterial Place-Names in Glamorgan, which comes down firmly in favour of Swine House) We can either appoint some source authoritative or come to some sort of consensus here, I should think. We can always stick local variants into the relevant articles.

Statements of fact on Blaenymaes they may be, but they are completely isolated. There are no dates (Wikipedia likes dates, just in case no-one touches the article for ten years and then someone reads it and wonders "Currently? In the past? When was this written?"), no indications of how long the bus suspension lasted, no mention that the same thing happened with the buses in Bonymaen too (and in fact happened in Bonymaen first, as I recall. Perhaps you remember this? Around 1992/93?) This, incidentally, is what I mean by saying that fifty tiny articles end up losing context: you can't trace overall comparisons and patterns so easily. And somehow it comes across as very dismissive: two sentences saying it's notorious and they stone buses. There are a number of other areas in Swansea (and Port Talbot) where similar (and worse :( ) things have happened: are we going to have a series of "is a notorious area of Swansea" stubs with no further details? I do have 1994/95 crime figures for West Glamorgan (and yes, Blaenymaes crime rates were awful), but more up-to-date figures would be better.

Descriptions like "middle class" being useless: actually, it's not the words, but the lack of explanation in them that I have a problem with. Middle class (and the rest) can cover a wide range. Uplands and some of the new estates have nothing in common but could both be called middle class. Without explanation, the term doesn't mean much. That's what I was trying to get at. And it was your IP address, incidentally, who described the population of Sandfields as "working class" -- are there lots of you on the same IP address?

Oh! Birds! I never heard that one attached to the Sandfields area, just to Swansea. You'll have fun with that one with the Brummies, who are inclined to claim that whilst it may have been made here first, custard powder was invented in Birmingham first. But a specific brand makes more sense: when I saw that originally, it said simply that custard was invented down a sidestreet, and since eggs and milk is a reasonably universal human discovery predating the building of the Sandfields area, it just jarred horribly.

Finally, thanks for the response. I notice, however, that you are focusing on the little details, the ones I threw in as examples. What about my central concern: that creating articles at such a micro-level, gazetteer-like, is not creating articles which describe and explain Swansea? I take it that you don't agree?

Telsa 14:51, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi, sorry for not aswering the main point.

• I agree that tackling the subjects on districts at such a Micro level is not very helpful in this case. Swansea is not London. Please forgive me for this - I'm new to Wikipedia. There was no other precedent to go on and the original list did not make it clear. Many small articles were already created before I started. I would say that Electoral wards is a sensible place to start. Only areas that deserve special mention should have their own article. Would you agree with this going forward?

• With regards to names, shall we stick to OS names where possible? My reasoning for this is that OS grid references are quoted for places and it would be less confusing if readers were to lookup places on OS maps. We can ignore A-Z as a source since they license their data from OS.

• The statements on Blaen-y-Maes were not made by myself, by the way, though I do agree with them. I also agree that dates and statistics would be more helpful. They same point may be made about the mention of car crime in the main article on Swansea. Just saying that Swansea is a car crime blackspot can mean many things (for example, does Swansea breed car crime? Are there lots of Car Criminials in Swansea? Is car crime just the tip of the iceberg?) I seem to remember that there was 1 car criminal that was arrested and convicted leading to the car crime to fall by a half. About IP addresses: there must be other people in my area on this node.

Thanks for your feedback. User:213.105.224.16 17:54, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

There's nothing to forgive, and I'm sorry if I was overly pushy. We are not supposed to bite newcomers :) Poking about, I have realised that there are quite a few people on from the same IP address. Either that, or someone has an enormous ranges of interests! I encourage all of you/them to consider getting an account: the watchlist feature alone is so useful. Incidentally, although you signed yourself as 213.105.224.16, the history button on this page thinks you're 81.109.73.42 :)

The point about quoting grid references is a good one. Yeah, I can live with OS names generally. I was responsible for the car crime remark, actually: it's a quote from the BBC page cited. There are other statistics I didn't use at the time. I'll dig them out, but the summary is that lots more car crime is reported and thus recorded.

You're right that there isn't much precedent in articles about Welsh areas. I haven't really found any good examples in English town articles either. There is a Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography page about Wikipedia:WikiProject_UK_geography/How to write about counties which suggests creating a short description and a link to a separate page containing a list of places in the county. Given the sheer number of locations spreading (even in a table, they are a couple of screens of lists on a full-screen browser), I quite like this idea. Council wards is not what I would have thought of, but.. hmm. I'm curious to see how that would turn out now :)

Telsa 08:30, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

More about my IP address: I actually live in Uplands, Swansea. The explaination about the wide range of interests lies in the fact that loads of students (and quite a few active pensioners) live here and there is good broadband access.

Council wards is not perfect but it is a sensible way to start. I've got rid of the small stubs and merged them into council wards now, but there are 2 areas that are giving me problems:

1. Which electoral ward does Park View Estate belong to. It seems to be one of those places like Sandfields, Swansea that is known only to the local people.

2. Does anyone have any suggestions on how we clear up the dispute on Blaen-y-maes?

217.140.33.137 09:28, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Back to the issue about "Blaen-y-Maes", I would still say what has been written is fair comment and simply stating facts. The article on Hirwaun dated [26 June 2005] is what I would call an insulting and biased article. (81.109.73.42 22:52, 6 September 2005 (UTC))

Agreed. I have been bold and revamped Hirwaun substantially. I am wondering whether blowing up the tower blocks is encyclopaedic now :)

Love what's been going on with the wards, btw. Quick question. Are you getting the information about which wards contain which areas from that "britishsurvey.org" site? I am convinced it makes the "may contain the following areas" stuff up.

Off to dig out stats now.

Telsa 11:16, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I have used "britishsurvey.org" as my source for electoral wards. I don't think they "stuff up" but I will investigate further. I've noticed that many villages in Gower belong to many wards. I originally considerd this to be an effect of "common land". For example The Cefn Bryn common lands are shared by a number of villages in Gower. I'm just glad I'm not researching the administrative regions of Palestine, Kashmir or Somaliland. Thobius 17:11, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Date of Quadrant?

Was it built in the 1970s? I'm thinking it was the early 1980s. Deb 17:48, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

According to this article on Explore Gower, it was finished by 1976. Telsa 13:03, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Archiving required?

Warning message coming up when you try to edit this page: "This page is 36 kilobytes long. This may be longer than is preferable; see Wikipedia:Article size." Since there are no hugely active discussions on this page at the moment, would now be a good time to archive the lot of it? I may give it a go, but the instructions look rather complicated. Telsa 08:45, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. Deb 16:42, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

What's all this Beyond TV stuff?

I am moving this here until someone can turn it into something less promotional and more encyclopaedic. It is probably worth mentioning that Undercurrents are based in the city, but I'm not sure about the rest. The press release for the 2005 one refers to an international audience of 150 people. "Public pressure caused Swansea Airport to close down"? I think a reference is required for this, because I thought it was the cost of the improvements required and the fact that AirWales moved to Cardiff. And there are way too many external links in the text: they would need moving down or out.

Incidentally, I have just noticed that Undercurrents don't have their own wiki article and have made a stub: anyone interested, please help grow Undercurrents (news).

Telsa 14:46, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

BeyondTV

Swansea plays host to the BeyondTV International Film Festival. Organised by independent filmmakers Undercurrents, BeyondTV 2004 took place in the Patti Pavilion, BeyondTV 2005 in the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea Marina. BeyondTV 2005 hosted the Misty Awards for activist filmmakers.

• BeyondTV 2004
• BeyondTV 2005

BeyondTV is to showcase the talents of independent filmmakers.

Independent filmmakers Undercurrents are based in Swansea.

The Pod Report, based in mid-Wales, was out and about at BeyondTV 2005, recording interviews to be podcast over the net.

'Reach for the Sky', premiered at BeyondTV 2004, produced by Undercurrents, focuses on Swansea Airport and that uncontrolled aviation expansion is unsustainable. Swansea Airport, with the connivance of Swansea Council, was given the go-ahead to operate in the centre of the Gower Peninsular, an Area of Outstanding National Beauty, the first AONB to be designated in the country. Public pressure forced Swansea Airport to close down. Air Wales, that were operating from Swansea Airport, now operate from Cardiff International Airport.

For discussion

I'd reword it to something like this:

The [insert your description here, but independent film-makers is fine by me] Undercurrents are based in Swansea. They hosted an international film festival focusing on activism film-making, BeyondTV, in Swansea in 2004 and 2005.

And I would then move any further details to the Undercurrents (news) article. There seem to be an awful lot of external links in the current disputed text. It is my understanding that too many external links are a bad thing, especially when they're in the main body of an article (except for citing sources). I think I'd remove all the external links here. Undercurrents' website is linked from their shiny new Wikipedia stub (hint hint) article in the external links section, and we could link to BeyondTV there too.

Now onto the tricky bit. Before restoring this text again, can we have some references for it? Connivance of the council, for example. Connivance is hardly a neutral word. The airport was started in WWII when no inquiry was needed: I didn't know that the council were even consulted? Public pressure closed the airport down? When? There was a campaign against expansion, certainly. But closed it down? The implication is that Air Wales was left homeless and had to transfer, but the references in the Swansea Airport article are to Air Wales moving because Swansea was not a destination that made any profit. Which version is correct? And finally, we already note that the airport is in an AOONB down in the Transport section of the current article. At the moment, most of that paragraph is either duplication of information or is about a documentary; and the reference for half the information is apparently the documentary. Erm. I'm not sure this is the best way to present it.

So. Comments?

--Telsa 20:05, 8 December 2005 (UTC)