Wikipedia talk:UK Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 14
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Just a note that there is a rather large, and significant AFD nomination at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Afghan British. --Jza84 | Talk 23:12, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
- I had a look at some of these articles. It was a bit unfair to lump them all together. I suspect there are quite a few Afghans in the UK. I see that Egyptian, Brazilian, Nigerian, Serbian, Trinidadian and Somali British etc are listed as well, despite having fairly obvious communities in some parts of the UK. However, some of the other groups are not so worthy perhaps - Saint Kitts and Nevisian British, for example.--MacRusgail (talk) 14:17, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
Ethnic group articles
In light of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Afghan British failing to reach consensus, I think we should continue the many points raised in the discussion here, with the aim of improving these articles. Perhaps a good point to start is people's views on the article titles, many of which are currently neologisms. Cordless Larry (talk) 07:08, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
- Sure. What do you have in mind? ~ Troy (talk) 17:53, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
- Per WP:NEO, we should "use a title that is a descriptive phrase in plain English, even if this makes for a somewhat long or awkward title". To use Afghan British as the example, I suggest we go for either Afghans in the United Kingdom or Afghan people in the United Kingdom. What do people think? Of course, where there is a commonly used term, such as British Pakistani, we should stick with that. Cordless Larry (talk) 17:59, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
- It sounds good to me, but I don't know what other guys would think. I guess it depends on each article specifically. ~ Troy (talk) 18:09, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
- I disagree, a person who is born in the UK to parents who were both born in the UK could not be called an Afghan, even if for thousands of years prior his whole family was born in and lived in Afghanistan. This person would be a a Briton of Afghan-descent, or an Afghan-Brit. I do not see how putting two well established words together is a neologism. If I were to make an article called "Cotton trousers", would I have to prove that other sources call them exactly that or else have my title called a neologism? Would I have to make an obtuse title, like "Trousers that happen to be made from a fabric known to contain a high perentage of spun cotton fibers". I think that neologism-paranoia is a bad thing... the guideline about neologisms was intended to persuade people not to create articles about new terms themselves, not the subjects the terms represent. The reason for this, is that the media creates new neologisms everyday that have flash-in-the-pan interest. Afgan Britons are not a flash in the pan thing. And these articles are not about the terms used as the title, but rather the ethnic group they represent. If another well-known term is available that would be more recognizeable and a more likely search term, then such article should be renamed. But we should not go on a quest to rename all of these articles just to avoid neologisms like the plague. Jerry delusional ¤ kangaroo 18:47, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
- You presume that the primary subject of the article is British people of Afghan origin, whereas it also covers Afghan citizens who live in the UK. In fact, the main source of reliable statistics we have, the 2001 census, only records country of birth not ancestry so I think there's an argument to be made that the article should be more about the latter. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:32, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
- That's not my presumption at all. I am merely trying to point out that the current title is all-inclusive, and the proposed title(s) exclude britons of foo'ian ancestry. Jerry delusional ¤ kangaroo 22:50, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, that's a problem. The articles cover both groups of people, and it's hard to find a title that reflects both. I don't think that the current titles are all-inclusive. For example, a recently arrived Afghan who may only plan to stay in the UK temporarily is unlikely to consider themselves to be British. To take a slightly different example, it's like calling retired British expats in Spain British-Spaniards. Cordless Larry (talk) 10:26, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
- That's not my presumption at all. I am merely trying to point out that the current title is all-inclusive, and the proposed title(s) exclude britons of foo'ian ancestry. Jerry delusional ¤ kangaroo 22:50, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
- You presume that the primary subject of the article is British people of Afghan origin, whereas it also covers Afghan citizens who live in the UK. In fact, the main source of reliable statistics we have, the 2001 census, only records country of birth not ancestry so I think there's an argument to be made that the article should be more about the latter. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:32, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
- I think each article should go. Their existence is a strong justification for the increasingly overwhelming mix of ethnicities that has arisen over the last year on wikipedia. In many cases, the articles aren't used for any encyclopedic purpose, but rather to display some kind of advertisement for the existence of these subgroups - almost like a myspace or a "group" on facebook. That's especially apparent when random celebrities are used as representatives in the population boxes because "John Doe said his grandfather was "Afghan-British"". I'm also against the continuous increase in these X-Y categories (Indian-British, for example), when a Category:People of Indian descent and a Category:British people already exist and are perfectly sufficient. Bulldog123 (talk) 18:52, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
- I disagree, a person who is born in the UK to parents who were both born in the UK could not be called an Afghan, even if for thousands of years prior his whole family was born in and lived in Afghanistan. This person would be a a Briton of Afghan-descent, or an Afghan-Brit. I do not see how putting two well established words together is a neologism. If I were to make an article called "Cotton trousers", would I have to prove that other sources call them exactly that or else have my title called a neologism? Would I have to make an obtuse title, like "Trousers that happen to be made from a fabric known to contain a high perentage of spun cotton fibers". I think that neologism-paranoia is a bad thing... the guideline about neologisms was intended to persuade people not to create articles about new terms themselves, not the subjects the terms represent. The reason for this, is that the media creates new neologisms everyday that have flash-in-the-pan interest. Afgan Britons are not a flash in the pan thing. And these articles are not about the terms used as the title, but rather the ethnic group they represent. If another well-known term is available that would be more recognizeable and a more likely search term, then such article should be renamed. But we should not go on a quest to rename all of these articles just to avoid neologisms like the plague. Jerry delusional ¤ kangaroo 18:47, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
- It sounds good to me, but I don't know what other guys would think. I guess it depends on each article specifically. ~ Troy (talk) 18:09, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
- Per WP:NEO, we should "use a title that is a descriptive phrase in plain English, even if this makes for a somewhat long or awkward title". To use Afghan British as the example, I suggest we go for either Afghans in the United Kingdom or Afghan people in the United Kingdom. What do people think? Of course, where there is a commonly used term, such as British Pakistani, we should stick with that. Cordless Larry (talk) 17:59, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
- The articles found at Template:Ethnic groups in the United Kingdom are an invaluable resource, just as our articles on ethnic groups in the United States. If the titles are objected to, then the "Afghan British" article could be renamed "Afghans in the United Kingdom" or "United Kingdom citizens of Afghan origin," etc.--whichever term works best. Like the United States, the UK is a multiethnic society, and if our users wish to determine which people in the UK have their origins in a given nation, this is equivalent to doing the same at Jamaican American, Italian American, etc. Some of these articles, owing to our editors' expertise and interest, are some of the best WP articles of all time, such as Macedonian Australian. Of course, for small countries, such as Saint Kitts and Nevisian British, there won't be as much data, but it doesn't negate the importance of such a small nation's (a former colony) immigration back into the UK, and a scan of this article shows several notable individuals. Deleting all these articles would negate our users' ability to find this valuable information--not an improvement of our project. Badagnani (talk) 19:35, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
- I would hardly call Macedonian Australian one of "the best WP articles of all time"! It leaves a lot to be desired in terms of referencing. Cordless Larry (talk) 20:38, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
- The articles found at Template:Ethnic groups in the United Kingdom are an invaluable resource, just as our articles on ethnic groups in the United States. If the titles are objected to, then the "Afghan British" article could be renamed "Afghans in the United Kingdom" or "United Kingdom citizens of Afghan origin," etc.--whichever term works best. Like the United States, the UK is a multiethnic society, and if our users wish to determine which people in the UK have their origins in a given nation, this is equivalent to doing the same at Jamaican American, Italian American, etc. Some of these articles, owing to our editors' expertise and interest, are some of the best WP articles of all time, such as Macedonian Australian. Of course, for small countries, such as Saint Kitts and Nevisian British, there won't be as much data, but it doesn't negate the importance of such a small nation's (a former colony) immigration back into the UK, and a scan of this article shows several notable individuals. Deleting all these articles would negate our users' ability to find this valuable information--not an improvement of our project. Badagnani (talk) 19:35, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
- Furthermore, my deletion nomination failed so I don't really think we can consider that as an option, unless it is for specific articles (I'm thinking Georgian British, for instance). Cordless Larry (talk) 19:48, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
- 1 of problems is with article names (answer to Badagnani). On 1 side you are having article name Afghan British (example), on other side you are having Turks of Romania, Roma minority in Romania, Serbs in Romania (for second example I have used Romania). All in all we are having 4 version of article names ?? It is sad but I can't believe that even this small problem can be solved.--Rjecina (talk) 21:00, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
- Furthermore, my deletion nomination failed so I don't really think we can consider that as an option, unless it is for specific articles (I'm thinking Georgian British, for instance). Cordless Larry (talk) 19:48, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
- When a better solution can not be found, it is sometimes advisable to keep the one you have, despite it's perceived flaws. Like that Bucks Fizz song says: "And if you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with". Jerry delusional ¤ kangaroo 21:38, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
Why not just delete the lot, and use officially recognised ethnic groups, as used by major statistical or governmental organisations? They produce a limited amount of such groups for a reason. If there is notable migration of a group that is recognised in literature, and is attributable to a source, then we can use the forumla "X migration to the United Kingdom" (avoiding immigration/emmigration because that depends on the point of view of the group and the reader). --Jza84 | Talk 23:25, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
If people are looking for sources, the BBC has some statistics for certain ethnic groups [1]. Some of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office's country profiles also contain population estimates for people of certain nationalities living in the UK. [2] Zagalejo^^^ 00:05, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
- Can I suggest using this OECD spreadsheet instead of the BBC data for the population sizes? The reason is that while the source is the same (the 2001 census), the OECD data is for the whole of the UK whereas the BBC data doesn't include Northern Ireland. Cordless Larry (talk) 00:46, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
- Ah, OK. Good suggestion. Zagalejo^^^ 04:09, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
- The reason is that the digital boundaries needed to generate the census tract maps don't exist for Northern Ireland, so they were excluded from the mapping project. The BBC site should still be useful for referencing areas of the country where there are concentrations of groups, so long as we remember that it excludes Northern Ireland. Also note that the data is about country-of-birth groups, not ethnic groups. Cordless Larry (talk) 10:21, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
- Ah, OK. Good suggestion. Zagalejo^^^ 04:09, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
I think another priority should be the removal of all unsourced information from the articles. Does anyone want to help me do this because it could take a while? Cordless Larry (talk) 10:24, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
- I've now started to do this. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:14, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
- I would support merging most of the smaller articles into ones dealing with particular regions (all the Caribbean ones into British African-Caribbean community, for example). If significantly more information is found then the articles can be recreated as forks. That way each of the groups is acknowledged but we don't have a whole lot of little articles with hardly any information and limited prospects of any being added. This would not be appropriate for every article, but I think would be okay for about 80-90%. Just having categories, as someone suggested above, is not enough - a list of people is not the same as information about a group.
- What to call some of these articles is another issue. Clearly where a commonly used and accepted term exists we should use that. In other cases I think we have to accept that whichever we use might not be universally appropriate, especially with groups which include short-term migrants and third generation Britons. There should not be one universal format (X Britons, Xs in the UK, or whatever) - we should use the term which is most appropriate for each group. --Helenalex (talk) 22:24, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Hi, I am interested in this discussion here, but is it about Naming conventions, the articles content or both?? Stevvvv4444 (talk) 16:36, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
- Both, I guess. I'm going to assume that it's better to deal with the Naming conventions first so that we can focus squarely on the content. It looks to me as though there are some articles which are badly in need of a merger. ~ Troy (talk) 02:32, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
- Correct, it's about both. Cordless Larry (talk) 03:21, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Well....the first thing I'd like to get rid of is the 'notable people' section - you don't have a section 'Famous Americans' under United States and it strikes me as trivia,particularly when minor sportsmen, pop stars and reality tv contestants are included. Removal of these sections may also help in determining which groups are suitable for stand-alone articles. Paulbrock (talk) 19:04, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose above suggestion. Including a section for notable individuals in articles such as Saint Kitts and Nevisian British is essential and provides our users with valuable information about notable individuals in each ethnic community. Badagnani (talk) 19:29, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
- I don't really have a problem with a notable persons section, but it needs to be referenced, which none of them are at present. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:51, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
- What does it tell the reader about the SK+N British community? Some of them become famous/notable? How is their fame as singers/footballers/tv presenters relevant to their heritage? The possible exception is Claudia Webbe who has specifically worked in inclusion/race equality. Unfortunately 'notable people' becomes filled with all manner of z-list celebrities that have tenuous links to the subject in question.
- I don't really have a problem with a notable persons section, but it needs to be referenced, which none of them are at present. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:51, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Paulbrock (talk) 19:57, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
- Thank you Paulbrock, you are the voice of reason. That analysis is DEAD ON. I might want to add that in the vast majority of cases "valuable informatoin about notable individuals in [an] ethnic community" usually is hijacked by certain individuals and becomes a coatrack. Bulldog 03:20, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
- Also a related point made earlier in this discussion. [3] Paulbrock (talk) 20:04, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
I've been working away at removing unsourced information and adding data from the census to these articles, but I have to say that I disappointed that after many people (including creators of the articles) said in the deletion discussion that they should be kept and could be worked on, I seem to be the only editor putting in any effort to do so. Cordless Larry (talk) 16:12, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
An Ireland disambiguation task force (WP:IDTF) has been created. It will: free up various Talk pages for their respective articles, avoid inner and cross article repetition, avoid debate-postponing moratoriums from needing to be placed, and can accommodate all aspects of the issue of disambiguating the word "Ireland". --Matt Lewis (talk) 04:29, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Date format poll confirmation
There is ongoing discussion on the talk page for the Manual of Style (including a series of polls) aimed at achieving consensus on presenting dates in American (April 26, 1564) or International (26 April 1564) format on an article by article basis. The poll gives full instructions, but briefly the choices are:
- C = Option C, the winner of the initial poll and run-off. (US articles have US format dates, international format otherwise)
- R = Retain existing wording. (National format for English-speaking countries, no guidance otherwise).
If you wish to participate or review the progress of discussion, you may follow this link. --Pete (talk) 11:43, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
Is at featured article review, please come and help boost it up to current featured article standards. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 01:58, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
Monarchy of the United Kingdom has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:46, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
Can someone tell me who gave this article a B (rather than start) rating as part of your project? Slrubenstein | Talk 15:28, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
Missing geographical coordinates
Very many UK articles are missing geographical coordinates. Finding the latitude and longitude of locations, and entering coordinates into articles is straightforwards, and explained at Wikipedia:Geocoding how-to for WikiProject members. Having coordinates on articles mean that they turn up in GoogleMaps, MultiMap and other such places which link to wikipedia based on geo-coordinates.
It is now possible to get lists of UK articles that have no geographical coordinates via Wikipedia:CatScan, for example:
- England articles missing geo-coordinates.
- London articles missing geo-coordinates.
- Northern Ireland articles missing geo-coordinates.
- Belfast articles missing geo-coordinates.
- Scotland articles missing geo-coordinates.
- Glasgow articles missing geo-coordinates.
- Wales articles missing geo-coordinates.
- Cardiff articles missing geo-coordinates.
Alternatively, if CatScan is down or very slow, you can find them by looking through Category:United Kingdom articles missing geocoordinate data.
The articles in the lists above are currently marked with {{coord missing}} templates, which need replacing with filled in {{coord}} templates containing their latitude/longitude data (or else have lat&long entered into the infobox).
There are about 11,000 UK articles missing coords. I hope you'll consider adding coordinates so as to make UK articles more visible on the web. thanks -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tagishsimon (talk • contribs)
Proposed move of Ireland
It has been proposed that Ireland should be moved to Ireland (island) and Republic of Ireland to Ireland. To comment, please visit Talk:Republic of Ireland#Proposed move. Angus McLellan (Talk) 12:19, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
Proposed category rename
FYI, I have proposed that Category:People convicted of murder by England and Wales be renamed to Category:People convicted of murder by the United Kingdom, for consistency with Category:Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by the United Kingdom, Category:Prisoners sentenced to death by the United Kingdom and Category:Prisoners and detainees of the United Kingdom. Please add any comments you may have to the discussion. DH85868993 (talk) 15:53, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
Articles for Deletion
A few UK Articles for Deletion which editors may wish to comment on...
British films
Just thought that the community would like to know that WikiProject Films has a established a British cinema task force. Interested editors are encouraged to join onboard! Thanks, Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 19:44, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Ireland article titles
There is a new poll at this location for "compromise proposal" regarding the article names for Ireland and Republic of Ireland. Comment welcome. Djegan (talk) 20:06, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
Marquess of Cholmondeley in the Order of Precedence
There is a problem with The Marquess of Cholmondleley and the Orders of Precedence for England and Wales and for Northern Ireland. The problem is that the articles for the Orders say Cholmondeley goes just before the other Marquesses. The articles for the current Marquess as well as the current Lord Chief Justice and the current Duke of Norfolk show him between them. I would could guess which is right, but I'm sure someone here has a copy of Burke's or Debrett's and can bring facts to the discussion. -Rrius (talk) 02:16, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Ireland proposals - important update
There is currently a 'joint' Requested Move proposal, here at Ireland Talk, that proposes moving Ireland to Ireland (island), and removing the forked 'Irish state/country' material that has appeared over the years (including additional material on Northern Ireland). The Republic of Ireland would then be the principle article for the Irish state/country, as it was originally intended to be. Concurrently, Ireland (disambiguation) would be Moved to the vacated Ireland, so the many uses of 'Ireland' that refer to the country/state (along with those uses referring to the geographical/island use), would now offer the reader a choice of destination.
The Move was based on ongoing discussion at the Ireland disambiguation taskforce (see its Talk page specifically).
In addition to the above Requested Move proposal, there are alternative suggestions currently underway at the taskforce Talk, such as changing the direction of the two main Ireland articles simply by editing them, including most recently; 1) Promoting Ireland as the official country/state article (not Republic of Ireland), and building up Ireland (island) as a geographical/island article, and of 2) Ensuring Ireland is a geographical/island article only (and so removing much of the forked country/state-related material). Neither of those options would require Ireland (disambiguation) to be moved to Ireland.
If you support (or reject) the disambiguation page option for Ireland, please vote in the Requested Move poll, or perhaps consider commenting at the taskforce on one of the other options. As some options are 'edit-only' (and do not need to be polled), it is looking likely that something could be moved on.
In good faith, --Matt Lewis (talk) 17:54, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
- So, effectively what's proposed is:
- Ireland (disambiguation) -> Ireland: (because it is ambiguous, the "Ireland" slot becomes a disambiguation page)
- Republic of Ireland -> Ireland (state): (there's been longstanding greivances that "Ireland" is the "correct" name of the state)
- Ireland -> Ireland (island): (to avoid confusion with the state, and to refocuss the content of the article)
Cypriot British
Could someone take a look at Cypriot British and assess it in terms of quality and importance? I've just finished expanding it and have added it to the project. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Requested moves that may interest project members
A number of articles have been nominated for a name change which involves changing the capitalization scheme used. They are:
- Special Protection Area,
- Area of Conservation,
- Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty,
- Site of Special Scientific Interest, and
- Special Area of Conservation
(the links point to the discussion of the requested moves.) Members may wish to comment on the requests both for and against the proposed moves. I'm not sure where else notices could be posted to get as wide a discussion as possible, both for and against the requests), and so would appreciate people identifying appropriate projects and posting similar messages there. DDStretch (talk) 08:43, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
How to show knighthoods and damehoods in hyperlinks
As far as I have been able to find, there are no current guidelines for how to render Sirs and Dames in links between articles. I thought I had seen some guidance in the past, but I can't find it now. My own practice is to include the title within the blue link, as (e.g.) "Sir Walter Raleigh" or "Dame Myra Hess" but I have seen recent contributions that render it as "Sir Walter Raleigh" or "Dame Myra Hess". Am I failing to track down a ruling on this? If there isn't one, oughtn't there to be? The second method is easier for the editor, but it looks messy to the reader, meseems. Tim riley (talk) 18:40, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
- I think there's something about titles somewhere... give me a moment! --Jza84 | Talk 19:04, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
- Closest I can find is Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles). It might be worth raising on that talk page? --Jza84 | Talk 19:06, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
List of Governors of Bombay has been listed at Peer Review at Wikipedia:Peer review/List of Governors of Bombay/archive1. Comments, Suggestions are welcomed. KensplanetTalkContributions 07:32, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
Three more blocks of changes being proposed to categories concerning (civil) parishes in the UK
I have just noticed that today, another three blocks of changes have been proposed for (civil) parishes within the UK. They are Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 December 28#Subcategories of Category:Civil parishes in Cheshire, Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 December 28#Category:Parishes of the United Kingdom, and Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 December 28#Subcategories of Category:Category:Parishes of Wales. Members of this project may wish to comment or express their views, once way or the other, about these changes. DDStretch (talk) 17:50, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
List of Governors of Bombay is a Featured list candidate at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Governors of Bombay. Comments, Suggestions are welcomed. Thanks, KensplanetTC 09:36, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
Norfolk -> Norfolk, England & Norfolk (disambiguation) -> Norfolk
A requested move has popped up at WP:RM about moving Norfolk around. 76.66.198.171 (talk) 13:12, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
Hi all
I have been frantically editing sections of the Norfolk page to get it on it's way back to the class it deserves.
I have a few problems though
There are not many people out the editing - looking at the page histories it seems that there has been no real movement on any of the pages for some time now.
Is there a Norfolk or East anglian group about that I can join ?
Also, there seems to have been a defragmentation of the material from the Norfolk page to various other pages, complete sections of history and other material have been moved onto seperate pages and this has led to a gradual decline in standards, with no references being cited on new material etc.
Many of the smaller pages that could be combined have been made by editors who do not seem to be around anymore, and this may mean that it would be hard to get consultation and consensus on copying/rewritign or moving sections into a more central location
For example I found a huge list of 500 towns and villages (List_of_places_in_Norfolk) that are not even linked or mentioned on the main Norfolk page, as well as various very small stubs that could have been combined to make more accurate and full documentation. e.g. when I tried to link to a site from the Norfolk page in the tourism section for the North Norfolk coast, Ivwas confronted with 8 possible links, all of which were not fully suited for showing the true nature of the area (including 4 on north norfolk government)
Can someone please advise me on how to proceed - if there is not a Norfolk group or an East Anglian group then perhaps one could be started
thanks : Chaosdruid (talk) 06:08, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
- There doesn't appear to be a wikiproject for Norfolk - you might want to check the list at Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography & put a comment on that talk page. Many of the counties are in a similar position & starting a wikiproject for them does seem to help - see the Guide to wikprojects for what is needed to set one up.— Rod talk 13:45, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
- There's a WP: WikiProject England 76.66.196.229 (talk) 07:46, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
- I am tempted to create projects for all Counties that do not yet have projects. I suspect there are a few people like Chaosdruid who want to concentrate on their home county, but setting up a project is a bit of a daunting task.
- Even if a county project is inactive, it still provides a useful grouping of articles, for use with tools such as User:WolterBot ++ MortimerCat (talk) 12:36, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
- I am in the process of putting together the Norfolk project, although I have toyed with a Norfolk & Suffolk project - "East Anglia" also (but I think that would get confusing as Cambridgeshire and now also Essex are often included since recent times). One reason for the combination is that they are essentially North Folk and South Folk, "of the Angles", so have a history of being linked that goes back a fairly long way. I intend to do that as soon as possible and am trying to gather enough support for the 5-10 people needed to get it through. So far it looks like there are maybe 5 people who would consider support but not really enough interest to make it a project per se.
- My intention is to set up parents from the UK projects, UK Geography, rivers, and as many as I can think that would be relevant
- I think at this point I should perhaps continue to create the project pages in my sandbox and see if once started they can attract enough interest from that point.
- The proposal page states that the proposal would stay on there for 4 months and so I do not see any reason why I could not go ahead and make the proposal in the next few weeks.
- If anyone can give me advice I would be very grateful on what to do next !
- thanks for your suggestions so far --Chaosdruid (talk) 08:58, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
- I think a "Norfolk and Suffolk" project would be a practical approach, so as to keep it well populated and active (I've thought a "Lancashire and Cumbria" project would also be suitable). I believe new projects have to go through the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals process, and need at least 10 users who declare their interest and support. --Jza84 | Talk 12:35, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
- I have added a project proposal to the proposals page as "Wikiproject Norfolk & Suffolk" and would appreciate any support that I can get for getting this through.
- I did think of a task force, but that would limit action as it would have to belong to a parent.
- Thanks for all your advice (esp Jza)- its "In the Hands of the Gods" now as we druids say lol --Chaosdruid (talk) 04:36, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
United Kingdom intelligence community
United Kingdom intelligence community has been sent to WP:PROD by someone. 76.66.196.229 (talk) 07:12, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
Project Norfolk & Suffolk
Hi all
Just to update - I have added a discussion page for the project scope as there has been call for both expanding and reducing it in the project proposals page.
Page to discuss the project scope here
Many thanks--Chaosdruid (talk) 03:39, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Git (British slang)
I've just reinstated the article for Git (British slang), which had been blanked for a while. I've done a little work on it and added a couple of sources, but it could do with a little more, particularly in the realm of sourcing. All help appreciated! Artw (talk) 05:54, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
England projects and sub projects
hi
Sorry I haven't had time to get back to you, due to ongoing disputes in three articles as well as lots of work on 3 or 4 others, with the attention span this little problem deserves. I am however more free now so I would like to discuss that with you all.
When I started looking into starting a project my interest was in getting the Norfolk articles co-ordinated to a level where we could make sure they were matched , balanced and raised to a good standard.
I noticed, however, that there were a couple of problems. From the lists Wikipedia:Portal/Directory it became obvious to me that there were small problems in the way the projects had been set up
For example, you will notice that the subdivisions are not entirely matched.
|
Level 1 |
Level 2 |
Level 3 |
Level 4 |
|
United Kingdom |
England |
Bristol |
Greater Manchester (parent = North West) |
Now I would have expected that the Level 3 would have contained, as it does, North West, North East, South East, Midlands and London. Also i expected it would include South West and East. It does not. Level 4, then would contain the subs from those, but as you can see there are some Bristol, Cheshire, Cornwall, Derbyshire Somerset and Yorkshire that are at level 3. Its a bit strange and wondered if it would be appropriate to put this into more context. How do we divide up England ? Essex has always had links with London more than East England etc
As I see things we have NW, NE, SW, SE & Mid (and poss East?) Do we create an "East" and then put Cambs and Norfolk & Suffolk into that Essex, Herts, Kent, Beds, Oxford and Bucks into SE Gloucs, Avon, Wilts, Dorset and Somer into SW
I understand that this is sort of strange, but I don't know if Essex should be included in East. Essex has strong ties to London and region. The first picture is as the census was carried out, showing Cambs Norfolk and Suffolk as Midlands, though that would possibly be a bit strange, so pic 2 shows it as I propose, with Norfolk and Suffolk as East and Cambs as undecided in that it could be counted as Midlands or East, although as you can see it sort of fits more with Midlands.
-
Midlands as per census -
As I propose but with Cambs Midlands/undecided
Anyone care to discuss, or am I going a bit over the top ?
Cheers --Chaosdruid (talk) 13:38, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
List of acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom
I'd appreciate your input regarding whether the above list should be at List of acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom or List of Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom. See Talk:List of acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom#Move. Hiding T 12:05, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
Featured article review
I have nominated British African-Caribbean community 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 "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Cordless Larry (talk) 07:56, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Before I start going on about this article is anyone here actually interested in it or in it being improved. Darryl.matheson (talk) 15:58, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
United Kingdom standing alone in WWII?
Please contribute to a discussion at this Talk:United Kingdom#At one stage in 1940, amid the Battle of Britain, it stood alone against the Axis. --Rob (talk) 19:14, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
GA review of BBC
BBC has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Articles are typically reviewed for one week. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. — Levi van Tine (t – c) 08:49, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
British Isles rename?
British Isles has been requested to be renamed to something else at WP:RM, see Talk:British Isles. 76.66.193.69 (talk) 04:38, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
Category Industry in the United Kingdom?
I see under Category:Economy of the United Kingdom that there are subcategories for say Banking, Energy, Mining and Tourism; but not for Manufacturing and/or Industry. While there are Company categories for a number of Industries, this does not seem to cover either individual factories or Government factories eg see Category:Royal Ordnance Factories or Category:Government munitions production in the United Kingdom.
There is a Category:Industry by country but this only has 7 countries, and it is undecided whether to say “Industry of Fooland” or “Industries in Fooland” or “Industry in Fooland” Hugo999 (talk) 00:19, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
This one of the famous historical buildings in the capital, and I believe an article should be available, which is an important part of the East End of London. This building was home to successive immigrant communities in the East End, a former Protestant Church, A Jewish Chapel, a Methodist Church, a Jewish synagogue and today a Mosque, ethnically to the French, Jews and Bangladeshis. 90.211.185.85 (talk) 12:32, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
- It's grade II listed - see Historic England. "Details from listed building database ({{{num}}})". National Heritage List for England. PamD (talk) 19:27, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
- ... and dealt with in the Brick Lane article. Kbthompson (talk) 09:11, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
- ... I think they mean the neighbouring Historic England. "Details from listed building database ({{{num}}})". National Heritage List for England. on Fournier Street - which is II* listed. 59 is a private house/former school converted to provide a service block for the mosque. Kbthompson (talk) 09:23, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
Local chapter for the Wikimedia Foundation
|
We are Wikimedia UK - the group of local Wikimedians helping the Foundation to create "a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge". Love Wikipedia? Based in the UK? Can you support us in projects such as generating free-content photographs, freeing up archive material and media relations? Or are there other projects you'd like us to help with? if so, please click here to Join up, Donate and Get Involved |
|
Consistency and diversity in weights and measures
Wikipedia rightly strives for both consistency and diversity in usage. In some cases this means making a choice between competing usages; in other cases, the differing usages are accepted. So, the differences between British and American spelling is accommodated, while, sensibly, the rules state that individual articles should be internally consistent. The same rule applies to weights and measures, only here we generally need to supply both SI and Imperial/US Customary units for the sake of readers who often are not familiar with one or the others.
However, there is a problem with inconsistency between similar articles, which can quite arbitrarily swing between metric and Imperial measures. This may be seen in the following table:
| Metric first | Imperial first |
|---|---|
Now a certain amount of inconsistency is inevitable when editors have different preferences for weights and measures, but these variations are more Monty Python than encyclopedic. Now I know full well that we can't impose a rigid rule on people. However, I believe that we could put in place guidelines that would nudge editors towards more consistency.
What do people think of a policy that UK based articles should have both SI related measures and Imperial measures, and that in general, the measures be placed in that order. What do other people think? Michael Glass (talk) 11:32, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
- In principle, that seems sensible, but it seems marginally odd to encourage sentences like "Oxford is around 80km (50 mi) from London" - almost invariably, UK practice would be to put this sort of distance the other way around. Perhaps we should encourage using a consistent order, but varied depending on topic, so it's not invariably SI first? Shimgray | talk | 12:02, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
If road distances was the sticking point that prevented consensus on consistency, then by all means let's see what can be done. However, while there are the Monty Python variations that I have documented, it diminishes Wikipedia. I'm sure that a recommendation for consistency could help. Michael Glass (talk) 12:09, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
This might explain why the differences arose, or it could just be a random effect of different editors. For all I know it could have something to do with the fact that the islands took different sides in the English Civil War. However, I still believe that consistency in the use of measures would be an advantage. Michael Glass (talk) 02:46, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Armed Forces Day
The 27th of June this year will be the first Armed Forces Day in the United Kingdom. At the moment there is no information on this day except for.. "An Armed Forces Day will be established beginning in 2009. It will be held on 27 June, to coincide with the existing Veterans' Day." at Armed_Forces_Day#United_Kingdom.
On Veterans' Day (United Kingdom) it only says.. "From 2009, there will also be Armed Forces Day celebrations held on the same day, to celebrate the achievements of those currently serving in the armed forces".
I do not know alot about this subject but from what i understood Armed Forces day was replacing the previous fairly new "veterans day" rather than both things happening at once. This article is in need of alot of attention and i was wondering if anyone here knew much about it and if so if they could take a look at the article? Thanks BritishWatcher (talk) 11:54, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
There is a dispute at talk:Anglophobia, your input would be appreciated. BillMasen (talk) 11:37, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
GA Sweeps invitation
This message is being sent to WikiProjects with GAs under their scope. Since August 2007, WikiProject Good Articles has been participating in GA sweeps. The process helps to ensure that articles that have passed a nomination before that date meet the GA criteria. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. Instead of reviewing by topic, editors can consider picking and choosing whichever articles they are interested in.
We are always looking for new members to assist with reviewing the remaining articles, and since this project has GAs under its scope, it would be beneficial if any of its members could review a few articles (perhaps your project's articles). Your project's members are likely to be more knowledgeable about your topic GAs then an outside reviewer. As a result, reviewing your project's articles would improve the quality of the review in ensuring that the article meets your project's concerns on sourcing, content, and guidelines. However, members can also review any other article in the worklist to ensure it meets the GA criteria.
If any members are interested, please visit the GA sweeps page for further details and instructions in initiating a review. If you'd like to join the process, please add your name to the running total page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles from the worklist or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. With ~1,300 articles left to review, we would appreciate any editors that could contribute in helping to uphold the quality of GAs. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 06:29, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Proposed relevant merger
Hey everyone. There's a proposed merger talk going on at Constitutional status of Cornwall and I'd really appreciate some varied viewpoints on that..--Him and a dog 12:43, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Foreign Secretary
Hi - I've nominated "Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs" to be moved to "Foreign Secretary". Foreign secretary is currently just a redirect, and it would be good to get strong positive consensus behind the move. See the full rationale here. YeshuaDavid (talk) 18:17, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Outlines: comparison of UK's coverage with U.S. and Canada
The UK's coverage in Wikipedia's Outline of knowledge is:
- Outline of the United Kingdom
- Constituent countries of the UK:
- Outline of England (draft)
- Outline of Northern Ireland (draft)
- Outline of Scotland (draft)
- Outline of Wales (draft)
- British Oversees Territories
- Outline of Akrotiri and Dhekelia
- Outline of Anguilla
- Outline of Bermuda
- Outline of the British Antarctic Territory (draft)
- Outline of the Cayman Islands
- Outline of the Falkland Islands
- Outline of Gibraltar
- Outline of the British Indian Ocean Territory (draft)
- Outline of Montserrat
- Outline of the Pitcairn Islands
- Outline of Saint Helena
- Outline of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (draft)
- Outline of the Turks and Caicos Islands
- Outline of the British Virgin Islands
- Crown Dependencies
- Constituent countries of the UK:
For the sake of comparison, Canada has:
- Outline of Canada, and work is underway on:
And here's the coverage of the United States so far:
- Outline of the United States
- Historical outline of the United States
- States of the United States
- Outline of Alabama
- Outline of Alaska
- Outline of Arizona
- Outline of Arkansas
- Outline of California
- Outline of Colorado
- Outline of Connecticut
- Outline of Delaware
- Outline of Florida
- Outline of Georgia (U.S. state)
- Outline of Hawaii
- Outline of Idaho
- Outline of Illinois
- Outline of Indiana
- Outline of Iowa
- Outline of Kansas
- Outline of Kentucky
- Outline of Louisiana
- Outline of Maine
- Outline of Maryland
- Outline of Massachusetts
- Outline of Michigan
- Outline of Minnesota
- Outline of Mississippi
- Outline of Missouri
- Outline of Montana
- Outline of Nebraska
- Outline of Nevada
- Outline of New Hampshire
- Outline of New Jersey
- Outline of New Mexico
- Outline of New York
- Outline of North Carolina
- Outline of North Dakota
- Outline of Ohio
- Outline of Oklahoma
- Outline of Oregon
- Outline of Pennsylvania
- Outline of Rhode Island
- Outline of South Carolina
- Outline of South Dakota
- Outline of Tennessee
- Outline of Texas
- Outline of Utah
- Outline of Vermont
- Outline of Virginia
- Outline of Washington
- Outline of West Virginia
- Outline of Wisconsin
- Outline of Wyoming
- Outline of the District of Columbia
- Insular areas of the United States:
Instructions can be found at Wikipedia:Outlines, and more information on outlines and their development can be found at the Outline of knowledge WikiProject.
The Transhumanist 01:40, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
Vote on British Isles
A poll is on at the BI-taskforce to see whether a compromise can be reached over the usage of the term "British Isles", at Wikipedia:British_Isles_Terminology_task_force#Poll. Just incase you're interested. FF3000 (talk) 22:19, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Hurry! Closes 2:00p.m. (BST) Thursday 18 June. --FF3000 (talk) 23:03, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Queen Anne FAR
I have nominated Anne of Great Britain 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 "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. john k (talk) 17:19, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Poll on Ireland article names
 | A poll has been set up at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Ireland_Collaboration/Poll on Ireland article names. This is a formal vote regarding the naming of the Ireland and Republic of Ireland and possibly the Ireland (disambiguation) pages. The result of this poll will be binding on the affected article names for a period of two years. This poll arose from the Ireland article names case at the Arbitration Committee and the Ireland Collaboration Project. The order that the choices appear in the list has been generated randomly. Voting will end at 21:00 (UTC) of the evening of 13 September 2009 (that is 22:00 IST and BST). |
Scottish locator map
Input is required at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scotland#Scotland location to come to a consensus on which map best serves the purpose. Dr. Blofeld White cat 10:31, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Great Britain
User:Yorkshirian has attempted to improve the Great Britain article by making major changes to it. His proposals are here. In my view, some of his proposals, in broad terms, may be acceptable in principle - such as including a biodiversity section - although in detail they are not very well worded and the tone and language are unencyclopaedic. Other proposals of his are more contentious in "political" terms. He has failed to get much involvement in his proposals at Talk:Great Britain - not many editors seem to be involved there at the moment. I believe that it would help matters if other editors could suggest improvements to Yorkshirian. In saying this, I'm conscious that Yorkshirian has recently come off a lengthy ban for edit warring, sockpuppeting etc. My view, expressed here, is that Yorkshirian is changing his ways significantly, but could still benefit from a greater understanding of the collegiate nature of WP work. IMHO, he (I assume it's a he) has the potential to add to a lot to this project, if he is careful about how he does it. If other editors agree, can I suggest that it would be helpful to engage with Yorkshirian on the content of his proposals, on his talk page or at Talk:Great Britain. Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:02, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
UK articles missing geographic coordinates
A breakdown of the numbers of UK geographic articles missing geographic coordinates has been put together at Category talk:United Kingdom articles missing geocoordinate data. There are today just less than 11,000 UK articles which appear to need geographic coordinates, to drive links to maps and to make them appear on 3rd party map sites such as google maps. Articles are categorised for convenience by county. Some counties, such as Berkshire, Herefordshire and Leicestershire have been completely geo-coded. Many others have backlogs of numbering from a very few to less than 400. And there are about 1,000 London articles needing a coordinate. Adding coordinates is straighforward. All assistance in improving articles by adding geocoordinates is welcomed/urged/implored. thanks --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:52, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
before UK in 1707 which King? Scotland or England?
Currently all Stuart Kings from King James VI of Scotland and I of England to William and Mary have the title "X of England". Let me use King Charles I of England as an example. Yes I'm aware he was King of both Kingdoms (England and Scotland), however I think the title should be "Charles I of Scotland", and that "Charles I of England" should be a redirect. It should be Scotland because he was born in Scotland and because his parents were Scots making him Scottish and not English. The Stuart royal family were a Scottish family. Also the only reason he was King of England is because his Dad King James VI of Scotland was invited to the thrown of England after Elizabeth I died without an heir. I think it would be more logical for the title to be "Charles I of Scotland". This is the same for all Stuart Monarchs, but Specifically James VI/I and Charles I because they were Scots born in Scotland, from a Scottish family who just happened to have the title King of England too. But they were not English. Arguably Charles II onwards were English as they were born in England, But James VI/I and Charles I were fully Scottish and not English therefore it should be King of Scotland in their article name IMHO. Your thoughts? IJA (talk) 22:25, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
- What is the title given on official documents of the period, such as proclamations, Acts of Parliament, Letters Patent etc.? --Redrose64 (talk) 09:17, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
- Both titles, King of Scotland, King of England and also the title King of Ireland. That is my point, he has more than one title. Why should the article title use only the English name? James IV/I and Charles I were 100% Scottish Kings who also had the crowns of England and Ireland. That's why I think it should be of Scotland in the article title. IJA (talk) 12:00, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
"Oik"
Nick Griffin has a quote referring to "skinhead oiks". This is a direct quote from the source, so we may not want to reword it, however I think that many Wikipedia users will be unfamiliar with the term "oik". I've made it link to the Wiktionary entry, but this seems a little clumsy. Does anyone want to make Oik redirect to some appropriate article? Thanks. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 14:47, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
Stopping the "far-left"/"far-right" swinging pendulum
U.K. editors who are capable of leaving their own political biases at the door are invited to help with the neutrality problem outlined at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#"far-left" and "far-right" at English Defence League and elsewhere. Uncle G (talk) 12:54, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
GA Reassessment of Benjamin Disraeli
Benjamin Disraeli has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Malleus Fatuorum 17:16, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
British or English?
Apologies if this has been covered on this page or somewhere else. I'm not finding it here.
Just by accident I've come across two instances of edit warring about what to call someone living in or coming from the United Kingdom. I've seen it in Keeley Hawes and again in Declan Ganley. I was watching the former and came across the latter at Requests for page protection. Both involve rapid reverts about how to identify the subjects as British or English. On the face of it, this seems quite the silliest thing I think I've seen on Wikipedia. But being ignorant of the fine points of what I may be an English patriotism movement, there may be wider implications. Regardless, is there any guideline somewhere to stem these random edit wars, that will say with authority what to call someone who was born in or hails from England? --Moni3 (talk) 12:52, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- See WP:UKNATIONALS and Talk:British_people#British_People.27s_nationality_dispute. I personal advocate that we try to use both. --Jza84 | Talk 12:56, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- My passport says I'm British. When I watch football or Rugby I'm English. I happen to live in England and, when south of the border, must obey English law where that differs from Scots law. Those aside, I don't really care and may use either or both almost interchangeably. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:08, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- depending on the context, either could be used. Freshymail (talk- The knowledge defender 15:07, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- My passport says I'm British. When I watch football or Rugby I'm English. I happen to live in England and, when south of the border, must obey English law where that differs from Scots law. Those aside, I don't really care and may use either or both almost interchangeably. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:08, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
So it appears the general way to handle these rapid reverts is to allow them until one gets tired and quits? --Moni3 (talk) 15:32, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- You can always block the edit-warriors or lock the page. Typically references will show if someone has a more specific national identity than British. Just being born in England (etc) is typically not enough to outweigh their British nationality. That is, if they are from the UK they are generally British unless it can be shown that they are more identified (including self-identified) with a particular constituent country.-- zzuuzz (talk) 15:43, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- (I think I EC'd there) [to Moni3] Possibly; but if somebody can cite a reliable source that explicitly describes the subject as either British or as English, that's what we should stick to. Two differing reliable sources, we let it go whichever way the wind blows.
- Anyway, I've had a look at your user page, and I think you're American, with an unusually strong interest in the Everglades - perhaps you're from Florida (since you don't actually say that, maybe it doesn't matter to you). The British/English thing is comparable to American/Floridian. A person born and raised in Cardiff, Wales, and of Welsh parents, would be just as offended at being described as English as somebody from Albany, NY being called a Floridian. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:53, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- I am indeed in Florida and have more than a passing acquaintance with using "y'all" in my daily vernacular... I understand the difference between England and the UK. Were I speaking to another American, I don't know if I would identify myself as a Floridian as it has become virtually meaningless in this black hole of immigrants sucking people from every corner of the globe. Instead, if someone asked me where I was from I would say I grew up in Florida. I am hard-pressed, after living in another state, to think that a large population of people would identify themselves here as Coloradoans, Washingtonians, or Marylanders. Perhaps regionally significant places like Southern California/Northern California, or New York. Since the end of the U.S. Civil War, it has been a long, slow process to move away from state-identities to a national identity. This seems to be at odds with perhaps a growing sense of nationalist sentiment where editors are seeking to differentiate English from British. My only sense of this is from these surprisingly persistent reverts. I have protected Keeley Hawes in the past, and I just semi-protected Declan Ganley. But they won't stay protected and it seems it will arise again at some future point. Is this more of an issue of identity, where the subject must state in a reliable source that he identifies as English over British, or vice versa? --Moni3 (talk) 16:25, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- I've been involved in a heated argument where the choice was betwen British and Scottish (although English was also a possibility). The resolution in that case was to refer to parentage and to towns of birth and residence directly, and allow the national labels only when quoting or closely paraphasing reliable sources. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 17:22, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- I am indeed in Florida and have more than a passing acquaintance with using "y'all" in my daily vernacular... I understand the difference between England and the UK. Were I speaking to another American, I don't know if I would identify myself as a Floridian as it has become virtually meaningless in this black hole of immigrants sucking people from every corner of the globe. Instead, if someone asked me where I was from I would say I grew up in Florida. I am hard-pressed, after living in another state, to think that a large population of people would identify themselves here as Coloradoans, Washingtonians, or Marylanders. Perhaps regionally significant places like Southern California/Northern California, or New York. Since the end of the U.S. Civil War, it has been a long, slow process to move away from state-identities to a national identity. This seems to be at odds with perhaps a growing sense of nationalist sentiment where editors are seeking to differentiate English from British. My only sense of this is from these surprisingly persistent reverts. I have protected Keeley Hawes in the past, and I just semi-protected Declan Ganley. But they won't stay protected and it seems it will arise again at some future point. Is this more of an issue of identity, where the subject must state in a reliable source that he identifies as English over British, or vice versa? --Moni3 (talk) 16:25, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
The current position on wikipedia about handling these matters is offensive, British citizens do need to be described as British citizens on their article pages to avoid confusion. I have no objections to English, Scottish etc being mentioned but it should be as well as British. Especially as for example Scottish people goes out of its way not to mention British people or British citizenship.
This matter should be dealt with somehow, the status quo whilst workable is not the right one. As suggested somewhere else, putting British in the infobox and sayign Scottish/English tc in the introduction would be a good compromise. Or putting Scottish / English as the ethnic group in the infobox. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:31, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- Really, BritishWatcher. Who could possibly be offended by an article that begins: "Dame Vera Lynn, DBE (born 20 March 1917) is an English singer whose career flourished during World War II." You state your case as if the world were about to end. Daicaregos (talk) 17:42, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- Not at all, i clearly said the status quo is workable, i just think its not the right solution. When many people think of nationality they think of citizenship, rightly or wrongly. There for peoples citizenship is needed too. Its offensive to not describe British citizens as British citizens.
- Its like the fact we have no British inventions because they must be split down, English, Welsh and Scottish lines.. which is questionable. There are many of these sorts of issues repeated across wikipedia when it comes to the UK / citizenship. When you add it all up, yes its offensive and in some cases could be considered politically motivated. Not the end of the world i agree, just something that needs to be addressed. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:46, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- Of course, may first, second and third generation immigrants (verifiably) see themselves as British, not English etc. We have nothing in place for that. And if I identify as an African (which I'm just not), does that mean I'm not British? Again, a weakness in the idenfication view.
- I forsee this discussion going nowhere, with the same camps pushing for one or another. All parties should be working towards a compromise not a blanket rejection of a pariticular grouping along idiological lines. --Jza84 | Talk 18:05, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- Television was invented by a Scotsman living in
BrightonHastings - so is TV Scottish or English? Both, I'd say, so let's instead say that it's British, and therefore there are British inventions. Different people attach different levels of importance to matters of nationality and/or ethnicity. I'm currently looking for work, and on almost every job application form there is a bunch of boxes asking me to tick one in order to state my ethnic origin. The first one is almost invariably "White British"; there are never "White English", "White Scots" etc. - To some people it doesn't matter, any more than sexual orientation matters. Do we put on every biographical article whether they're Gay/straight/other? In some cases, yes - Martina Navratilova is in Category:Lesbian sportspeople, Category:LGBT sportspeople from Czechoslovakia and also in Category:LGBT sportspeople from the United States, because (I guess) this matters to her, but in many cases, no - it just isn't important. So, whether somebody is described as British, English, Scots etc. should be influenced by what reliable sources state; and for preference, such reliable source would be a personal interview between subject and biographer or (failing that) a respectable journalist. I don't think we should be silly though; have a look at the first sentence of the lede for John Barrowman who is apparently "a Scottish-born British American ... with dual citizenship in the UK and the US". Do we need five different terms?
- Back to the original problem. Somewhere, I've got a Keeley Hawes interview clipped from the Radio Times (I just happen to be a fan of Ashes to Ashes (TV series)), which I shall try to find. Can't help with Declan Ganley I'm afraid. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:28, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- The issue with who invented what is clearly problematic yes, which is why i think its awful someone is forced to just choose English Scottish or Welsh when in plenty of cases people are probably mixed making it easier to say British. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:52, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- Perhaps one solution would be to:
- use 'British' if someone is mainly referenced as, or self-identifies as, British;
- use 'English' / 'Welsh' / 'Scottish' if someone is mainly referenced as, or self-identifies as, English, Welsh or Scottish;
- use 'British' when an individual is primarily associated with UK politics, international diplomacy, military affairs, British representative sport or other 'global' issues, and their self-identification is unknown;
- use English / Scottish / Welsh when an individual is primarily associated with sub-national issues, for example politics in the devolved administrations, representative sport in the Home Nations, matters of regional or local interest, and their self-identification is unknown. Is this workable? Pondle (talk) 18:35, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- To me Pondle that sounds like what we have now, which i accept is workable but doesnt seem best.. British citizenship should not simply be ignored and ofcourse it leaves open lots of room for edit warring with people thinking English / British or Scottish / British should be said.
- In the case of someone like Sean Connery, clearly he is known around the world as Scottish there for it should say hes Scottish in the intro, but we should have his actual citizenship listed aswell. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:54, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- Each person is unique and we should deal with each individual on a case by case basis. For example, the article on Anthony Hopkins begins: "Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, CBE (born 31 December 1937) is a Welsh film, stage and television actor. Considered to be one of film's greatest living actors ..." Further on, the lead notes that "Hopkins was born and raised in Wales, and became a U.S. citizen on 12 April 2000." (his nationality is not noted in the infobox). Would editors impose a pseudo 'British' nationality on him? If so, for what purpose? Agree with Jza84 - this discussion is unlikely to achieve anything. Daicaregos (talk) 20:04, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- Clearly someone that has become a US citizen doesnt need to say British citizen, although the introduction where it says "Welsh film.. etc" should probably be changed to say born in Wales rather than being Welsh. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:39, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- lol although looking at it, the sentence about him being one of the greatest living actors probably needs to be changed to say BRITISH actors, when you look at the sources for it [4]. I will have to look into more detail about the guy and let you know if i think welsh should be changed to British. :) BritishWatcher (talk) 20:44, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- Well after a quick read up about him, although i dont know his political views i see no reason why it would be wrong to say he was British there, rather than just saying Welsh. This ofcourse is the problem with the status quo. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:53, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- Each person is unique and we should deal with each individual on a case by case basis. For example, the article on Anthony Hopkins begins: "Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, CBE (born 31 December 1937) is a Welsh film, stage and television actor. Considered to be one of film's greatest living actors ..." Further on, the lead notes that "Hopkins was born and raised in Wales, and became a U.S. citizen on 12 April 2000." (his nationality is not noted in the infobox). Would editors impose a pseudo 'British' nationality on him? If so, for what purpose? Agree with Jza84 - this discussion is unlikely to achieve anything. Daicaregos (talk) 20:04, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- Television was invented by a Scotsman living in
- I forsee this discussion going nowhere, with the same camps pushing for one or another. All parties should be working towards a compromise not a blanket rejection of a pariticular grouping along idiological lines. --Jza84 | Talk 18:05, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
There is also a very serious problem at List of British people. Currently people are forced to choose between English people, Welsh people, Scots or Lists of British people by ethnic or national origin which only includes groups like Black Britons, Asian Britons etc. Why is there no list of British People? Why are people being forced into the English, Welsh and Scottish lists, what happens to mixed people? there are plenty that may be born in England that are of mixed Welsh/Scottish roots for example, how are people deciding who belongs where? This matter needs to be addressed, its shocking this has been the setup of so many years on wikipedia.
Another concern although slightly separate to the above one, is the Cornish issue. On Lists of British people by ethnic or national origin there is a template. On that template Lists of British people, it says United Kingdom. Under United Kingdom there are 4 groups of people listed.
- English
- Welsh
- Scottish
- Cornish
Should Cornish be there? Cornish are not recognized as a group or minority, they are certainly not recognized the way the English, Welsh and the Scots are so its wrong to give it equal status. In truth Northern Irish probably belongs on that list, they are British citizens afterall. All of these matters need to be seriously addressed, its troubling that wikipedia is used by so many British people yet these major problems continue and do not get sorted out BritishWatcher (talk) 10:28, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- Its an ethic origin BW surely not even you can dispute that --Snowded TALK 10:34, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- I do not and can not support something which incorrectly suggests Cornish, English, Welsh and Scottish are equal in status by putting them together like in that template. The British government recognizes the Cornish language and offers it protection, what it does not and will not do is recognize Cornish as a nationality or people the way it accepts there are English people, Welsh people and Scottish people. Its misleading and offensive (woops theres that word again) for Cornish to appear next to English like that. The people of Cornwall ARE English, although people reading wikipedia wouldnt think it, theres so much cornish nationalist propaganda across wikipedia. BritishWatcher (talk) 10:42, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Currently an edit war is taking place over at Alex Salmond with some adding his nationality as British and others removing it. The idea we should just ignore all these problems and hope for the best is not suitable for the long term. BritishWatcher (talk) 10:58, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- The problem is that Alex Salmond simply is both Scottish and British. Whether he wants to be or not, and (if you're an editor here in Britain with the relevant nationality and citizenship) whether you or I want to be, it is the truth of the matter that you are British and something else, not or something else. If Alex Salmond is not British, then what is his nationality, and by what law, and what criteria? This "self-identifies as..." is a form of original research when deciding how to apply nationality. Wikipedia is not censored, we should be finding a way to use both British (which should be the default) and (if evidence can be found - not just self-identity, but any published evidence) English/Scottish/Welsh/Northern Irish etc, and consistently so. --Jza84 | Talk 11:21, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- I'm afraid WP:BLP recommends self-identification. In fact it demands neutrality, and suggesting that the leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party is anything other than Scottish is not neutral. Source the claims by all means, but without sources anything else is just an accident of birth. Cliff Richard isn't Indian. Prince Philip isn't Greek. Alex Salmond is Scottish. Fmph (talk) 14:03, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- The fact is, few people do make public statements about their own identity, other than those who are politically aligned. Moveover, someone identifying as, say, Scottish alone - as presumably Alex Salmond does - does not make him cease to be British: unlike the home nations identities, Britishness has an added civic and political element, mainly surrounding citizenship. This added element makes Britishness rather more objective: if I am a British citizen, then that is factual; if I was simply born in Scotland, or lived there, that does not necessarily make me Scottish - or even British if we use the same basis of national identity.
- I'm afraid WP:BLP recommends self-identification. In fact it demands neutrality, and suggesting that the leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party is anything other than Scottish is not neutral. Source the claims by all means, but without sources anything else is just an accident of birth. Cliff Richard isn't Indian. Prince Philip isn't Greek. Alex Salmond is Scottish. Fmph (talk) 14:03, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- I don't believe it's a question of neutrality, but notability. Places of birth are almost always identified: it can be assumed by any idiot that Alex Salmond, being born in the UK, is - in civic terms - British - if not, then it should be mentioned because it is unusual - but it's not really an issue that commonly arises. Equally that Cliff Richard is an Indian citizen (presumably) would be assumed from his birthplace - without him making an issue of it by, for example using that status to run for President of India, it just isn't really worth mentioning. --Breadandcheese (talk) 14:40, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- If it's a question of notability, then I'd suggest that he is more notable for being Scottish than British. But nationality is much more complicated than you suggest. Birthplace is not a good indicator. And if you disagree with WP:BLP then I'd suggest you are out of step with most of the community today. Fmph (talk) 14:54, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- Im sorry but its certainly not violating ANY policy to describe Alex Salmond as British on his article, even if thats not the best option. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:35, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- So if he complained to Jimbo about being called British, do you think Jimbo would back you against him? Fmph (talk) 16:04, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- lmao, i would ask Jimbo to ask Salmond what nationality his passport says he has. Alex Salmond is British, he can not "opt out" of being British simply because he doesnt like it. The guy is a British MP for goodness sake. Just out of interest if someone rejects the idea of being British and Scottish, yet remains a British citizen, what do we put? Would we have to leave it blank because the person doesnt like it? What about people who would rather be considered another nationality completly, do we lie because they have a right to decide what they should be labelled? BritishWatcher (talk) 16:13, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- I'm sure Jimbo has nothing better to do than to satisfy your POV. If you have a copy of Alex Salmonds passport you could surely post it as proof of his nationality. I certainly would accept that. But you haven't, have you? Personally, i only know what I've heard him say, and that is that he is Scottish. If he says he is British - on the record - I'd happily accept that. But I don't accept that because someone is born within the sovereign borders of a particular national entity (country, whatever) that they automatically become a national of that national entity. Fmph (talk) 11:25, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
- This is an odd view and, I believe, a red herring and a purposeful circumvention of how British nationality law is applied. If somebody says they are Scottish you are assuming they are not British, right? Did Salmond say his nationality is Scottish? Perhaps he was alluding to his ethnicity, or his community, or his heritage? If I say I am black does that make my nationality black or that I'm not British? I imagine England-born Mohammad Sidique Khan considered himself less British than Alex Salmond; I doubt he considered himself "British", but does that mean he is English, or is he British, or is he Pakistani, or Anglo-Pakistani, or British Pakistani? Is British Pakistani a nationality? What makes Salmond's Scottish nationality more of a nationality than British, or Khan's assumed Pakistaniness? --Jza84 | Talk 11:53, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
- I'm sure Jimbo has nothing better to do than to satisfy your POV. If you have a copy of Alex Salmonds passport you could surely post it as proof of his nationality. I certainly would accept that. But you haven't, have you? Personally, i only know what I've heard him say, and that is that he is Scottish. If he says he is British - on the record - I'd happily accept that. But I don't accept that because someone is born within the sovereign borders of a particular national entity (country, whatever) that they automatically become a national of that national entity. Fmph (talk) 11:25, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
- lmao, i would ask Jimbo to ask Salmond what nationality his passport says he has. Alex Salmond is British, he can not "opt out" of being British simply because he doesnt like it. The guy is a British MP for goodness sake. Just out of interest if someone rejects the idea of being British and Scottish, yet remains a British citizen, what do we put? Would we have to leave it blank because the person doesnt like it? What about people who would rather be considered another nationality completly, do we lie because they have a right to decide what they should be labelled? BritishWatcher (talk) 16:13, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- So if he complained to Jimbo about being called British, do you think Jimbo would back you against him? Fmph (talk) 16:04, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- Im sorry but its certainly not violating ANY policy to describe Alex Salmond as British on his article, even if thats not the best option. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:35, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- If it's a question of notability, then I'd suggest that he is more notable for being Scottish than British. But nationality is much more complicated than you suggest. Birthplace is not a good indicator. And if you disagree with WP:BLP then I'd suggest you are out of step with most of the community today. Fmph (talk) 14:54, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- I don't believe it's a question of neutrality, but notability. Places of birth are almost always identified: it can be assumed by any idiot that Alex Salmond, being born in the UK, is - in civic terms - British - if not, then it should be mentioned because it is unusual - but it's not really an issue that commonly arises. Equally that Cliff Richard is an Indian citizen (presumably) would be assumed from his birthplace - without him making an issue of it by, for example using that status to run for President of India, it just isn't really worth mentioning. --Breadandcheese (talk) 14:40, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
<outdent>What makes you think it is an odd view? To accept that each article subject knows there own nationality better than a bunch of wikieditors? What could possibly be odd about that? Sorry, but i don't think I'm the odd one in that regard. "...a purposeful circumvention of how British nationality law is applied...". I thought that it might be better to apply wiki policy than British nationality law. Perhaps I was wrong. If MSK says he is British, British Pakistani, English or Scottish, then - IMHO - thats what we should say. I have no objection to inclusion of birthplace, or to a good faith presumption of Britishness for British born article subjects, who have never expressed a preference otherwise. But to suggest that a nationalist figure like Salmond, or even Sean Connery, is/are British, would be a bad faith violation of the neutrality aspects of WP:BLP. IMHO. Fmph (talk) 16:15, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
- Well i do not have a copy of Alex Salmonds birth certificate at hand, however you can be sure the British government does and if he isnt a British citizen it would be rather damaging so im sure it would get out, he goes on trips around the world so he must have a passport and it certainly aint a Scottish one. So if hes not a British citizen, he must be an Irish citizen or a citizen of another Commonwealth nation. Considering he only describes himself as Scottish and he was born in Scotland, its certainly not original research or bad faith to assume hes a British citizen. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:08, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
I generally believe we should prefer British, being the sovereign state, in order to maintain consistency of style internationally; BUT (and it's a big but) other concerns can and often do outweigh that desire for consistency. For example, with a politician best known for engaging in the Scottish political system, or a Church of Scotland clergyman, it is most obvious to identify him or her as a 'Scottish politician' or a 'Scottish minister' rather than a British one, whilst figures like Gordon Brown would clearly be identified as British politicians - as indeed should almost all MPs, excepting nationalists and perhaps the distinctive Northern Ireland political parties.
In articles about actors, musicians and so forth, it becomes rather more complicated - and in these situations, I think a British weighting ought to exist, except where such people really are more significant for their Scottish, English, Welsh or (N.) Irish identity: Sean Connery would clearly be best described as a Scottish actor than a British one, despite his vast range of UK-wide and international world.
Unfortunately common sense doesn't seem to stand for a lot when axes are being ground. --Breadandcheese (talk) 14:31, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- I agree that in the case of someone like Sean Connery whos clearly known around the world for being Scottish, it should say that although i think his citizenship is important aswell. In the case of Salmond i agree hes Scottish and identifies as Scottish so it should say that, but there certainly isnt a neutrality issue with also pointing out hes a British citizen, he may not like that but its fact.
- Whats more complicated is like somone that Daicaregos mentioned Anthony Hopkins. He is described as Welsh, but i see no reason why he shouldnt be described as British. Although now hes a US citizen its probably best not to say either, but if he hadnt become a US citizen, then i fail to see why he must be listed as Welsh. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:31, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
(<-) OK. Would how would this sit with people:
- We endevour to use English/Scottish/Welsh in the lead section of all biographical articles. British should only be used as a fall back here, and each article should be only changed on a case-by-case basis using sources and consensus.
- For those from Northern Ireland we use no descriptive nationality in the prose unless it is explicitly supported directly by a reference (in which case Irish, Northern Irish or British or "British and Irish" is used).*...the Good Friday Agreement allows for citizens of Northern Ireland to identify as British, Irish or both.
- All infoboxes for sportspersons who represent the UK or any of the home nations need their infobox field changing at the infobox itself so it does not say "nationality" but "Sporting nationality", per WP:MOSFLAG. So this would apply to Andy Murray as much as it would Ryan Giggs.
- In all infoboxes of persons born after 1707, who do not represent any of the home nations in sport, we use British in the nationality field (baring in mind that England/Scottish/Welsh/Northern Irish is used in the lead section).
- If there is an ethnicity field in an infobox we endevour to England/Scottish/Welsh/Irish/Cornish etc, on a case by case, verification basis.
- Cornish should not be used as a nationality or sporting nationality, but may be used as an ethnicity and may be used in the lead section of articles.
- All terms should be piped to the "people" articles, not the country articles (so "Joe Bloggs is a Cornish poet", not "Joe Bloggs is a Cornish poet".
--Jza84 | Talk 17:48, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- In agreement with much of the proposal. However, I disagree with #4 (In all infoboxes of persons born after 1707 ...). It seems to be confusing nationality with citizenship. If someone is English etc there is nothing to gain by putting their British citizenship in the infobox as it is implied by their nationality. There is widespread confusion between English and British and for some, less educated people, they are either interchangeable or, mean the same thing. That's fine for many English people and is how they feel themselves, and for those who are mixed race (Scots/English or whatever). But for the Irish, Scots and Welsh it is not so fine. I see no reason to change the infobox of John Logie Baird, for example, to British from Scottish. Just what would be gained? Daicaregos (talk) 19:27, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- --I think the response from me on this is threefold: firstly what would be gained would be that we each concede some acrage and get both British and English/Scottish/Welsh etc in an article - it would be something of a compromise (I hope). Secondly, how would we deal with someone like Chris Ofili or Omid Djalili or even Richard Dawkins? Are they really English? If so, how so? Thirdly, "British" is a quantifiable nationality owing to British nationality law (not British citizenship law). Being English is not quantifiable nor is there any English nationality or citizenship law. The first point is the biggest point of this though - a compromise. --Jza84 | Talk 21:36, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
John Logie Baird | |
|---|---|
| Born | 13 August 1888 Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire, Scotland |
| Died | 14 June 1946 (aged 57) |
| Nationality | Scottish, British |
| Occupation | Engineer |
| Engineering career | |
| Projects | Television |
- Hmmm i have a problem with quite a few of those points actually. But one general question if its ok to have "British and Irish" in an infobox. Couldnt we just put Scottish and British or Welsh and British like demonstrated in this infobox.
- On the different points..
- 1) I do not think that British should be seen as a fall back. Whilst i accept its useful to state someone is English or Scottish, there are plenty who are rightly described as British in the lead sentence.
- 2)Totally agree, dont understand why Scottish and British in nationality field is so unacceptable.
- 3)Sounds reasonable, although it depends on the templates if thats possible. Andy Murray at the moment just has that he plays for GB in the infobox and that hes Scottish in the lead sentence.
- 4)Agreed
- 5)Agreed, although in the case of Cornish clear references should show they consider themselves Cornish.
- 6)Agreed with ethnicity when clearly sourced, but should not be used in the introduction. If its a Cornish nationalist then im ok with it stating Cornish nationalist, but ordinary people born in Cornwall should be described as what they are. English or British.
- 7) I would be ok with this one if all the articles were in good shape, however Scottish people for example does not mention anything about British or British people. There for its better to link to the country article which states what Scotland is. A country that is part of the United Kingdom.
- I can see its going to be very difficult to get agreement on these matters, although i do not think we should give up and just put up with the status quo. This issue needs sorting at some point. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:47, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- --Regarding your comments:
- 1)Perhaps this needs tightening. For example, I agree it is right to call Winston Churchill a "British statesman" and Lord Nelson a "British general". I suppose we may need to identify certain categories of persons where "British" is more appropriate (UK politicans, UK prime ministers, UK military persons?).
- 7)I agree that English, Scots and Welsh people articles need to be clearer about their relationship to Britishness. They're all pretty poor articles, and I have always wanted to do an improvement drive. As a wiki-friend of mine once said though, these articles are "obvious idiot magnets", so I've never mustered the willpower to make a serious attempt at an improvement drive.
- Otherwise I'm glad you agree to these. --Jza84 | Talk 12:04, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
- Yes we need like a list or table of when which should be used, the previous table in the debate the last time is far too open to someones own views. I think its fine that an MSP would be described as Scottish, or someone that plays sports for Scotland like in football be described as Scottish, in the intro and also used in the title of their article if disam is needed. But people in the British military, British Prime ministers, Sportsman know for their role in the Olympics rahter than commonwealth games should say British. Ofcourse that is still slightly problematic, as we then end up with the case whre Gordon Brown only gets described as British where as hes just as Scottish as Salmond. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:02, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
Another example would be Richard Wilson (Scottish actor), should that be the title of his article or should it be Richard Wilson (British actor). Hes best known for his roles in British tv shows, hes not known for being Scottish like Sean Connery is for example and he was for some time (not sure if he still is these days) a supporter of the labour party so not a nationalist. The dab page at Richard Wilson says hes a British actor, so why is the page at (Scottish actor)? I see no reason for this unless there were other British actors, like an English one.. then ofcourse it would be useful, or if he was a nationalist / known for being Scottish like Sean Connery. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:10, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- I thought Wilson was English! --Jza84 | Talk 22:46, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- Exactly, most dont know hes Scottish and its the same with his wife in One foot in the grave, many dont know the woman who played her was Scottish too. Id say cases like that should be treated differently to someone like Sean Connery or Alex Salmond. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:52, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- That seems like an odd disambiguation - If I had been looking for Richard Wilson, I wouldn't not have thought to have found him at that article. --Jza84 | Talk 23:21, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- But Jza84, if you (or anyone else) had been looking for Richard Wilson you would have typed in "Richard Wilson". This brings up the Richard Wilson disamb page, from which you would have selected "Richard Wilson (Scottish actor) (born 1936), British actor who played Victor Meldrew in the sitcom One Foot in the Grave". Had you entered Richard Wilson on Google the same (Wikipedia) disamb page is choice #2. Otherwise, you could have entered One Foot in the Grave and found him that way. I don't see the problem. If you want to see Richard Wilson on List of British actors and actresses then add him to it. Further, an opinion that "most dont know hes Scottish [sic]" is not a good advert for removing the fact that he is Scottish from either his article title or his infobox. Daicaregos (talk) 14:58, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
- Hmm added him to the list. Ofcourse if you ended up at that dab page and it did not have the explanation saying British actor best known for one foot in the grave then you may be slightly more confused. The point is he is best known as a British actor from a British sitcom, unlike Sean Connery internationally known as a Scotsman. Why should Scottish take priority over British in such cases? BritishWatcher (talk) 16:34, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
- But Jza84, if you (or anyone else) had been looking for Richard Wilson you would have typed in "Richard Wilson". This brings up the Richard Wilson disamb page, from which you would have selected "Richard Wilson (Scottish actor) (born 1936), British actor who played Victor Meldrew in the sitcom One Foot in the Grave". Had you entered Richard Wilson on Google the same (Wikipedia) disamb page is choice #2. Otherwise, you could have entered One Foot in the Grave and found him that way. I don't see the problem. If you want to see Richard Wilson on List of British actors and actresses then add him to it. Further, an opinion that "most dont know hes Scottish [sic]" is not a good advert for removing the fact that he is Scottish from either his article title or his infobox. Daicaregos (talk) 14:58, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
- That seems like an odd disambiguation - If I had been looking for Richard Wilson, I wouldn't not have thought to have found him at that article. --Jza84 | Talk 23:21, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- Exactly, most dont know hes Scottish and its the same with his wife in One foot in the grave, many dont know the woman who played her was Scottish too. Id say cases like that should be treated differently to someone like Sean Connery or Alex Salmond. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:52, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Post-1707 is British; not English, Scottish or Welsh. GoodDay (talk) 23:01, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- In some ways I'd say a big "yes" to that, like I agree that state-tied nationality became British after 1707 (and there are sources to that effect, and I think that's something we all agree upon) but in other ways English, Scottish and Welsh have endured, and endured strongly and give a sort of precision as to the background of a person. As the British people article itself tells, Britishness was superimposed on to English, Scottish and Welsh as an "upper layer" of nationhood; English, Scottish and Welsh have persisted as important and cherished cultural divisions/categories/peoples/identities/ethnicities etc etc. I believe firmly we need to acomodate both in a way that each camp concedes some usage. --Jza84 | Talk 23:21, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- English, Scottish, Welsh is acceptable for those whose lives occured before 1707, but not after (IMHO). If only the choice was up to me. GoodDay (talk) 23:30, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- What do you think about putting "English, British" or "English and British" in the infobox like shown above so that both are mentioned without the need for doing new templates or making alterations to them. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:56, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
Lmao it appears this problem will not be solved even if Scotland left the UK. [5] , which ofcourse will never happen. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:14, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
- A very interesting and telling article. I remember a few years back the SNP suggested that some (if not many) British insitutions could/should stay inplace in a sovereign Scotland.... but anyway, I think this debate has stalled. I'd be interested in sandboxing a formal proposal to supercede WP:UKNATIONALS along the lines of the seven points above. It needs alot of tweeks mind. --Jza84 | Talk 13:42, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
- Proposals to change the page WP:UKNATIONALS should be discussed at WP:UKNATIONALS. Daicaregos (talk) 14:40, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
- We can take this debate to there, however its just an essay and not a policy or official guidelines.
Quite honestly id say most of that page needs deleting,i am very disappointed i was not around to get involved in that debate before. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:13, 2 October 2009 (UTC) - Actually i take that back, alot of the information on the page does set a good background and is useful for those from outside of the UK to get to grips with everything, im just unhappy at the outcome. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:16, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
- We can take this debate to there, however its just an essay and not a policy or official guidelines.
History of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom needs updating.
A helpdesk request pointed me to this article, and seeing wikiproject UK and politics is rather empty i thought i forward this here instead. The above page is documenting the past cabinets of the UK, but is quite badly outdated. I have no idea if this information is documented elsewhere in which case it could be redirected. If not, it might be a good article to improve soon as this is explicitly referred to on Cabinet of the United Kingdom, a top-importance article for UK and politics. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 12:39, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
RFC: calling Northern Ireland a "country"
An RFC has been opened inviting comment on how to describe Northern Ireland in that article. All comments are welcome. --rannṗáirtí anaiṫnid (coṁrá) 23:00, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Opening of discussion for a possible semi-protection of Derry and County Londonderry
Join the discussion at Talk:Derry#Opening of discussion for semi-protection of both city and county page. Footyfanatic3000 (talk · contribs) 19:22, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
"Affirmative action" in the UK
Just a quick question from an American: is "affirmative action" known as "discriminative action" in the UK? It sounds like vandalism to me but it hasn't been reverted after several hours so I thought I'd ask here. -kotra (talk) 22:26, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
- The term "affirmative action" is rarely used in the UK, for example by the National Black Police Association of the UK here.[6] I believe that it has only been applied in practice in Northern Ireland. I've never heard of the term "discriminative action".--Pondle (talk) 22:33, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
- One common expression is "Political correctness gone mad". --Redrose64 (talk) 22:36, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
- Affirmative Action and Political Correctness (gone mad) is tending to become rampant in the UK. There are not enough women in Parliament (apparently it should be about 50% to match the population); so male condidates might be barred from standing as condidates at the next General Election. It is also claimed that there are not enough black and Asian police, so there is Positive Descrimination in police recruitment (and it is not illegal in the UK) and in other bodies. "Discriminative action", as stated above, is not a term used in the UK.Pyrotec (talk) 22:57, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
- It is usually known as 'positive discrimination' in the UK. Best, Daicaregos (talk) 23:19, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
- Affirmative Action and Political Correctness (gone mad) is tending to become rampant in the UK. There are not enough women in Parliament (apparently it should be about 50% to match the population); so male condidates might be barred from standing as condidates at the next General Election. It is also claimed that there are not enough black and Asian police, so there is Positive Descrimination in police recruitment (and it is not illegal in the UK) and in other bodies. "Discriminative action", as stated above, is not a term used in the UK.Pyrotec (talk) 22:57, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
- One common expression is "Political correctness gone mad". --Redrose64 (talk) 22:36, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
- This site says:
- Reverse or affirmative action is illegal in the UK. Positive action however describes measures targeted at a particular group that are intended to redress past discrimination or to offset the disadvantages arising from existing attitudes, behaviours and structures. Lawful measures can include:
- Targeting job training at people of particular racial groups, or either gender, who have been under-represented in certain occupations or grades during the previous 12 months, or encouraging them to apply for such work.
- Providing facilities to meet any specific educational, training or welfare needs identified for a specific racial group.
- Measures to provide training and special encouragement for returners to the labour market after a period of time discharging domestic or family responsibilities.
- Special encouragement such as targeted advertising and recruitment literature, reserving places for one gender on training courses or providing taster courses in non-traditional areas......
- Positive discrimination is not to be confused with positive action. Positive discrimination, affirmative action or reverse discrimination, generally means choosing someone solely on the grounds of their gender or racial group, and not on their abilities. Positive discrimination is illegal under UK anti-discrimination law. (NB Under the Disability Discrimination Act, positive discrimination in favour of disabled people is not unlawful. In fact, employers and service providers are under a positive legal duty to make all reasonable adjustments in favour of disabled people.)
- Ghmyrtle (talk) 23:42, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
- Reverse or affirmative action is illegal in the UK. Positive action however describes measures targeted at a particular group that are intended to redress past discrimination or to offset the disadvantages arising from existing attitudes, behaviours and structures. Lawful measures can include:
Request for involvement at MigrationWatch UK
Three single-purpose accounts have been making numerous comments at Talk:MigrationWatch UK about the reliability of sources used for the article and suggesting material that is critical of the organisation be removed. I'd appreciate the views of others on this. The comments start under this heading and continue to the bottom of the page. Cordless Larry (talk) 20:32, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Review for Dalek
I have nominated Dalek 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 "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.Cirt (talk) 22:20, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Watneys Red Barrel
I see that according to your project page, images are required for this. I have a little original plastic Watney Red Barrell on my keyring, it is (surprise) red and has WATNEYS in black printed on it. Not fantastic, I know, but possibly worth having as I imagine there was quite a lot of merchandise when they were trying to introduce this filthnew product.
Unfortunately I won't have a camera until the weekend. So I'm posting this mainly as a reminder to myself; having done so I won't forget it. Si Trew (talk) 09:57, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
- I've uploaded the image to File:Watneys Key Fob.jpg. It's not great but I can make a more tailored, better image if anyone has a use for it. I've added it to the Watneys page. Si Trew (talk) 18:23, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
A vote to move Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom to Elizabeth II is being held at Talk:Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. —what a crazy random happenstance 02:36, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
Category:Ships of Patrick O'Brian
Category:Ships of Patrick O'Brian has been nominated for deletion. See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 January 11.
76.66.197.17 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:13, 15 January 2010 (UTC).
WP 1.0 bot announcement
This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Bosnian Royal Family
Hello! I have nominated Bosnian Royal Family article for deletion. The reason for this can be found in this discussion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bosnian Royal Family. Related discussions have been taking place here and here. Your opinion is requested because you are members of Wikipedia:WikiProject England, and therefore you may be interested in the discussion. Some of the disputed claims made in the article, the one which may be of interest to you, include the sentences:
- "England's main motivation to act towards Bosnia as a foe... is in her old animosity towards the Catholic Church..."
- "England's infamous persecutions of Catholics throughout history, which are now part of common knowledge, then occupations of Ireland and Scotland..."
- "For the past 300 years, English monarchs violate human rights of Catholics so openly that the The Act of Settlement of 1701 bans a Catholic or anyone even marries a Catholic from becoming England's monarch."
- "England's rulers have enabled distruction which creates permanent instability in the region as well as continental Europe overall..."
Please note that this is not mean to be canvassing for support; it's done according to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion#Notifying interested people. Regards, Surtsicna (talk) 13:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
English, Welsh, British
I'm sure this is old hat to many editors here. Could you kindly direct me towards guidance of how to handle national descriptors? I notice that Richard Price has been moved from Category:English Unitarians to Category:Welsh Unitarians, although he spent his whole adult life was in (what is now) London. Before I take the matter up on that talkpage, I'd like to know what the current state of thought is on English, Welsh, British, etc. BrainyBabe (talk) 23:13, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks very much. See #British or English? above. Now I'll have to unwatch this page for a couple of weeks again, until it all cools off. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:20, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
- RE "cools off" - I don't want to look!
- If Richard Price (which is incidentally a Welsh surname with and English first name) lived his adult life in England, but he didn't self-identify with being Welsh, or his life wasn't significantly related to Wales - then he should be labelled as "British" really, not "Welsh" (or as a second line, "He was British of Welsh descent", with an further following qualifier if needed). Britannica has him as British.
- Regarding the lists - personally I think UK lists like this are unworkable - UK identity is too complex, and people can be British as a singular identity, and/or Welsh/Scottish/English/Northern Irish (or a combination of the UK nationalities) in a lesser, greater or equal degree. See Countries_of_the_UK#Identity_and_nationality.
- These nationality 'lists' simply mistake the places people are born, effectively, with their lives. The only workable way of doing these things in list-form is using "of" in the sense of "pertaining to": "x of y" would result in "Unitarians of Wales" and "Actors of France" etc. Sadly, the needs of Wikipedia, obsessions with the common idiom, and nationalistic pride rarely all mix together well. Matt Lewis (talk) 00:00, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
Hello all, just a nudge that I'm looking for collaborators to work on a new version of the Architecture of the United Kingdom page. It is presently found at User:Jza84/Sandbox3. To avoid accusations of bias, please feel free to get involved. Please give me a quick note on my talk page if you wish to get involved. --Jza84 | Talk 17:40, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
Discussion about categorisation of British people by ethnic or national origin
Please see here for discussion regarding a possible merger of categories of British people by ethnic or national origin. Cordless Larry (talk) 10:41, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
Infobox UK place: distances
I would like to draw the attention of the WikiProject to the ongoing discussion at Template talk:Infobox UK place#Dublin. In summary: {{Infobox UK place}} has the following four fields - |dublin_distance=, |dublin_distance_mi=, |dublin_distance_km=, and |dublin_direction= - should these be kept, or removed? --Jza84 | Talk 01:19, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Call for proposals for Wikimedia UK initiatives
Hi all. The Wikimedia UK board has been putting together a budget for the next year (You can see this, and help with its development, here) and we have some money left over. We are looking for proposals for projects/iniatives with budget requirements in the range of £100-£3000 (GBP). These projects can be either online or offline, but they should be primarily focused on the UK and they must further the objects of Wikimedia UK (broadly, to collate/develop/spread freely licensed material).
The deadline for proposals is the end of this month (i.e. 0:00 UTC on 1 March 2010). You can find more details of the requirements, and how to submit proposals, on our blog. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 10:05, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Union Jack image
While looking around online, I happen to run across this document show what the Union Jack's colors should be when used online. It is at the last page of the government. I am hoping to replace what we have with this version, but I am not so sure anymore. Can yall look at User:Zscout370/Sandbox please and give me your thoughts? User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 07:27, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
- The PDF file in question is for guidance when reproducing the HM Govt logo on printed matter, not for online use. This is clear from the text (statements like "Minimum size 40mm", "the basic principle of applying the HM Government international identity to stationery") and from the examples given ("letterheads/with compliment slips", "business cards", "booklets and leaflets"); this is reinforced by the colour specifications being given as Pantone codes and CMYK proportions (ie "HM Government Red – Pantone 186C C:0% M:100% Y:81% K:4% HM Government Blue – Pantone 280C C:100% M:72% Y:0% K:18%"), with no mention of RGB proportions. It is of course possible to convert CMYK to RGB, but I don't find anything that suggests that these are guidelines for online use. --Redrose64 (talk)
- The program Inkscape does use CMYK natively, so it was easy to use. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 18:24, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
- thumb Viewing the above PDF and comparing (screenshot, right) with the rendered versions in your sandbox, the PDF (rendered as blue #003578, red #e61823) is a much closer match to the current graphic (darker blue #00247d, red #cf142b) than to the proposed file (paler blue #003bd1, red #f5002e). I'm rendering with Acrobat Reader 9 and IE8 on Windows XP, a common setup. Assuming HM Government didn't deliberately create a PDF with the wrong exemplification, there seems to be a significant CMYK/RGB conversion discrepancy. Are you sure the much brighter shades are intended to be the official ones? Even if the rendering conversion is wrong on this setup, are the darker shades perhaps needed to match the de facto RGB rendering on typical browsers? Of course there ought to be an explicit RGB specification as part of the original guidance. — Richardguk (talk) 02:26, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
- I am not trying to say the brighter shades are more official, but I wasn't sure either if this is what is demanded to be used on online documents. Well, if RGB is not present, I can work CMYK into Inkscape and that is not hard. It is just that I am personally seeing more nations put their flags into CMYK/Hex/RGB more than I seen before, so trying to get our images to match their regulations. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 03:51, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
- It would be best to obtain a specification that is explicitly for VDU/online use, rather than one intended for printed matter. The two primary differences are that printed matter uses reflected light and subtractive mixing, whilst a VDU screen uses emitted light and additive mixing. Colour-matching one to the other hardly ever works - try doing a scan of a printed item containing an area of plain, solid colour, display the resulting file, then hold the printed item close to it. They will never look the same, no matter how much you tweak the component colour proportions. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:48, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
- I will try and ask for it, but I am not sure if I go through HM Government's people or someone else. I tried going through the UK Embassy before about the flag and I got nowhere. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 18:54, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
- Not sure if contacting the Flag Institute would help as an alternative? --Jza84 | Talk 19:01, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
- I have them on speed dail. (For note, I am a member of their sister organizations NAVA and JAVA). User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 04:51, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
- For some reason the document has the CMYK equivalent of Pantone 186 wrong - it should be C0 M91 Y76 K6. This makes the blue look wrong as the red overpowers it, but the blue is actually correct. The current image is pretty good for colour and the top-right one is definitely too garish. But the main problem is that the flag is meant to be 3:5! I'll have to contact the civil service and find out who created the guidelines and get them fixed. User talk:GrahamPadruig —Preceding undated comment added 19:15, 20 February 2010 (UTC).
- I have them on speed dail. (For note, I am a member of their sister organizations NAVA and JAVA). User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 04:51, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
- Not sure if contacting the Flag Institute would help as an alternative? --Jza84 | Talk 19:01, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
- I will try and ask for it, but I am not sure if I go through HM Government's people or someone else. I tried going through the UK Embassy before about the flag and I got nowhere. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 18:54, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
- It would be best to obtain a specification that is explicitly for VDU/online use, rather than one intended for printed matter. The two primary differences are that printed matter uses reflected light and subtractive mixing, whilst a VDU screen uses emitted light and additive mixing. Colour-matching one to the other hardly ever works - try doing a scan of a printed item containing an area of plain, solid colour, display the resulting file, then hold the printed item close to it. They will never look the same, no matter how much you tweak the component colour proportions. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:48, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
- I am not trying to say the brighter shades are more official, but I wasn't sure either if this is what is demanded to be used on online documents. Well, if RGB is not present, I can work CMYK into Inkscape and that is not hard. It is just that I am personally seeing more nations put their flags into CMYK/Hex/RGB more than I seen before, so trying to get our images to match their regulations. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 03:51, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
- thumb Viewing the above PDF and comparing (screenshot, right) with the rendered versions in your sandbox, the PDF (rendered as blue #003578, red #e61823) is a much closer match to the current graphic (darker blue #00247d, red #cf142b) than to the proposed file (paler blue #003bd1, red #f5002e). I'm rendering with Acrobat Reader 9 and IE8 on Windows XP, a common setup. Assuming HM Government didn't deliberately create a PDF with the wrong exemplification, there seems to be a significant CMYK/RGB conversion discrepancy. Are you sure the much brighter shades are intended to be the official ones? Even if the rendering conversion is wrong on this setup, are the darker shades perhaps needed to match the de facto RGB rendering on typical browsers? Of course there ought to be an explicit RGB specification as part of the original guidance. — Richardguk (talk) 02:26, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Cannabis in the United Kingdom
Feel free to join WikiProject Cannabis with improving the Cannabis in the United Kingdom article. This article was nominated for one of our collaboration, but we could use a lot of help, especially from UK residents who may be more familiar with the history and culture of the subject. For similar articles, feel free to look at Cannabis in the United States or Cannabis in Oregon (GA status). Thanks! --Another Believer (Talk) 19:50, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Girlguiding UK logo
The Girlguiding UK logo has changed from the one shown on your pages. The new logo is available at www.girlguiding.org.uk —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.229.22.110 (talk) 15:29, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I need clarification at that article. When was the United Kingdom's founding date & did the UK have 1 predessor state or 2. GoodDay (talk) 17:14, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Depends which UK you mean - there have been two. The Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland together formed the Kingdom of Great Britain (1707). To this was added the Kingdom of Ireland, to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801). After 26 counties left the union to form the Irish Free State (1922), the union itself became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (1927). It should be noted that the word United was added at the start of 1801, see Act of Union 1800 --Redrose64 (talk) 18:29, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- I was wondering if 927 was the correct founding date. GoodDay (talk) 18:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- 927? Assuming that this is 927 AD (and not 927 in the Islamic calendar), England was still in the process of formation, so no way could the United Kingdom have existed back then. Unless, of course, "united kingdom" refers to a concept (East Anglia + Kent + Mercia + Northumbria + Wessex = England) and not a legal name; but then even 927 is somewhat too specific, since Athelstan (or Aethelstan, or Ethelstan), who ruled England from 924 to 939 did not combine all the separate kingdoms at the same time, but continued the process pursued by his predecessors as King of Wessex, ie Alfred the Great (reigned 871-899) and Edward the Elder (reigned 899-924). --Redrose64 (talk) 19:46, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- I got to figuring, if 927 (for England) was used, shouldn't 843 (for Scotland) be used aswell? IMHO, the Kingdom of England & Kingdom of Scotland united as the Kingdom of Great Britain, thus they were co-predessor states. The edits at the List of sovereign states by formation date creates the impression, England took over Scotland in 1707. GoodDay (talk) 19:52, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Having looked at the article in question, the AD 927 date appears in a column headed "Birth of current form of government". This is certainly incorrect, because the Saxon form of government (elective monarchy) was swept away in 1066 when William the Bastard arrived, bringing absolute monarchy with succession by descent. This in turn has been modified several times, such as Magna Carta, the Commonwealth of England, the English Restoration and the Act of Settlement 1701 (which came into effect with the death of Queen Anne in 1714). The earliest possible date that could be used is 25 December 1066, see Norman conquest of England#Norman invasion and #Governmental systems in the same article. However, if mentioning England prior to 1707, you must also mention Scotland. Not being a Scot, I can't say when the pre-1707 form of Scottish government began. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- That's basically it. IMHO, Scotland & England should be treated as co-predecessors to the Kingdom of Great Britain. If we're gonna use a date earlier then 1707, then both English & Scottish dates need to be shown; less we give the impression that the UK is actually Greater England. GoodDay (talk) 21:19, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Having looked at the article in question, the AD 927 date appears in a column headed "Birth of current form of government". This is certainly incorrect, because the Saxon form of government (elective monarchy) was swept away in 1066 when William the Bastard arrived, bringing absolute monarchy with succession by descent. This in turn has been modified several times, such as Magna Carta, the Commonwealth of England, the English Restoration and the Act of Settlement 1701 (which came into effect with the death of Queen Anne in 1714). The earliest possible date that could be used is 25 December 1066, see Norman conquest of England#Norman invasion and #Governmental systems in the same article. However, if mentioning England prior to 1707, you must also mention Scotland. Not being a Scot, I can't say when the pre-1707 form of Scottish government began. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- I got to figuring, if 927 (for England) was used, shouldn't 843 (for Scotland) be used aswell? IMHO, the Kingdom of England & Kingdom of Scotland united as the Kingdom of Great Britain, thus they were co-predessor states. The edits at the List of sovereign states by formation date creates the impression, England took over Scotland in 1707. GoodDay (talk) 19:52, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- 927? Assuming that this is 927 AD (and not 927 in the Islamic calendar), England was still in the process of formation, so no way could the United Kingdom have existed back then. Unless, of course, "united kingdom" refers to a concept (East Anglia + Kent + Mercia + Northumbria + Wessex = England) and not a legal name; but then even 927 is somewhat too specific, since Athelstan (or Aethelstan, or Ethelstan), who ruled England from 924 to 939 did not combine all the separate kingdoms at the same time, but continued the process pursued by his predecessors as King of Wessex, ie Alfred the Great (reigned 871-899) and Edward the Elder (reigned 899-924). --Redrose64 (talk) 19:46, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- I was wondering if 927 was the correct founding date. GoodDay (talk) 18:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
FYI, {{Scottish English}} has been nomiated for deletion. 70.29.210.242 (talk) 05:39, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
FYI, {{Hiberno-English}} has been nomiated for deletion. 70.29.210.242 (talk) 05:39, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Several maps of the Empire up for deletion
FYI, several maps of the British Empire have been nominated for deletion, see Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2010 March 14.
70.29.210.242 (talk) 04:56, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Isle of Man
Just noting that Wikipedia:WikiProject Isle of Man appears to have been incompletely launched - it doesn't have a banner (so can't use any project bots, requests for which I'm cleaning up). It's not even clear what the parent project might be. Perhaps someone could try and run with it (eg post at Talk:Isle of Man to see if there's any interest). Rd232 talk 22:03, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
- Ditto Wikipedia:WikiProject Jersey, Wikipedia:WikiProject Guernsey, Wikipedia:WikiProject British Indian Ocean Territory. Perhaps merge as workgroups into some kind of UK territories project? There are doubtless others which could join them, eg Wikipedia:WikiProject Gibraltar. Rd232 talk 22:11, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
- A merged WikiProject (say, "WikiProject Crown Dependencies" or "British Islands"?), would make for the most logical approach I think. Many projects for English counties (some of which are more populous than these territories) have died on their feet in the last couple of years (information at Wikipedia:WikiProject England/Projects). There was a large discussion here about how the English county projects were losing strength, numbers and purpose (a discussion which influenced the creation of the joint Wikipedia:WikiProject Lancashire and Cumbria). Just thought I'd bring this to the team's attention with regards to reasons for and against larger projects. --Jza84 | Talk 22:18, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
FYI, {{Commonwealth military ranks}} has been nominated for deletion. 65.94.253.16 (talk) 06:20, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Opium War
FYI, Opium War has been proposed to be repurposed, see Talk:Opium War
70.29.208.247 (talk) 23:25, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
wrong info
It was written in the Rivers of Blood speech that Powell proposed anti-discrimination legislation when in fact it was the contrary. His speech was racist, and he advocated against anti-discrimination legislation to "protect" the country from minority immigrants. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.69.86.97 (talk) 22:16, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
Backstage Pass tour of the British Museum - invitation.
Dear all,
I'm pleased to announce that the BM is offering a "backstage pass" tour to any Wikimedians who wish to come along on Friday the 4th of June. Details below, copied from the Announcement by Mike Peel from Wikimedia UK. All Wikipedians are very welcome to come along. The crucial info and signup page is all here http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Backstage_Pass.
Sincerely, Seddon talk|WikimediaUK 00:34, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
From Mike:
Wikimedia UK and the British Museum would like to invite you to a very special event taking place from 11am on Friday 4 June - a "Backstage Pass" to the British Museum!
"You may have heard of the British Museum’s exciting initiative, a Wikipedian-in-Residence, with Liam Wyatt joining us in June to work with museum staff and Wikipedia editors to encourage mutual understanding and improve the encyclopaedia in areas relevant to the Museum’s collection. In order to kick off the residency, I’d like to invite you to join us at the British Museum Wikipedia Backstage Pass Day, on Friday 4 June.
In the morning we have arranged a number of behind-the-scenes and gallery tours for Wikipedians. Then, after lunch together in the staff canteen, we will get together in the Clore Education Centre to talk about collaboration, have a question and answer sessions, hear pitches for adding notable objects and developing featured articles, and hopefully also forming some relationships for future working, during and beyond Liam’s residency.
I hope you can come; there’s a lot of interest here at the Museum about it. I look forward to welcoming you to the Museum. Matthew Cock, Head of Web, the British Museum
This will be an exciting, incredibly important, and - most of all - fun event, so I would encourage you to attend if you are able to. You can find out more information about what will be happening, and sign up to say that you are coming, at: http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Backstage_Pass
Thanks, Mike Peel, on behalf of Wikimedia UK
New government - reminder to update articles
Now that the UK has a new government - of a different political complexion to the old one, obviously - there is a need to make sure that all articles are checked to make sure that they don't retain out-of-date references to the old government, where they are sensitive to political changes. One example where an edit was needed was here - there may be many others, possibly hidden away in rarely-updated articles. So, if you know of any, please change them. Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:35, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
Parameter INFOBOX-->civil_parish
Little Thetford is a parish in the ward of Stretham. That being said, I suspect that the parameter infobox-->civil_parish should not be present for this village. Could that be confirmed please?--Senra (talk) 22:05, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
- Looking at the map it is in the civil parish of Thetford not in Stretham. The link for the article would be Thetford, Cambridgeshire to match the one in the civil parish list but as yet does not exist. Keith D (talk) 22:29, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
- Civil_parish parameter now commented out
Done I like the idea of an article with that title as it clears up some confusion. The administrative records talk about Thetford not Little Thetford. However, the place-name is most definitely Little Thetford. I am too new to wikipedia to be creating new pages so I will leave this for now. The page Thetford, Cambridgeshire would not contain anything other than a link to Little Thetford anyway or perhaps it should be disambiguation? Anyhow, too complex for me --Senra (talk) 23:34, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
- It should be remembered that there are two kinds of parish - civil (local government) and ecclesiastical (church), and their boundaries and names need not match. As the parameter name implies,
|civil_parish=is for the local government type. Most English villages are within a civil parish; many also give their names to the parish. A good source is a current Ordnance Survey map of 1:25 000 scale (Explorer series, orange cover) or larger; the 1:50 000 (Landranger series, pink cover) don't have this information. In the infobox of the Little Thetford page there is an entry "OS grid reference TL530764"; click on the reference itself, and when you get to the GeoHack page (which might take more than one try), click on the "OS maps" link in the "Ordnance Survey Get-a-map" row on the right-hand side. This takes you here, which is a 1:25 000 map. Here, the civil parish boundaries are shown by lines of small dots, dark grey-brown (almost black) in colour. The parish names are shown in capitals; in this case the words "THETFORD CP" occur just below the village concerned. The page Thetford, Cambridgeshire need not be a disambiguation: it could be a short summary of which villages are within the parish, see for example Barford St. John and St. Michael. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:00, 11 June 2010 (UTC)- Done The page Thetford, Cambridgeshire has been created and the civil_parish parameter reinstated. Part of my reluctance, described above, is my fear of messing up wikipedia. Your input is really appreciated. Most helpful. --Senra (talk) 11:08, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
- It should be remembered that there are two kinds of parish - civil (local government) and ecclesiastical (church), and their boundaries and names need not match. As the parameter name implies,
- Civil_parish parameter now commented out
Schools in Little Thetford
Quotation:
The buildings were designed by the well-known architect J. P. St Aubyn, and in 1872, their first full year, cost £220 18s. 9½d. (Stretham) and £62 14s. 1d. (Thetford). They provided places for 200 and 75 children respectively.
— Pugh, A.B. Editor, "South Witchford Hundred",The Victoria history of the county of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely, Vol 4, Ely public library: Oxford University press for University of London, Institute of Historical Research, 1953, p. 158
Little Thetford is such a small place that snippets of information such as the above are interesting. A nationally recognise architect built our first school! When I researched J. P. St Aubyn the wikipedia article does not list Stretham or Little Thetford. Therefore,
- A.B. Pugh is wrong
- A.B. Pugh is correct and the wikipedia article J. P. St Aubyn is incomplete
How can I verify which of the above are true?
--Senra (talk) 10:27, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
- If it was a listed building, details would be on Images of England, but it appears that it is not. Given that I can't find anything online, I suggest finding the Cambridgeshire Pevsner at your local library; it usually has details for every school, particularly any by a notable architect. Warofdreams talk 11:20, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
- Wow! Thank you for a rapid response. Pevsner noted. This will have to wait until I get to library again next week. I appreciate your response. --Senra (talk) 11:26, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
- I don't think that the school's omission from the James Piers St Aubyn page is any suggestion that he wasn't the architect; the article has a List of major works, the title of which implies that non-major works are omitted. If Little Thetford is indeed "such a small place", it's likely that the school was quite small too, so wouldn't be considered a major work.
- Be wary of comparing a printed work with Wikipedia in order to determine which is the most reliable: Wikipedia rules state (see WP:CIRCULAR) that you can't use Wikipedia as reference source when adding material to other Wikipedia pages. I'd go with Pugh, any day; that "Victoria History" series of books are pretty reliable, coming as they do from researchers at the University of London. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:33, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
- I certainly agree that the VCH is the reliable source, not Wikipedia, but the second edition of Pevsner was published seventeen years after the relevant volume of the VCH, so if there is any disagreement, I'd go with Pevsner. If (as is likely) the VCH and Pevsner agree, then that's as reliable a source as you're likely to find. Warofdreams talk 13:05, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
- Wow! Thank you for a rapid response. Pevsner noted. This will have to wait until I get to library again next week. I appreciate your response. --Senra (talk) 11:26, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
- Thank you. As a complete aside, I worked with Sir William Molesworth-St Aubyn a few years ago! Nice man. --Senra (talk) 13:58, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
I've expanded this article, which is ranked "High importance" and "Stub class". I wonder whether someone could reassess it?
Also, in the course of researching I've found we don't have a biography of Sir Donald Curry, and perhaps we ought to, if anyone feels like writing a BLP. Cheers—S Marshall T/C 22:29, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
Reliability of climate data
At present, Little Thetford displays climate data in a table very similar to {{Cambridge weatherbox ...}}. The table is populated with Met Office figures for Cambridge (1971-2000 averages). I am happy with the verifiabilty of this data. I am unhappy that the Met Office does not provide similar averages for a weather station closer to Little Thetford.
I have looked at MSN monthly averages: Ely, GBR. The website reports that "Data provided outside US and Canada by FORECA" who, in turn, say
The service is global and forecasts are available for approx. 140.000 locations world-wide. These locations have been hand-picked from a master database of over 3 million locations, which improves the user experience by minimizing name conflicts by insignificant locations. The optional weather maps and animations are designed for mobile applications.
I am probably being pedantic. However, I do not feel the above statement is defensible enough for wikipedia. In addition, I cannot find anywhere which tells me where the weather station is that has gathered that data. It may not actually be Ely. Based on the above, I prefer to stay with the nearest Met Office weather station to Little Thetford, i.e. Cambridge. For the record, Ely, Cambridgeshire is 3 miles (4.8 km) from Little Thetford whilst Cambridge is 15 miles (24 km).
Pleade provide feedback on the above. --Senra (talk) 22:37, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
Nectar card
FYI, the template associated with the article Nectar loyalty card was renamed and rewritten, see Template talk:Customer loyalty programs.
76.66.195.196 (talk) 20:49, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
British Airways request
British Airways is under your scope and has just received A-Class status under the quality scale used by WP:AVIATION and was wondering if it needs three editors from the UK WikiProject to say its A-Class under your criteria as well or if it can just be changed to A-Class since it has gone through the required screening. The, now archived, review page is here. Thanks, Plane Person (talk) 16:24, 4 July 2010 (UTC).
Possible Creation of WikiProject Tayside and Fife
Hi! I have proposed the creation of WikiProject Tayside and Fife (both are regions in Scotland) to improve the quality of all of the articles which fall into the scope of the project. I would hope that some of the contributors to UK articles would like to indicate their interest in the proposed project.
If you would like to join please add your name on WikiProject Council/Proposals/Tayside and Fife. If the project gets a reasonable amount of interest I will create a draft of the WikiProject (after consultation with editors who are interested) in my userspace and then will create the WikiProject. Thank you. Andrewmc123 16:05, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
semi-automated conversion of American spellings to British spellings
For anyone who is interested, a maintenance script is available to convert the entire contents of a page from American spelling to British spelling, see the documentation here. If you have any queries or feel that the script needs modifying in any way, you know where to find me ;-) Ohconfucius ¡digame! 06:25, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
MOS entry of use of British Isles
A perennial issue but, in light of current events at AN/I, it may be time to get community input on a proposed MOS entry to cover this issue. I would envision the MOS entry accompanying the proposed topic ban on systematic addition/removal of the term British Isles form the encyclopedia. A straw poll on the proposed MOS entry is here. Comments are also invited. --RA (talk) 21:24, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
American/British Disputes
Chips redirects to the page French Fries and I think most of us agree that French Fries and Chips are definatly diffrent dishes in the United Kingdom. Our national dish the Chip now only gets a very short 3 word paragraph in the entire page, it deserves more than that. Any previous attempt to split the article or to elaborate on the subject have been reverted or shot down by American editors.
A similar problem occurs when it comes to crisps which the americans refer to as Potato Chips however crisps here do not nesseserily refer to potato based products. Monster Munch, Discos, Wotsits, Hula Hoops ect... are all corn starch based products which we all refer to as crisps but have zero potato content so cannot be listed under Potato Chip
These points have been pointed out on the disscusion pages but the american editors refuse to accept this some have even gone as far as to say we use the term chip as in potato chips when we say a bag of chips or chip butty as they fail to realise that to us a chip is a chip as in fish and chips.
I'm new to wikipedia but I would like some advice or help as to how to move this situation forward :( I think Potato Chip should lead to a diasmbiguation page as it refers to our chips as in fish and chips and americans crisps as in potato chip. I also feel the chip needs a far greater inclusion in the french fry article to distance it'self from the french fry or it needs its own article which i feel is the best option. with the crisp side of things that again needs it's own article as crisps and potato chips are not the same, or the potato chip article should be renamed "Crisps" and the american potato chip should have it's own sub section under it
Please Help jess221.208.50.110 (talk) 17:54, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
- Hi - I understand your frustrations :¬)
- First of all lets try and establish the necessary differences
- Crisps - Thin circular slices fried or baked and made from potato or corn maize (or others)
- French Fries - thin (approx 3mm x 3mm) deep fried or oven-baked strips of potato
- Chips - strips (normally >= 6mm x 6mm) deep fried made of potato or others (parsnip etc)
- Now we get onto the problems. When is a bag of chips not a bag of chips? When one of you is American and one English.
| English | Shape | Width | American | US Article | UK article |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crisp | Circular slices | <1.5mm thick | Chip | Potato chips | None |
| French Fry | Thin strip | 3mm x 3mm | Fries | French fries | French fries |
| Chip | Thick strip | > 5mm thick | Fries | French fries | None |
- You can see in the Potato chip page there has been an attempt to clarify the difference between Crisps and Potato chips - Bear in mind that the history of the Potato chip states that it is we British (and others) that have renamed it crisp. That page is too confusing as it tries to also define chip and so I have cleaned it up a bit but cannot say how long it will last without changes or reversions.
- "In the United Kingdom and Ireland "Crisps" are "Potato chips" while "chips" refer to thick strips similar to French fries (as in "fish and chips") and served hot. In Australia, New Zealand some parts of South Africa, the general West Indies especially in Barbados, both forms of potato product are simply known as "chips", as are the larger "home-style" potato crisps. Sometimes the distinction is made between "hot chips" (fried potatoes) and "potato chips" in Australia and New Zealand."
- The same is true with French Fries - Crisps and French fries are ok where simple clear explanations in the articles that make the differences in nomenaclature easily understood. There is little point in repeating everything about the method of manufacture and types etc. just over the names used.
- Chips are a different matter. Here the problem is two fold, they are much larger than French fries and as long as the differences are made clear then that is fine, however, it may be that a section should be made to cover British chips with "Main:Fish and Chips" or similar.
- Chaosdruid (talk) 17:55, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
British nationality law
A user related to a campaign group or at least has a grievance keeps adding a new section Discrimination against those born between 1948-1983 to British female citizens to the British nationality law article. It has been reverted and challenged but the editor justs repeats the text on the talk page and re-adding the text to the article. Appreciated if anybody with more knowledge on the subject can have a look, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 18:20, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Locator maps from OS opendata
I've been working with the Ordnance Survey OpenData release to produce a large amount of mapping for the UK. Ultimately I should be able to produce thousands of locator maps, highlighting parliamentary constituencies, districts, civil parishes and even electoral wards across England, Scotland and Wales. I've done a test upload now, using East Sussex to illustrate what I'm planning to produce in bulk. Some of these are displayed below, they are more Category:Maps of East Sussex.
-
Districts in E Sussex -
Constituencies in E Sussex -
Civil parishes in E Sussex -
Electoral wards in E Sussex -
Brighton and Hove -
Wealden constituency -
Wards in Brighton and Hove -
Patcham Ward
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.svg)
.png&action=edit&redlink=1){kind=link}
These have been designed to follow (my interpretation of) the current Wikimedia-wide conventions in terms of colours, which differs somewhat from most maps on UK articles (but is compatible with the "standard" File:United Kingdom location map.svg). The maps are also deliberately minimalistic, avoiding any chartjunk.
Any feedback would be appreciated, two specific concerns I have are the colour scheme and line thickness. Apart from that, hopefully these will find use soon.--Nilfanion (talk) 12:07, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
- That looks great. As you say, possibly the lines need to be thicker so they show up clearly in thumbnails. Light colours would make it easier to combine the maps with pinpointing and text overlays; but so long as any place has a map with no areas marked in red, that's not a problem.
- Before you bulk upload, have you any thoughts on a standard naming scheme?
- It might be helpful if the file names indicated the exact source of the data (ie the product within OS OpenData)
- District boundaries are fairly stable but constituencies and wards can change every few years, as with the recent general election. Nearby parishes can have similar or identical names, even within the same county (eg Gamston, Rushcliffe and Gamston, Bassetlaw, both in Nottinghamshire), so would need to be disambiguated with the district name for consistency. Brackets are better than commas for disambiguating, because places can have several words and commas in their official names. A few wards, and Richmond (Yorks) constituency, have brackets in their official names, but these cases are rare enough to make clashes unlikely. For some purposes, it would be easier if the filename was directly related to the relevant article name (if the place has its own article), but articles do get renamed.
- It is helpful to have distinct filenames when boundaries change, even when the area name is the same, so editors know whether they are using the updated map. One way to produce a unique name would be to base it on the codes in the new ONS Register of Geographic Codes. Unique codes might assist with template automation and disambiguation. On the other hand, such unintuitive codes might make it harder for editors to find the relevant files.
- One compromise would be to combine the name of the area with its year of creation. But even this has its problems: few people will know when a place was given its current boundaries, and Westminster constituency boundary changes take effect from a date that can be uncertain until several years after they are promulgated (since there is always the possibility of an early general election).
- — Richardguk (talk) 00:55, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
- Well the blank maps are the higher priority (as these are the ones most suitable for locator map templates), while the area maps are useful for articles about areas as opposed to towns/villages.
- As for naming, fully agree names need to be thought about a bit more carefully:
- I'm not sure if we should strictly follow the official name in all cases eg "Lands common to the parishes of Hamsterley, Lynesack and Softley, and South Bedburn" is very long and is abbreviated to "Hamsterley Common" in {{Civil parishes in County Durham}}. Perhaps more serious is where the official name differs subtly to the article location on Wikipedia for places like St Ives, Cornwall (which is St. Ives CP).
- Personally I'm not sure brackets for additional disambiguation is the best way forward, commas are used in articles after all for location disambiguation. De facto standard name on Commons would just have spaces.
- This would make the "standard" name be File:<region> <district (when needed)> <county> UK <region type> map.svg, which would be easy enough to use and locate though it would look messy for eg File:Bickleigh Mid Devon Devon UK parish map.svg (where the repetition looks awful). Brackets may break that up.
- With respect to the ONS codes, I think if they are mentioned in the file description that would be sufficient and possibly advisable. Including in the name would really hinder ease of use.
- The simpler date method would work, the current boundary line product is for 2010, the year could be inserted after the UK in the file name perhaps? An even simpler solution could be to skip the date entirely, and move the old file to a dated location when a boundary change occurs so only current ones have undated files.
- Hopefully there won't be any clashes with existing files if I follow that structure...--Nilfanion (talk) 11:36, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Oh and for information: The maps to I'm hoping to eventually to create and upload are for:
- District, constituency, parish, ward and county electoral divisions (whatever they are) for every English county.
- District, constituency, community and electoral divisions for every Welsh county.
- District, constituency (both for Westminster and Holyrood) and wards for every Scottish county.
- In London: constituency (both Westminster and London Assembly), borough and wards, with the wards being done both for the whole of London and within each borough.
- In addition to these, also ward maps for individual (larger) towns and cities, at minimum those with categories in Category:Suburbs by city. Given that there are over 20,000 entries in just the "ward" and "parish" this will obviously take some time!--Nilfanion (talk) 11:36, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
- This is promising. A few queries:
- Is it possible to illustrate the location of the map area within the UK? If not, these will need to be displayed alongside an additional map showing this.
- How do you decide which rivers to show? The choice seems fine, although in some cases it's hard to tell whether or not they coincide with ward boundaries.
- Is it possible to show the location of urban areas on the maps? I would find that very useful in interpreting them.
- As you say, the lines could do with being thicker, so they show up clearly as thumbnails. I'm not too keen on the colour scheme, but that's probably something to resolve at the international convention level, rather than here.
- But, despite that list - good work; this will be very useful! Warofdreams talk 15:21, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
- In response to each of the points:
- It should be possible (in the style of this), but I haven't attempted to do this yet. If I make sure I leave adequate space for the inset there shouldn't be a problem.
- The rivers are shown are taken from the high_water_polyline.shp file in the source data, so the rivers shown are to the tidal limit. This may be an issue for major rivers such as the Severn upstream of its tidal limit. The confusion with ward boundaries and the rivers would be resolved in the highlighted-area versions (as the highlighted ward - which is the subject of that map - would be coloured on both banks if its on both banks).
- The source data does not include any information beyond administrative area boundaries and the coast, but could be added at a later date (SVGs are easy to edit). That said I'd prefer to upload completely blank files at first, as these can be built on more easily (as opposed to needing to subtract info).
- Lines and colour scheme, I agree these need to be resolved before the main upload (which is probably a month or so off).--Nilfanion (talk) 22:53, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
- In response to each of the points:
- @Nilfanion: Fair points. Needs some form of separator for the filename components. Perhaps the county name isn't needed for areas that are contained within a single district? Since the abolition of Durham district (confusable with County Durham), district/borough and administrative county names are unique identifiers.
- Further to the earlier discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Maps#OS OpenData maps, can you confirm that you've converted from OSGB36 to WGS84 so the maps are equirectangular for compatibility with location map templates? We need to record the corner-point data and it might be handy to have them all listed on one page for easy reference, as well separately as on the file description pages.
- The current standard seems to be to create a subtemplate with the corner parameters for each map, which is called by
{{Location map}}, and is named{{Location map United Kingdom PLACENAME}}. That suggests it is worth considering having "United Kingdom" at the start of the SVG file name, instead of "UK" at the end, but AJAX search works better if the specific part is at the beginning. - Example:
{{Location map United Kingdom Cambridge Central}}:{{#switch: {{{1}}} | name = Cambridge | top = 52.21328 | bottom = 52.19711 | left = 0.10775 | right = 0.13526 | image = Cambridge centre map.png}} <noinclude> {{Location map/Info}} [[Category:United Kingdom location map templates|{{PAGENAME}}]] </noinclude>
- Given the quantity of subtemplates that would need creating and maintaining, would it be better to add only a single generic template, say
{{Location map United Kingdom OpenData}}, with a#switchsubtemplate to look up the relevant parameters? This could then work like{{Location map}}but without the need for hundreds of new subtemplates. In fact, there's no reason in principle why such a template need be restricted to OpenData or UK maps, so perhaps this is more a question of whether there should be an alternative to{{Location map}}that bypasses the need for individual subtemplates. - On the other hand, if template creation can easily be automated, it may better to stick with the established method.
- — Richardguk (talk) 19:40, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
- Just to confirm these files are correctly converted to WGS84 and on a (stretched) equirectangular projection, so should work fine in for location map templates. I've provided the geographical limits on the file descriptions, and I've got a central file summarising that locally that I can place on-wiki if that would be helpful. Making the district, instead of county, as the primary piece of info makes sense. Not sure about the template stuff, would have to think some.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:53, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
- D'oh, I should have read the file descriptions! Thanks for the helpful response though, looks great. — Richardguk (talk) 01:44, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
- Just to confirm these files are correctly converted to WGS84 and on a (stretched) equirectangular projection, so should work fine in for location map templates. I've provided the geographical limits on the file descriptions, and I've got a central file summarising that locally that I can place on-wiki if that would be helpful. Making the district, instead of county, as the primary piece of info makes sense. Not sure about the template stuff, would have to think some.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:53, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
- This is promising. A few queries:
I've refreshed the East Sussex District map (File:East Sussex UK district map (blank).svg to include significantly thicker lines. Also created a page (on Commons) with a table of maps, at the resolution used in infoboxes. As a first step I will upload only the blank maps.
If other information (such as rivers, urban areas and roads) is thought to be helpful for specific uses I can prepare that later on. It should be possible to add insets later too, the alternative of using a double map also works. Both methods are viable, I don't really have a preference one way or the other as long as I can be consistent.
However before I start uploading the blank maps, got two immediate concerns:
- Is the line thickness (of the East Sussex district map) ok now?
- Is the colour scheme I've been using ok (discussion of the highlighted colour doesn't block the blanks). Two primary colours are:
If these are fine I can get on with uploading (created 130 or so now - about half of England)--Nilfanion (talk) 21:51, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
- Looks great. My only suggestion is that, since these are boundary maps and roads are not shown, maybe it is best to remove (or fade) the rivers, so that these do not get confused with boundaries. The relatively dark shade of blue makes them look as significant as the boundaries themselves in the thumbnails, perhaps a side-effect of thickening the lines. Sorry if that thought is belated. — Richardguk (talk) 03:38, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
- Yeah, the rivers are a nuisance. Part of the reason it looks bad is the choice of county for testing, compare to Devon which shows this more clearly. The parts of the rivers shown in both counties are the tidal portions, and I'm very reluctant to remove parts of the coastline but keep other sections as that leads to original research (eg where would you draw the line for the River Dart?).
- Best option, which I'll follow is thick boundaries and thin coastline, which produces good output as a thumbnail (which unfortunately causes some issues at high resolution due to my lack of skill with SVGs).--Nilfanion (talk) 21:19, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
- The uploads will take a while, as encoding the location names in the SVG is essential for derivatives but is time consuming.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:19, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
- Excellent compromise, looks good.
- If you're using place names in the SVG ID attributes, don't forget to disambiguate to prevent duplicates where counties contain more than one parish or ward of a given name (as discussed above, these are unique only at district level). To allow easy merging of SVG files, you might want to ensure that IDs are unique across the UK.
- Are you going by ceremonial county at Commons:User:Nilfanion/Maps? If so, I think Bristol is missing from your table. Ceremonial boundaries (as preferred in Wikipedia) do cause problems with the splitting of Stockton-on-Tees (borough) between Durham and North Yorkshire, but perhaps this is the least worst approach. You might also want to use "Durham" as the canonical name for County Durham.
- — Richardguk (talk) 03:12, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
- Yep missed Bristol, easy enough to add of course. As for Stockton-on-Tees, should be able to duplicate the approach used by the existing png location maps (in addition to doing ones specifically of the UA for parish and ward breakdown). I suppose the more important questions really are how to handle Scotland and Wales as these don't have existing county-level maps. For Wales, the Unitary authorities probably make more sense than the Preserved counties). And for Scotland, the Council areas are the only thing that makes sense to me. With the Commons page, I'll also add cities and probably a requests section to handle the ones I miss.--Nilfanion (talk) 09:37, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
.svg){kind=link}
I've uploaded district maps for all of the English ceremonial counties, with full data on the description pages. One addition is to include lakes on the maps (a map of Rutland in particular would look wrong otherwise). I haven't added rivers or any other feature as that has potential for confusion (which line is a river, which line is a ward boundary) and the potential for clashing with highlighted colours; I'll do location maps including more data later. I've also created maps for all the other divisions in England too, but haven't uploaded as I need to annotate the svgs still. In any case, getting similar mapping for Wales and Scotland is a higher priority, as unlike with England there are no existing maps at all.--Nilfanion (talk) 00:35, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
- Looks very impressive, the lakes add a nice touch without being confusing. I agree that unitary areas (for Scotland) and counties and county boroughs (for Wales) are the best top layer for the other parts of Great Britain, reflecting primary usage elsewhere on enwiki.
- My only remaining concern is the need to clearly indicate in the file names and metadata that the England maps are named after lieutenancy areas and not after administrative counties of the same name.
- Indeed, maps of the English administrative counties will also be very useful in due course: spatially so in the case of Cornwall (as the Isles of Scilly extend the map a long way but are not relevant to most Cornwall articles), and hierarchically so for those areas where lieutenancy areas now straddle 1974 county boundaries.
- Hope that feedback is helpful. I reckon this deserves a mention in Wikipedia Signpost or on one of the Ordnance Survey blogs.
- — Richardguk (talk) 14:04, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
- I agree most of with that. Cornwall needs careful thought - a map of Cornwall without the Isles of Scilly would be a much more helpful. The biggest single complication I've found so far is the parliamentary constituencies which cross county lines; I'm not sure how to best handle those.
- As for Signpost, blogs etc, I'd say logical time for that sort of thing would be after the basic Scotland and Wales maps are up too.--Nilfanion (talk) 20:21, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks for the further feedback.
- For cross-border constituencies, maybe the boundary commission constituency review areas are more appropriate boundaries to use (these are usually 1974 county equivalents, but see the sub-section headings at List of electoral wards in England by constituency for the current list).
- Two related discussions elsewhere this week which are worth cross-referencing:
- Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography#Alternative Location Map for districts/boroughs/cities: Whether to replace pink-and-red location maps with yellow-and-fuchsia/red location maps for articles about UK local authority areas, including whether UK, county or intermediate scaling is most appropriate.
- Template talk:Infobox UK place#Wales location maps: Several editors preferring location maps that include motorways and urban areas to plainer maps (I hope I haven't led you astray by suggesting that your maps were better without these). I suppose these could in principle also be derived from various OpenData products? But it seems cruel to suggest even more work for you already!
- — Richardguk (talk) 00:34, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
- Well I'll think about how to handle constituency stuff later I think. The purpose of the first pass is to produce the base for highlighted area maps, which are better if the base is very plain. However, for location map purposes I can see that a "richer" map may be beneficial, I've uploaded an enriched version of the Newport map to facilitate discussion.--Nilfanion (talk) 13:25, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
- Picking up comments from the related discussions I think the colours of the maps will be a problem and itwould be better to follow the existing colouration for UK infobox maps. Keith D (talk) 15:20, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
How on earth...?
...do we get a flag of Buckinghamshire uploaded to Wikipedia? One does exist, and is available to buy in online suppliers. Is it a case of someone vectorising a pixelated image from one of these sites? Anywhere we can get a free image from that we can use for this purpose? -- roleplayer 23:29, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
Employment rate sources
Comments from anyone with knowledge of employment statistics would be appreciated on this discussion regarding whether an Institute for Public Policy Research or an Office for National Statistics source is better for employment statistics on Somalis in the United Kingdom. It's a rather long discussion but we could do with third-party opinions. Cordless Larry (talk) 13:49, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Useful online resources via UK public libraries.
Just a reminder: Many UK public libraries make available a wonderful range of online resources which you can access from any computer if you have a library ticket. This page shows which services your library offers from the Oxford range (Dictionary, Dictionary of National Biography, Grove dictionaries of Art and Music, Who's Who). Your library may or may not also offer the Times Digital Archive (1785-1985), and the British Library's 19th-century newspapers (national and selected regional papers), both of which have searchable full text. Go to your library's website and look under some heading like "online resources" to see what's available. If your own doesn't offer all that you need, try joining a different library - some (many?) don't require you to live in the area, and allow you to join online. (Try the red rose county!).
All these goodies may well disappear with cuts in public services, but use them while they're available. Not least because high usage will help librarians to justify renewing the subscriptions out of a tight budget. PamD (talk) 18:41, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Jacob Epstein changed his citizenship from American to British before becoming notable. All the works for which he was notable (sculpture) were created in Britain, and are displayed in Britain; he took British citizenship, served with the British army, was granted knighthood by the Queen, and is buried in London. His connection with the American art scene was minimal. There are numerous references identifying him as British, some but not all of which also identify him as "American-born British" but British nonetheless. Even American encyclopedias identify him as British. A number of editors, presumably American, are repeatedly trying to remove his chosen identification as British. Could some MOSBIO knowledgeable folks please watchlist the article and participate in educating these editors on our guidelines for this sort of case? Yworo (talk) 15:06, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Notification of renaming proposal
Should the titles of the articles on the immediate predecessors of Elizabeth II contain the phrase "of the United Kingdom"? Please see Talk:George VI of the United Kingdom#Requested move and comment there if you wish.--Kotniski (talk) 07:06, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Importance rating of White British article
Opinions would be welcome at Talk:White British on the importance rating of the White British article. There is a dispute about whether the article should qualify as of "top" importance on this WikiProject. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:29, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
British Isles Meitheal
Hi all —
A while back the British Isles article underwent a peer review. Most of the suggestions coming out of it have been implemented and IMO the article is approaching GA standard. This is an article that had been dogged by POV issues and in-fighting amongst its editors so the achievement of getting it to the standard it is in admirable for all involved. However, one major sticking point is referencing, which are appallingly sparse. There is no way the article could achieve GA as it stands on account of the state of referencing.
The task of fixing it up isn't impossible. There are about 30 paragraphs that need referencing. With enough editors, we would only need to take two or thee paragraphs each to get the job done. To that end, I've set up a "meitheal" page. The idea is for anyone who is willing to help out to take a paragraph at a time and to references just that paragraph. If you can do more than one then great. Just come back and take another one.
The meitheal page is here: Talk:British Isles/Meitheal. If you're willing to help out, just dig in.
Thanks, --RA (talk) 17:33, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
United Kingdom articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release
Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.
We would like to ask you to review the United Kingdom articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.
We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!
For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 23:46, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
Turkish community of London merge discussion
Input into the discussion here about merging Turkish community of London into Turks in the United Kingdom would be appreciated. Cordless Larry (talk) 15:05, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Harrier Jump Jet
FYI, Harrier Jump Jet has been requested to be renamed. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 06:01, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
Use of British Isles on United Kingdom
It has been suggested that the use of the phrase British Isles on the article United Kingdom should be deleted. The use of this term in that article is being discussed at WT:BISE#United Kingdom. If you would like to contribute to the debate please do so. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:38, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
The largest living creature in Britain, a red deer, has been shot.
I rather wanted to get this on "In the news", but apparently it is not considered important enough.
Can anyone please help improve this new article?
I'm asking here because I believe the story is on the front page of most national newspapers this AM.
Plymouth requested renames
FYI, the usage of Plymouth is up for discussion, see Talk:Plymouth#Proposed_Move.
76.66.199.238 (talk) 05:02, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
Request for reviews of a Featured portal candidate relating to the UK
The portal is Portal:Law of England and Wales. The review page is Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Law of England and Wales. Never reviewed a featured portal candidate before? Well, it's done by reference to the Featured portal criteria, which aren't very complicated, and input of any type would be welcome (particularly since the nomination has been open for a fortnight without any reviews at all!). I'm posting this request here at the suggestion of Cirt (talk · contribs), one of the FPo Dirrectors. Thanks, BencherliteTalk 15:42, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
Green Berets being redirected to American special forces
I don't know where else is best to report this to so please pass it on, I found this via the WP:BIAS project link. I thought about the admin board but I am guessing that is for more serious stuff than just disputed articles? But yeah, I came back and this guy just keeps doing it like he expects to sneak it in then hope no one notices it's been changed... --12:12, 4 November 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.14.248 (talk)
- Disputes like this can normally be sorted out by counting google hits:
- "Green berets" + "American" = 1,620,000 hits
- "Green berets" + "British" = 785,000 hits
- "Green berets" + "French" = 759,000 hits
- "Green berets" + "Australia" = 522,000 hits (Using Australian instead of Australia actually gets less hits)
- So the main use of the term Green berets would appear to be the American term, as the disambig page suggests. -- roleplayer 12:47, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
- Also, the best place to bring this up is where it was brought up, and where 87.194.14.248 was directed earlier in one of the reversions' edit summary: Talk:Green Berets (disambiguation), rather than assuming bad faith and beginning a potential canvas campaign (at least, I don't see 87.194.14.248's corresponding alert to a U.S. group). Other stats:
- --JHunterJ (talk) 13:09, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
- Clearly the US Green Berets have more hits than the other three, but I don't think that is the question. This is a disambiguation page, and the other two armies (the French still need to be added) are being moved to the very bottom of the page under 'see also', rather than being listed at the top as one might expect. I propose reverting to the first linked version, but re-ordering the 'In the Military' list to reflect the google hits (unless someone has another argument as to why a different force should have the first spot). GyroMagician (talk) 13:13, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
- Well I'd have thought that as the page is called Green Berets (disambiguation) then surely it should be customary to lead with Green Berets then list all other meanings underneath? Which is not how it was laid out in 87.194.14.248's version. -- roleplayer 13:18, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
- GyroMagician, could you bring this up on the disambiguation page's Talk:Green Berets (disambiguation)? -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:33, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, you're right, this is the wrong place for the discussion - I'll copy my comment across. GyroMagician (talk) 13:42, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
- ...can everyone please continue the discussion here... GyroMagician (talk) 13:46, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
Penrith
FYI the usage of Penrith is under discussion, see Talk:Penrith,_Cumbria#Requested_move . -- 76.66.194.212 (talk) 09:20, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
We Need Your Help Please
We have begun an RFC at the Gibraltar article. The section for discussion is here. We really need a wider audience to help us with suggestions. Since this is one of the articles in your project area we would appreciate your assistance. Thanks! JodyB talk 11:28, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
Jimmy Wales, Bristol, 13 January 2011
Do people know about this? - [7] I'm waiting to hear back what the ticket arrangements are. Does anyone know any more about it? Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:56, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- I know one of the people who organises these events & will try to find out more. I'll also put a note on the Bristol Wikiproject talk page.— Rod talk 09:00, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- See http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/London . Charles Matthews (talk) 15:33, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
Maps
Many people here are probably aware of the work I've been doing with OS data (the updated location maps for example). I've now created a broader page User:Nilfanion/Maps describing the work so far and what else I can (or will) do, and will add a few tutorial type sections in due course. I'm not sure where else to "advertise" that page, though various sub-project pages are obvious.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:49, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
Categories for discussion nomination of Category:Jews who emigrated to the United Kingdom to escape Nazism
Category:Jews who emigrated to the United Kingdom to escape Nazism, which is under the purview of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. IZAK (talk) 13:01, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Birmingham Airport
The usage of Birmingham Airport is up for discussion, see Talk:Birmingham Airport, West Midlands . 65.94.44.124 (talk) 05:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
Round Maple
- Little Thatch, Suffolk (AfD discussion)
- Quicks Farm (AfD discussion)
- Flushing Farm (AfD discussion)
- Seasons, Suffolk (AfD discussion)
- Category:Round Maple (CfD discussion)
- Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2010 December 10#Template:Round Maple
- Notable structures in Round Maple (RFD discussion)
- Round Maple, Babergh West SNT (RFD discussion)
- Transport in Round Maple (RFD discussion)
- Bull's Cross Wood (RFD discussion)
- Bulls Cross Wood (RFD discussion)
- Round Maple Cottage (RFD discussion)
- Well House (RFD discussion)
- Langley View (RFD discussion)
- Round Maple Cottages (RFD discussion)
- Hatherway Cottage (RFD discussion)
There appears to be a rash of deletion nominations related to Round Maple. Please bear the others in mind when discussing one. Uncle G (talk) 11:25, 13 December 2010 (UTC)