Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lancashire and Cumbria/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Importance scale

There are still over 550 articles under our scope that have not yet been given an importance rating. I will try and do some myself but I can not possibly deal with over 550 of them. So if anyone has a coulple of minuties to spare then please do a few. I and the rest of the WikiProject team will be very gratful. Any problems just write it here and we will sort ot out together.

PS: I apologise for my spelling, I am just dreadful. 93gregsonl2 (talk) 20:41, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I've just done over 100. A lot of them are villages which can be rated Mid-importance. Small-town hero (talk) 02:51, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

All articles now assessed (and I'm going to have a drink to celebrate!). NtheP (talk) 20:29, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Popular pages

We now have a popular pages list on the Wikimedia Toolserver. This is a list of articles tagged for this project which have been viewed the most since the start of November. Stats will be archived at the end of each month. Small-town hero (talk) 18:41, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Bacup

Just a nudge that I've been expanding this article. I'd like it to become a GA, but my editting time is compromised at the moment, so any help from others would be most welcome. --Jza84 |  Talk  00:12, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Floods

Move? See Talk:November 2009 Great Britain and Ireland floods#Requested move. Simply south (talk) 18:04, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Pageview stats

After a recent request, I added WikiProject Lancashire and Cumbria to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The stats are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Lancashire and Cumbria/Popular pages.

The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. You can view more results, request a new project be added to the list, or request a configuration change for this project using the toolserver tool. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 00:58, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Blackburn peer review

Just incase you haven't noticed but the Blackburn article has been under peer review for some time now, and we now have a reply. See here. As you should know by now Blackburn is a top importance for our WikiProject so I would like to see some action from you our members to try and get this article to GA. It is only in need of a few tweaks. I am looking forward to all of your contributions. Get editing the Blackburn article now guys. We will get to GA. Thanks. 93gregsonl2 (talk) 23:25, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Someone has kindly conducted a peer review, the comments are here - Wikipedia:Peer review/Blackburn/archive1. NtheP (talk) 08:58, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Has anyone acted on this peer review yet? NtheP (talk) 09:47, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Preston

I think after we get Blackburn to GA we should then get Preston to GA. If you are serious about our WikiProject then please start improving both Blackburn and Preston. When this WikiProject was created in September we have had no articles under our scope that has gone to GA/FA. Don't you think we should do something about this? 93gregsonl2 (talk) 23:29, 8 November 2009 (UTC) Yes i sure think we should get some GA/FA topics! i dont know much about Blackburn but i will have a good look at Preston as i know it fairly well! will have a look at the discussion on Preston and see what needs adding and editing! Bankhallbretherton (talk) 01:21, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Top Prioties (for the moment)

• Blackburn
• Preston

Kendal Town F.C.

Don't know if this is the right way to go about this but it's not really my problem.

The Kendal Town F.C. page came up whilst i was wandering aroud Wiki and apparently an Austria Chap called Adolf Hitler plays for them.

Thought I'd let someone know.

Ry —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.108.220.205 (talk) 19:02, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh dear, I've sorted it out and have warned the editor in question not to vandalise. Thanks for bringing this to our attention, and please do so again if you notice something amiss. Nev1 (talk) 19:05, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Wordsworth House

Following the recent floods, Wordsworth House has gained particular media attention, which means there'll probably be a knock-on effect on the article. Unfortunately, it's in rather a poor state at the moment so it would be good if we could get it into shape for the public. (Also, I've added a link from the William Wordsworth article, so traffic should be permanently increased). Nev1 (talk) 14:55, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Cumbria geo stubs

Thanks to the efforts of two editors we have dozens of new stub articles on hamlets and small settlements in Cumbria. Many are lacking infoboxes so if anyone(s) wants a task to improve these, there are plenty to go around. NtheP (talk) 08:57, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Rivington

If anyone fancies a clean-up challenge, Rivington is certainly the place to be. :) --Jza84 |  Talk  23:34, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Portal peer review/Cumbria/archive1

Comments appreciated. J Milburn (talk) 18:17, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Brougham Castle

Hi team, I was contemplating a rewrite of the article on Brougham Castle (it's already been expanded enough for DYK and I'll nominate as soon as I think of a hook) but the images available are a bit poor. Flickr draws a blank for free-use images and geograph has only a couple which aren't great quality, so I was wondering if anyone here had some decent photos? It's a long shot, but you don't get if you don't ask. It would be great if we could find some images which do this stunning castle justice. Nev1 (talk) 21:05, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Ships (partly) built in Cumbria

We have a project FA rated article on HMS Cardiff (D108). It's only connection with Cumbria is that it was laid down at Vickers in Barrow, but fitting out took place on Tyneside. I have two issues with this article being listed as within the scope of this project.

1. It's connection is marginal at best (as an anology should we include any aircraft built or partially built at BAe Salmesbury?)
2. We don't have all ships in the category Barrow-built ships included in the project. It just seems to me that, acting in good faith, we could be guilty of cherry picking in an article just because it happens to be rated FA.

Personally I don't think that all these vessles should be within the scope of the project. There is a list article List of ships and submarines built in Barrow-in-Furness which is in scope and I agree it should be, but for the individual members of either this list or the category, unless their connection with either county is stronger I think should be left out. One of the early decisions made by this project was that sports players either born or playing in the counties were not necessarily within the scope of the project and i think the same should apply here.

HMS Cardiff is also featured on the Portal:Cumbria I don't have any issue with this as portals and projects have different aims. NtheP (talk) 16:18, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree. In my view, there needs to be a stronger connection with these counties than just being built there. (On that basis, I can't really see any justification for inclusion in the portal, either.) -- Dr Greg  talk  16:58, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Having no involvement in portals, I was staying out of the way on that. NtheP (talk) 17:22, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

J Milburn (talk · contribs) is currently attempting to promote the Cumbria portal to Featured status, so I've left a note at their talk page in case they have an opinion about this. By the way, if anyone's interested in helping out with the portal, the best way would probably be to write some good articles that it can showcase. I'm not sure about this issue; it seems to be similar to what people should be tagged for a project, which isn't particularly easy to decide either. If there was a Barrow-in-Furness project, I think there'd be a decent case for all the entries in List of ships and submarines built in Barrow-in-Furness to be tagged, but I am less sure about their relevance to Lancashire and Cumbria. The link for many will only be tenuous; it's not like someone who is born in the region and then grows up there as the ships will likely disappear elsewhere. I will also ask what we have to offer to these articles? The point of tagging for a project is surely to allow members to keep track of important articles and watch out for vandalism. A project doesn't have to offer expert knowledge, but if we can help perhaps we should tag them? Or would they weight the project to heavily? Nev1 (talk) 20:07, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

American ships like USS North Carolina (BB-55) are tagged for the project which their name is associated with (in that case, the North Carolina WikiProject), but not for where they are built. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 20:41, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Why? Where they were named after seems even more tangential than where they were built. At least the construction of the ship was important, the name less so. Nev1 (talk) 21:46, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

If I may, I believe ships affiliated with towns often spend time "visiting" these places. This involves lots of ceremony i.e. awarding "freedom of the city" etc. In America this tradition is even more prevalent, such as in war time when the ship with become a rally point for a cities population. So consensus is removal of the Wikiproject and portal, yes? Ryan4314 (talk) 20:44, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

We seem to have got off topic here, whether other projects tag ships with related names is their business and doesn't really have any bearing here. The remit for poject and portal are different and exclusion from one does not necessitate exclusion from the other. There is no clear consensus here yet. Nev1 (talk) 02:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Which is why I started by being neutral about portal. If it's an issue ifor the portal it needs to be discussed at the portal, not here. But in relation to this project in my opinion it's a case by case decision to be made about ships but there needs to be a connection stronger than 'laid down in Cumbria'. If we look at the project page it's more about the history, geography and politics of the counties. Part of that is the industrial output which includes ships but IMO as a topic as a whole i.e. Shipbuilding in Lancashire and Cumbria, not individual ships. I think Nev1 was spot on earlier when he asked what do we have to offer these articles? I think the answer is nothing, so let's drop them an concentrate on the core stuff. Blackburn for example had a peer review last November, has that been acted upon? Has the article gone for GA yet? NtheP (talk) 08:52, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Ok well for the record I oppose the Wikiproject and weak oppose the portal. Let me know when consensus is formed. However I note that no one here has shown support for inclusion in either case thus far. Ryan4314 (talk) 13:06, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

As it's been 10 days since the last comment and no support has been made for inclusion, I suggest closure and removal of the article in question from project scope. NtheP (talk) 19:06, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

That sounds fair enough to me; there don't seem to be any particularly strong arguments for including it. Nev1 (talk) 19:13, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Tis done. NtheP (talk) 09:07, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Wow, what?! The ship's built there are Barrow's only real claim to fame, and Barrow is the second largest town in Cumbria. Anyone from the Furness area would recognise the importance of these ships to Cumbria. J Milburn (talk) 16:24, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Having now actually read this thread, I am still equally completely unimpressed with the conclusion. The ships mention Cumbrian towns in the first sentence, frequently, and a good article would discuss the construction- exactly paralell with people born in a place, or any other products produced in a certain place (for instance, CGP revision guides are printed in Millom- if we had an article, and we should, they would definitely fall under our scope here). Secondly, as was noted above, this project is about "the history, geography and politics of the counties"- the ships are absolutely essential to these issues in the Furness area, which could even be argued to serve as the central locus of Cumbria/Lancashire combined. A quick read of our article on Barrow will illustrate well how instrumental the shipbuilding has been in the region- it was everything economically and politically. You'll note that Barrow's politics is entirely defined by the ships- Barrow and Furness (UK Parliament constituency). It is Labour apart from when Labour will not build ships, and the Conservatives will. Equally, a ship launch is absolutely massive news in Barrow- as in, on the level of special editions of the local rag. I went to one myself a few years ago- a massive event. The idea that the ships are not important to Cumbria/Lancashire is almost laughable. J Milburn (talk) 16:36, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I recommend you start an RFC, as the author who plans to take the portal to FP[1], your opinion could be viewed as slightly biased. Ryan4314 (talk) 16:35, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I really don't follow. J Milburn (talk) 16:37, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Regardless of whether that is true (and I don't really see why it is) "bias" is a useless term. I have strong arguments, or I have weak arguments. Whether I am "biased" is not important. J Milburn (talk) 16:40, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Don't take offence, consensus currently disagrees with your argument, I recommend you start an RFC to draw in support if any exists. Ryan4314 (talk) 16:42, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I presented my arguments a matter of minutes ago. The consensus here is currently not consistent with my position, no, and that's why I'm bothering to present my arguments. It would be nice if you could actually address my arguments if you feel that they are weak rather than continuing with this slightly odd meta-discussion. J Milburn (talk) 16:46, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

My apologies I did not see your latest post up there. From reading the above I believe a summary of the views expressed by those here, that are counter your views, are:

• The link is tenuous, many ships are made at Burrow's Vickers (Cardiff was only started there and was actually finished in Tyne & Wear re; ceremonies etc)
• That you may have cherry picked this article to raise the status of a portal you are currently authoring. Ryan4314 (talk) 16:58, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

• As I tried to demonstrate, I do not feel that a the link of a Barrow built ship is tenuous at all- Barrow is very proud of its ships, and, as I hope I demonstrated, the ships are of massive econonmic, historical, political and social importance to the Furness area, and therefore Cumbria as a whole. As for the cherry-pick issue- of course it was cherry picked. I cherry picked any recognised article related to Cumbria for use in the portal. That's the point of portals; that's how they work. Would you criticise the main page for cherry picking only featured articles for the today's featured article section? J Milburn (talk) 17:16, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

• I have taken on board what you've said; however I still feel the link is tenuous. Do you plan to deselect the article? Ryan4314 (talk) 17:21, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

• I do not personally intend to at this time; I am giving thought to the issue. It may not alarm you to find out that I do not consider "I still feel the link is tenuous" to be a groundbreaking argument. I am happy to discuss the issue, but it would be nice if it was a discussion rather than a repeated restatement of views... J Milburn (talk) 17:24, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

The suggestion that J Milburn is cherry picking articles is incorrect, so let's leave spurious suggestions of bias and the like off the table. Maybe more ships built in Barrow-in-Furness need to be tagged; just because they all aren't isn't a reason not to tag HMS Cardiff. I'm still unsure about the tagging, but consensus seemed to have emerged when I said there are no particularly strong arguments for including the article. But consensus can change; there's no need for an RfC: let's us common sense rather than bureaucracy. There is a link between the HMS Cardiff and Cumbria, but "partially constructed" is slim. If there was a ceremony of something like that in Barrow-in-Furness celebrating their role in the construction, then I think that would be a good argument for tagging. Also, what harm does tagging do? Nev1 (talk) 17:30, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Correction: Per your link, 93gregsonl2 only tagged Cardiff for WP:L&C after J Milburn added it to the portal.[2] Timestamp: [3] Also Nev1, you're the one whom first mentioned J Milburn pushing for FP status, I was unaware of this at first.[4] Ryan4314 (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I did not choose contents of the portal based on them being tagged for this project. Instead, I ran an AWB scan of all GAs and FAs with the words "Cumbria" or "Lancashire" then filtered them manually to judge which were appropriate for portal inclusion. As such, I also have a list waiting to go up on the Lancashire portal, whenever I get around to that. J Milburn (talk) 22:32, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Ryan, you've missed the point. The point is that accusing someone of bias isn't going to help. That was why I asked you to leave them to one side. Nev1 (talk) 22:50, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Point is I've lost interest in this, let others discuss it at RFC, then we'll take a look at the results in a month, no reason this has to be sorted now. Ryan4314 (talk) 23:11, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

RFC started: I've started an RFC here. I wont be commenting, others can decide. Ryan4314 (talk) 22:53, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

An RfC over a project tag... really? This seems unnecessary. Nev1 (talk) 23:01, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

An RFC isn't a negative thing, you said you wanted to discuss, so discuss it. Also there is category for the discussion of "WikiProjects and collaborations", so it's not really over the top is it. Ryan4314 (talk) 23:08, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

We were discussing it- if you've lost interest, stop discussing it. This RfC was a bad idea, especially when the issue was already being discussed here, and encompasses a great number of pages other than the Cardiff article. This discussion strikes me as redundant busy-bodying to start with, and the RfC doubly so. J Milburn (talk) 01:28, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

A point raised in the previous discussion was does inclusion bring anything to the article. At the time the conclusion was no, and I don't see that having changed now. I'd be inclined not to include it, the link is pretty tenuous, ships have little to do with their build location after launching and fitting out.

ALR (talk) 09:13, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

In What way would WikiProject tags bring anything to an article normally? And what does that issue have to do with the separate portal issue, if anything? J Milburn (talk) 09:33, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Essentially adoption by any project implies that the supporters of that project have the potential to add something to the article, in this case I don't see anything that they can bring. Build and fitting out are fairly regularly carried out at different places, not frequent but not unusual. Similarly including it in a portal implies that the article has something significant to justify it or editors approaching the article through the portal can add something to it. I don't see that happening in either case.

Stepping back a little from the specific I'd ask what your criteria for inclusion in the portal are, in general. Once that's clear then there is a standard to assess fit against. Do you anticipate including every ship and submarine that was built at Barrow?

Essentially a portal is a means fof filtering and grouping information, here just needs to be some clarity about how coarse that filtering is.

ALR (talk) 10:41, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

There appear to be two fairly fundamental misunderstandings about portals in that post. Firstly, the portal space is reader facing- after the article space, the portal space is meant to be of more interest than any other (category space and book space are also fairly reader-facing). Effectively, the main page is a portal. As such, our question for inclusion in the portal has to be "is someone interested in Cumbria going to be interested in this article subject?" The answer, fairly clearly, is yes, as far as I am concerned- I can justify this if anyone doubts it. As for the second misunderstanding- it's not a question of "including every ship and submarine that was built at Barrow"- it's a question of including every good or featured article on Cumbria. When we have a large number, we could then cut it down to only featured articles. When, in the distant future, we have many, many featured articles on Cumbria, it could be cut down to only the most central and important articles. However, right now, when we have only a handful of articles, I think these selection criteria are appropriate. J Milburn (talk) 19:36, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I've assumed that you're familiar with information management concepts, so didn't think it was appropriate to detail that filtering and grouping is a presentational and consumer supporting function. Notwithstanding that I would hesitate to dismiss the contribution aspect so casually.

I'm afraid that I find your argument for inclusion fairly unconvincing. But it's your portal, and clearly your rules.

ALR (talk) 21:17, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I really don't know what you're talking about. Whatever lexical field you're using, it's not one with which I'm familiar (as I think you said). J Milburn (talk) 21:22, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

OK, we're both making assumptions here about what the other understands, it's clearly getting in the way so I'll go into my thinking in a bit more detail.

Wikipedia has both consumers of content and producers of content, those can reasonably be the same people but the issue is around how they approach an entity. As you state the portal is aimed at the consumer mode, it's used to group entities around a topic area, and filter entities either within the broad topic area or by quality. Ideally the latter although as you identify there can be a progression towards that. In an ideal world we'd be able to do that dynamically by interrogating the tagging the underlying data, and providing the consumer the tools to do that easily. Given the current state of the Wikipedia presentation model we can't do that so the model depends on arbitrary selection of entities with a lack of consistency around justification.

In this context the debate is whether Cardiff realistically fits within the grouping, Cumbria. If it does, is there an adequate volume of material in that grouping to justify filtering it in any way. Personally I think that the justification for inclusion is very weak. It's your portal, you're setting your selection criteria but if you're dependent on such tenuous connections I'd question whether you have enough material available to justify the portal.

Anyway, I expressed an opinion in response to the RFC that was raised. So I'll leave it at that.

ALR (talk) 22:27, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry. Read into this what you will, but I really have no idea what you're talking about. I can't follow what you're saying. I really don't want to cause offence, and I'm sure what you're saying has value, but I just don't understand. J Milburn (talk) 23:21, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

As the one who started all of this let me reiterate my main reason for making the original suggestion.

1. What I have to say only applies to the Project not the Portal.
2. To quote from WP:PROJ A WikiProject is a collection of pages devoted to the management of a specific topic or family of topics within Wikipedia; and, simultaneously, a group of editors who use those pages to collaborate on encyclopedic work. It is not a place to write encyclopedia articles directly, but a resource to help coordinate and organize the writing and editing of those articles.
3. I entirely agree that shipbuilding is crucial to any study of Cumbrian history and politics and something we should collaborate on. However just because shipbuilding is important doesn't mean that it automatically follows that any ship built in Cumbria is equally as important and requires the same attention from this group of editors. If an individual ship needs attention because its connection with the county is significant then it may fall within the project scope but that is a case by case basis.
4. IMO HMS Cardiff doesn't meet that need. It's connection with Cumbria is minimal in the overall context of shipbuilding in Cumbria and doesn't need the attention of this project. If, for example and I stress for example (this is not an attempt at developing guidelines), it was the last ship built by Vickers in Barrow or a major accident occurred during its construction that affected Barrow I would be of a different opinion.
5. My point about suspicion of cherry picking was made against the project not any individual editor. NtheP (talk) 15:59, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Lead image on Carlisle, Cumbria

As the current image at the top of the article is a bit dull, I've started a discussion on the talk page. I'm not sure who's watching the article, so thought I'd leave a note here as well. All opinions welcome. Nev1 (talk) 19:59, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Settlement Format

I have recently edited some of the west lancs villages and i think that we should all be formatting them out to a similar flow for example: Introduction - Name of village and brief intro ( include the settlement template which gives option of a photo and postcode, dialing number details, etc,

This should then be followed by these topics:

• History
• Local Facilities - Shopping areas, library, museum, etc
• Education - Schools in the settlement or locally
• Religion - Churches, priorys, local monuments (include parishes)
• Architecture - Listed Buildings and buildings of importance in the settlement (each one should be sub categoried)
• Transport - Roads, Trains, Ports, Docks, Aviation, (even if they have closed down they can be documented that the settlement once had a train station for example)
• Geography - Includes the location map for surrounding villages
• Economy - So what keeps the place going? are they a shopping district, holiday resort, market town, farming village, etc
• Demography - If available how many people lived there in the last census
• Noteable people - People that would be of interest to other people or celebrities who may have lived in the settlement.
• Media - Local Newspapers, Radio stations, etc
• Culture - Local Annual Events,
• Leisure - Any sport or social clubs, sport centres, etc

Maybe a list of each 'topic' could be posted into each village discussion area and striked through once the information has been provided on the main page. I think that will revelutionise the wiki pages for lancashire and encourage people to add details into wach page. Any comments would be very welcome any further additions to the lists please list them in your reply! For examples of the page layout see Banks, Lancashire and Tarleton as you will get the idea of the layout plan, also the talk pages on Tarleton for the strike out plan! cheers Bankhallbretherton (talk) 23:38, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

That is pretty much the layout recommended in WP:UKTOWNS, the guideline for writing about settlements in the UK. It contains a little more info, but essentially you've got the right structure. Each section can be expanded with historic information, for example a section on transport can include details of how the railway system came to a town. This is just one example, and isn't strictly necessary; it's the depth of information I'd expect from a very good article (see Sale, Greater Manchester for an example of developed sections including historic information). I like the suggestion of putting this information on talk pages so it can be struck off; it would give prominence to the guideline which perhaps isn't as well known as it could be considering a lot of thought was put into it. Nev1 (talk) 00:41, 12 March 2010 (UTC) Nev1 (talk) 00:41, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I've seen several editors acheive the desired effect this way. Stick all the headings into the article as unseen comments then as you want to 'create' a section just remove the comment markers and away you go.

<!-- == History == -->
<!-- == Local Facilities == -->
<!-- == Education == -->
<!-- == Religion == -->
<!-- == Architecture == -->
<!-- == Transport == -->
<!-- == Geography == -->
<!-- == Economy == -->
<!-- == Demography == -->
<!-- == Noteable people == -->
<!-- == Media == -->
<!-- == Culture == -->
<!-- == Leisure == -->

They're all in the right order and from the edit screen you can see at a galnce which areas have been covered and which remain to be done (if appropriate) NtheP (talk) 08:59, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Ahh ok that sounds a plan! i didnt realise there was a structure already out there! i think im going to start editing the villages around me and get them off the stub marker! I plan to go take some pics of a few of them and get churches and architectural buildings and parks to upload on here! Bankhallbretherton (talk) 10:05, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced living people articles bot

Your project uses User:WolterBot, which occasionally gives your project maintenance-related listings.

User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects provides a list, updated daily, of unreferenced living people articles (BLPs) related to your project.

Here is an example of a project which uses User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Cricket_articles/Unreferenced_BLPs

There has been a lot of discussion recently about deleting these unreferenced articles, so it is important that these articles are referenced.

The unreferenced living people articles related to your project will be found here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Lancashire and Cumbria/Archive 2/Unreferenced BLPs.

If you 'do not want this wikiproject to participate, please add your project name to this list.

Thank you. Okip 08:07, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what the thoughts are on taking this up but for it work well we would have to tag all articles into Category:WikiProject Lancashire and Cumbria articles. Easily done with something like AWB but do we want to do it? NtheP (talk) 17:43, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Maybe this will help: DASHBOT only examines already articles already tagged with your wikiproject template, it does NOT tag new articles. If your project is ever interested in tagging more articles with a bot, please see: Category talk:WikiProject tagging bots Okip 05:18, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

There maybe no or few articles on this new Unreferenced BLPs page. To increase the overall number of articles in your project with another bot, you can sign up for User:Xenobot_Mk_V#Instructions.

If you have any questions or concerns, visit User talk:DASHBot/Wikiprojects. Okip 22:53, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Brougham Castle again

I've completed a rewrite of the article and it's currently a Good Article candidate. In the long run, I'd like to take it to FAC as well, so I'd be grateful of any suggestions from people here. My prose often needs a bit of work, so any assistance would be great. I intend to add a plan of the castle as soon as I get round to scanning one in. Nev1 (talk) 22:03, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Congrats on getting it to GA. NtheP (talk) 08:41, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

New articles

The bot does not seem to be doing its job properly. When it finds a new article it displays it overwritten with a strike-out. And it does not pick up everything; I've recently written four new articles on churches in Cumbria and Lancashire, and added the project banner to the talk page, but it hasn't picked them up. Can anyone fix it; or should we stop using a bot and update the section manually as we produce new material? There is also no way that I can find to flag up substantially improved articles.--Peter I. Vardy (talk) 16:01, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

1. If you mean the results shown at Wikipedia:WikiProject Lancashire and Cumbria#New articles that isn't the bot displaying the new articles with a strikethrough, that's me. The bot lists are straightforward and unstruck. I'm editing the bot results to strike through the entry once the articles have been tagged with the project banner and/or assessed. It might not the best process but was something agreed on early on (see here). If nine months in, there is a better or more prefered method let's change but I think that we need to remember that the bot is there to identify to the project new articles which may be in scope and may need assessing as well as them being new.
2. If it's not picking up articles then it probably needs the rules amending. It works on points scoring, current requirement is 15 points as per these rules - User:AlexNewArtBot/LancashireCumbria, the explanation of what the rules mean is here. I'm not 100% with explaining the rules but I think the bot is better at spotting stubs, which is what new articles are more likely to be than more developed articles. It looks for the words Lancashire or Cumbria and scores 10 for finding them or 20 if in the lead para. Being tagged with a Lancs or Cumbria geo-stub template scores another 20 then it deducts points based on other rules mostly to do with it being an article about people. It doesn't look too difficult to change the rules (famous last words) but if there is to be a chnage we need to discuss it here. I think that for your articles the most likely answer is that it has probably checked your articles but they didn't score enough to feature in the search results. But as they were already tagged with the project banner, does it matter? I wouldn't advocate stopping using the bot as the vast majority or new articles are not produced by editors of this project so without the bot they are unlikely to come to our attention.
3. I'm not sure any project has an automated method of flagging substantially improved articles. Most it just seems to be a request posted on the project talk page for a re-assessment to be conducted. That's something we could do or make use of a more specific page dedicated to assessments (we have a currently empty page called Wikipedia:WikiProject Lancashire and Cumbria/Assessment). Personally I'd just go for calls on this page as it's one less place to look. NtheP (talk) 17:19, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the very detailed reply. I now understand why it has been set up in the way it is. My thoughts were just that it might be interesting for project participants to see what new articles had been recently created, and which articles had been substantially improved. But that rather conflicts with what you are doing.--Peter I. Vardy (talk) 17:41, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

No problem, I would like to point out that I don't own any of these processes, I just fell into doing them because it gives me some satisfaction to know that this project has assessed 100% of all articles tagged as being relevant to it. One thing I don't have any control over is how long before the bot archives off the new articles from the search result. If you want to see the full list of articles it has found then click on the archives link. I think currently it archives after 14 days, again I think it can be amended if we want it to be. On the improved articles there's absolutely nothing stops us from having a section on the project page for these but I think it would have to be manually populated. NtheP (talk) 17:56, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I had a look round and found a template {{done-t}} that puts a tick and the word done against the entry. Coupled with an edit on the project page to indicate what the message means, I must say it looks neater to me. Thoughts? NtheP (talk) 09:29, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Peer Review

I have submitted an article for Peer review a few weeks back and nothing has been done! who do i talk to about this or could anyone else give who ever is supposed to be doing the reviews a prod to get on with it please, as im very keen to get the article reviewed Many thanks Bankhallbretherton (talk) 08:16, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Was it Bank Hall? If so there are some reveiw comments here:- Wikipedia:Peer review/Bank Hall/archive1, it doesn't look like it's too far off GA at least. NtheP (talk) 09:21, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Watch All

Does this project have a "Watch All" page? If it does how can I access it? If it doesn't wouldn't it be a good idea? --J3Mrs (talk) 14:29, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

What is a "Watch All" page? -- Dr Greg  talk  20:02, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

These are examples. [5], [6] It's a way of keeping track of changes to articles in the project.--J3Mrs (talk) 10:29, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

You mean like this? - Special:RecentChangesLinked/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Lancashire_and_Cumbria/WatchAll I'm not sure how to update it as I prepared it manually with some help from AWB. Perhaps a complete rewrite every so often is the way to go. I've taken the liberty of adding the link to the project main page as Section 10 Monitoring articles. NtheP (talk) 17:56, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that sort of thing. The GM and Yorkshire are done "automatically" though. Don't ask me how, I can only just find the letters on the keyboard.--J3Mrs (talk) 18:24, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

The recent changes page itself is automatic. It's the watch all list of the articles in the project that isn't. Manchester's is bot generated with manula additions. Yorkshire, who knows! NtheP (talk) 19:52, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Rivington

The Rivington article has been substantially rewritten and expanded. Could someone look it over to see if there are any glaring omissions. I'd like to think it might make GA one day so suggestions welcome.--J3Mrs (talk) 09:50, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Listed buildings in Rivington

New article to Featured list in less than a month. Congratulations to all those involved. NtheP (talk) 10:06, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Articles tagged for clean up

For anyone who is interested in helping clean up articles there is now a link on the project page here that links to a bot generated page of articles tagged with various cleanup needs. NtheP (talk) 16:16, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Portal:Cheshire

The Cheshire portal has been nominated for Featured Portal status. To join the discussion, visit Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Cheshire. Espresso Addict (talk) 22:58, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Lancashire and Cumbria 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 Lancashire and Cumbria 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 23:14, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Milburn

I've just made a major update to the Milburn, Cumbria article. I'm new to Wikipedia and the editor who's been helping has been out of contact for a while so I'd appreciate comments Crossview (talk) 11:21, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Rivington at GAN

I have nominated Rivington at GAN as I think it meets the Good Article criteria. and the project doesn't have many GAs particularly the settlements.--J3Mrs (talk) 09:49, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Preston

Views are invited at Talk:Preston regarding a shuffle of some material and titles relating to WP:UKDISTRICTS. --Jza84 |  Talk  21:06, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject cleanup listing

I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 20:30, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Tentative additions

I am experimenting with ways to contribute to Wikipedia. I took time out from technical concerns to edit several pages that relate to my experience of living in Lancashire 1941-1945. These were relevant to Ministry of Pensions (where my father worked), Cleveleys, Rossall School and Carleton (where it was located), Carleton where we lived, Baines (no Wiki entry, but mentioned on page about Poulton-le-Fylde) where I went to school. I could not provide references. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Michael P. Barnett (talk • contribs) 16:22, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Are several short entries better than a consolidated entry ?

Is the present separation of Carleton, Cleveleys, Thornton, many other villages and the Fylde advantageous? Moving the material for these villages into the Fylde page, comprising separate sections, with links to Blackpool and Fleetwood would make access to information about the overall area much faster, particularly with the intermediate level of Over Wyre for many of these. Going from page to page and back, up and down a tree of entries, is time consuming and frustrating. My concern with regard to this set of entries is paralleled by several others, and I wonder if this is an issue that has cropped up before and, if so, where it stands. Michael P. Barnett (talk) 00:34, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it is advantageousv to have separate articles with cross referencing, settlements have an inherent notability and therefore merit their own article. An article on the borough/district etc can contain short sections on each village in the area but if the village article is reasonably well developed then the section should be fairly short and use {{main}} to refer to the article on each village. I accept that a number of stub articles make this more difficult and the section referring to the village may be longer than the village article itself (I've seen this elsewhere) but the individual articles should be left as the seed from which someone may one day expand them. I am very much against reducing stubs to redirects as well. NtheP (talk) 15:36, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

If there is enough information out there to create a decent sized article, then it's worth keeping them separate, even if there info isn't yet in the article. My bias here is that I have worked on several of those mentioned and created one of them, but that is my opinion regarding articles anyway. I don't think it necessarily helps a reader to have to scroll down a page to find the info on their particular town of interest. Endless amounts of sub-stubs consisting of one or two unreferenced sentences can be a problem and I can see an argument for consolidating those (although I think I would ultimately be against it, personally). I don't think that argument applies to these articles though. There are reliable sources out there on the history of the Fylde settlements, as well as modern sources on other aspects, it's just a matter of getting it into the articles, which of course takes time. I have been working on Poulton-le-Fylde and it is my hope to get neighbouring settlement articles to a similar standard.

I notice that you're fairly new around here Michael. I don't know if you've read up about our notability guidelines, but they are generally what decide whether or not we have an article on something. You'll see at that main page there is not mention of places. In general, populated places are considered notable enough to merit an article of their own. Not everyone agrees with this, but that's often how deletion discussion go. You might be interested to read Wikipedia:Notability (populated places), which is a proposed guideline, and these two failed propsals: Wikipedia:Notability_(populated_places)_(failed) and Wikipedia:Notability_(populated_places)_(failed)_2. If you look at the relevant talkpages for those proposals, you'll see some of the continuing arguments.--BelovedFreak 16:07, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

The standard procedure, which seems to work, is to have a separate article for every settlement, large or small (or very small). This allows for each to have an infobox, a map showing the precise location, and maybe a photograph. I'm know this has been discussed at length, although I have no idea where, but I am sure this is the consensus. Maybe have a look at the Category "Villages in Suffolk", and click on a few of the links, to see how other counties do it.--Peter I. Vardy (talk) 16:55, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I accept the present structuring and recast my original question as a hope that within this structure, two details can be added (and it is possible one or both are there already and I missed them) (1) The Fylde states: "The rest of the Fylde is rural, containing villages such as ...". If it is feasible to give a COMPLETE list here, at least of villages that have articles, I think that would be VERY helpful (e.g. I might be trying to remember in which village a class mate at Baines' lived in, and seeing the list would trigger my memory; also "such as" could be thought to imply value judgement of relative importance). There is benefit to having this in print besides having it on a map. (2) PLEASE if it is not against policy to mention, in each of the disambiguations, all of the others. I know this can lead to infinite cycles in simplistic mechanized search software, but that is not a prohibiting consideration. I have some local questions and comments I will throw in here. (1) I gave the name of the local pub in Carleton as the Castle Arms. I have a nagging feeling it was Castle Gardens. Anyone know? (2) Anyone know the acreage of the Ministry of Pensions site at Norcross, the number of employees, when it left, how long it took to put up? (3) I think members of the Halle family (orchestra fame) lived in Poulton, (4) a topic of historical speculation was a tombstone in the Poulton churchyard with a skull and crossbones on it, (5) Morecombe marshes were used for practice flare dropping during the past two years of war, making nights as bright as day (and some of my schoolmates went out collecting magnesium from unburnt flares, (6) girders were put in the sand on the beaches to prevent landings, (7) Fleetwood was a main entry point for food fish -- the fleet based there in peace time + Icelandic fleet + one or two North Sea fleets, (8) the cinema in Poulton made a great contribution to morale for many of us. (9) there is mention of the Fylde (not very flattering and probably unfair) early in a novel by Sir Walter Scott, but I do not remember which. (10) info on local wild life (I remember moorhens on ponds). (11) Any info on local Home Guard? (12) preservation of "O'ert Weeeer" dialect? Michael P. Barnett (talk) 22:48, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi again Michael. One of our core policies is Wikipedia:Verifiability, which makes it very important to cite information to reliable sources, so that our readers can verify it. You don't necessarily have to cite things that are common knowledge, but much of the information you're talking about is not common knowledge and isn't easy to verify without proper sources. I noticed the changes you made to the Carleton article, and have been meaning to look at them more closely. It's great to have personal/general knowledge of a topic, it definitely helps with knowing what information to use or look for, but we have to be careful of straying into original research (eg. basing what we write on out own memories). You've asked quite a lot of questions above, some of which might be more appropriate at the particular talkpage for relevant articles, or you may get more joy at the reference desk.

Regarding your first question 1), I see no reason why all settlements couldn't be mentioned in the Fylde article, although it may be better to keep it as prose rather than a list. I'm not sure how many settlements we're talking about. We do also have lists like List of civil parishes in Lancashire (which is sortable by district) and categories like Category:Towns in Lancashire. As for your second question no. 1), it's the Castle Gardens, which illustrates my point about WP:V/WP:OR! For your other questions on actual facts, if you're looking for your own interest, I'd try the reference desk. If you're looking to improve relevant articles, the only thing to do really is to find out from reliable sources and then add the info to the article. I'm interested to hear about a cinema in Poulton, as that could be added to the article. If you have any more info on that I'd love to hear it, although probably best at Talk:Poulton-le-Fylde, to keep the threads here more project-focused. --BelovedFreak 00:49, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

1. My list of questions/comments was for possible use by people who are constructing histories of the area, for them to investigate. 2. Wikipedia cannot avoid straying into original research when two or more contributors with verifiable knowledge known to each individually but not to the others is juxtaposed with obvious hitherto unrecognized inferences. But apart from that, I agree I must not stray. 2. Your wanting the comments about cinema in another Wikepedia site supports my point about wanting to avoid going from page to page when it can be avoided. Will do, if only as placeholder and prompt to others. 3. As regards settlements, one ideal would be to have all settlement names that anyone might ever want listed in all variant forms. Names of parishes and boroughs obviously are needed. It would be odd to omit settlements that have Wikepedia articles. But should Norcross, Great Carleton, Lesser Carleton be included? I would opt for Norcross, but not qualified forms of another name unless they are of substantial and distinct settlements (value judgement?) I will get a detailed map of the area, make a list, and see how long it is. Maybe Ordnance Survey has some categorization that could provide criterion. I meant strung out items rather than one item per line and forgot the latter is the connotation of list, here. Inevitably, Wikipedia pages will be downloaded and searched mechanically (if not already) and the evolution of standard contexts (I am NOT advocating WikiML) would help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Michael P. Barnett (talk • contribs) 13:48, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I think if you listed every single settlement within the Fylde, it would be quite a long list and difficult to render in prose. Don't forget there exists Category:The Fylde which ought to include (with its subcategories) all Fylde-related articles, assuming the articles have been adequately categorised in the first place. -- Dr Greg  talk  20:04, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand this conversation but there are ways to cross reference common topics. As Dr Greg says categories are the commonest and probably the easiest. I don't really see the purpose for an article such as List of place in The Fylde, better would be for each place to have an article, even a one line stub and be categorised in Category:The Fylde. As an aside I have to say I am not a fan of {{Geographic Location}} to me it looks very ugly. And I really don't understand the point about the cinema in Poulton making readers got from page to page, the only place for a description of, and the effect of, that cinema is in the article on Poulton-le-Fylde unless the building itself merits its own article e.g. because it's listed. Yes specific examples relating to the cinema could occur all over the place e.g. in Homefront morale in WW2, List of cinemas in Lancashire but any occurance like that should link to the prime location. NtheP (talk) 21:33, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

1. My point about going from page to page referred to discussion pages -- it is more convenient for me to keep my comments about Lancashire in one place. 2. I have to emphasize that I only have the margin to provide information -- not to edit the actual articles. Not laziness, just limits of time and stamina. 3. I welcome such feedback as link to Homefront morale. 4. I could not find Poulton-le-Fylde on map in The Fylde Michael P. Barnett (talk) 15:28, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Kirkby Branch Line

The article Kirkby Branch Line has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

A search for references found no published (gBooks) references for this article. Fails WP:N and WP:V

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

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

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Jeepday (talk) 14:01, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Resolved by another editor. NtheP (talk) 15:22, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Unsure but i cant see anything wrong with the article in regards to references as it has many! Bankhallbretherton (talk) 10:26, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

This is a out of date topic now. Another user made extensive revisions to the article and removed the PROD NtheP (talk) 14:09, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Peer review nomination of Cliburn

Hello everyone, I have nominated Cliburn for a peer review to help improve it further. For the Peer review, see Wikipedia:Peer review/Cliburn/archive1, you may also find the talk page useful, thankyou and good luck. Crouch, Swale talk to me My contribs 16:30, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Carlisle categories

I'm attempting to rename the category Category:Carlisle as it is ambiguous with Category:Carlisle, Pennsylvania. But as there is Carlisle (district), City of Carlisle and Carlisle, Cumbria it's confusing as to what is a subcategory of what. The discussion is here. Tassedethe (talk) 19:16, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Project scope - (living) persons from Lancs & Cumbria

The project scope only mentions people connected to the counties. Does this mean we want to tag as within scope everyone who is from Lancashire or Cumbria or only those who have had a significant effect on the history, politics etc of the counties? Personally I'm in favour of the latter only as I don't think that collectively we can add much to articles on people from L&C and to tag them as being of interest to the project smacks of points scoring in terms of articles included; not because this project can make meaningful contributions to those articles - which I believe is the reason for this project. NtheP (talk) 14:48, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

New Articles

The bot used to list new articles that may be within project scope (AlexNewArtBot) is currently not working, therefore any articles need to be manually tagged. Thanks to User:Peter E. James for identifiying about 2 dozen untagged articles that fall within project scope. NtheP (talk) 10:41, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Update 17:52, 17 May 2011 (UTC). TedderBot has started generating the lists formerly compiled by AlexNewArtBot. NtheP (talk) 17:52, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

New featured content

Congrats to User:Belovedfreak for getting Listed buildings in Poulton-le-Fylde to FL status. NtheP (talk) 17:47, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

And from me.--Peter I. Vardy (talk) 19:36, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Ah, thanks very much! (only just read this...) --BelovedFreak 16:42, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Lancs for Lancaster?

The disambiguation page Lancs claims that "Lancs" can be used as an abbreviation for the city of Lancaster. I've never heard of such usage (I've only heard it for the whole county), has anyone else? -- Dr Greg  talk  19:04, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

No. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 19:22, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I have; I've also see it used as an abbreviation for the university (see, for instance, the university website). J Milburn (talk) 20:15, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Main image for Blackpool North Pier article

I've started a discussion at Talk:North Pier, Blackpool regarding the main image for the article, if anyone's interested in helping to decide which one to use. --BelovedFreak 16:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Listed buildings in Lancashire‎

I suggest Listed buildings in Lancashire‎ is far too broad in its scope for a single article. There is a Grade I listed buildings in Lancashire article and the Grade II section could woth pruning be made into a Blackpool article if there isn't already one. Perhaps it could be pruned to Grade II* Listed buildings but I'm sure that would be very large. Just a thought.--J3Mrs (talk) 12:33, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I just looked and there is a Blackpool article.--J3Mrs (talk) 12:37, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Recognised content

On the project main page I've inserted the code to try out a bot for recognised content. Until it does its first run that section will be blank. Please don't revert my edits until there is some content and we can discuss whether we like it or not. Thanks NtheP (talk) 18:59, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

The bot has run (now that I set the parameters up correctly), comments on the content, layout etc? NtheP (talk) 07:33, 30 June 2011 (UTC)