Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wiltshire/Archive 2

Something to watch out for...

There is a bot currently going round tagging deadlinks; in optimum cases, it replaces them with archived links, but some remain dead. In particular, the change of Wiltshire County Council to a unitary authority last year has left some links as "not found". Some can be changed from e.g. "northwilts.gov.uk" to "wiltshire.gov.uk" as pages have been moved, but some of them haven't. Rodhullandemu 18:59, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Some research shows that historical, census, church, etc pages have changed URL from "www.wiltshire.gov.uk..." to "history.wiltshire.gov.uk...". I've going through these as time permits, but this link is to a tool that flags up all deadlinks of interest to us. Rodhullandemu 23:58, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

What a lot of dead links... I've fixed one or two, but I'm afraid I lack the enthusiasm for a systematic effort. Moonraker (talk) 00:58, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Some are easier than others, others may take some time, and I have this currently listed as a background task. Should be fixed by Christmas. Rodhullandemu 01:05, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Where are the dead links in the articles? What exactly do you have to replace them with? I think I may have the enthusiasm to check and fix them. Jaguar (talk) 20:52, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

They are listed in the above link to CatScan; most of the Wiltshire Council ones just need changing from "www.wiltshire.gov.uk" to "history.wiltshire.gov.uk", but I think I've got most of them. The bot that tagged them did try the Wayback Machine, so most of them now I think will need a little research to re-source the remaining ones. Rodhullandemu 21:11, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Online books

Under the Resources heading on the main page, I have added a couple of dozen links to online books which may help others. I'm sure this could be greatly improved. Moonraker (talk) 03:20, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

District templates

This is a serious conern for me here. Assumung that everybody knows this, but (probably nearly) every county in England has district templates. Wiltshire is the only one who hasn't got any district councils! Taking Hampshire for an example, Hampshire has 13 district councils (with two unitary). Each district has its own template including all the settlements within the district. District templates are almost vital for all settlements in Wiltshire to be linked together - which is why we need them.

Hampshire's districts, Wiltshire's districts.

Wiltshire doesn't have any districts which makes it impossible for a template with all the settlements to be listed on. There is only Wiltshire Council (which is number 1 in the picture) and Swindon (borough) (as number two in the picture). Since Wiltshire Council is far too big (it covers 75% of the county) a template cannot be created to list all the settlements within Wiltshire Council. However, until 2009 Wiltshie actually had district councils. They were North Wiltshire, West Wiltshire, Kennet (district), Salisbury (district) and Thamesdown. If in reality, there hadn't been any changes to the districts, we would have templates today but unfortunately we don't. Does anyone have any suggestions? How can we make district templates if Wiltshire doesn't have any? Jaguar (talk) 19:03, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

What exactly do you mean by "district templates"? Do you mean navboxes such as {{Winchester}}? If so, Wiltshire is not alone: County Durham is also single-layer, and they have the navbox {{Durham}}: note the lack of small settlements. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:43, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, sorry! I also mean Navboxes! A template with all the settlements in a specific district. Jaguar (talk) 23:00, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

It's a conundrum. Wikipedia did have all the apparatus of districts for Wiltshire, but it was expunged in the middle of last year. I suppose you could still have some system of sub-division, but it would either be an arbitrary one or it would be based on the nineteen (I think it's nineteen) new areas designated by WC, which in some cases might be rather too small. Oddly enough, the area of the new Wiltshire Council is both an administrative county and a district: there was already a county, which still exists, and a new district covering exactly the same area was created by statutory instrument in 2009, so that the new unitary could carry out the statutory district functions. The new district is, of course, smaller than the ceremonial county of Wiltshire. The area of the borough of Swindon is a district but not a county. I don't think we can sensibly use the former districts, which no longer exist to be used for serious functions like national statistics and censuses. The meaningful districts on the same basis as non-unitary areas are the two unitary authorities, but the new areas (each of them based on a market town) are a possibility. (Of course, other unitary counties are in the same boat, such as Cornwall and Shropshire. If their maps still show districts, then they are former districts.) Moonraker (talk) 04:44, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Thinking over my areas suggestion, it occurs to me that the areas are merely groups of parishes arranged to suit the new unitary council's convenience. It could reconfigure them or abolish them at will. Moonraker (talk) 06:28, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I have just found out that Wiltshire still has Parliament constituencies - they were recreated in early 2010. If we can follow Cornwall's example of templates (they use Parliament constituencies), I assume Wiltshire can follow. For example, South West Wiltshire still exists, which means that a template can be created for all the settlements of South West Wiltshire to be in. Thus this means all templates can be created for every one. Jaguar (talk) 18:11, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

That would certainly work. The constituencies were remodelled a few years ago, as Wiltshire was gaining an extra one, with effect from the next general election, which came along in May of this year. (South West Wiltshire is actually new, not that it matters.) Moonraker (talk) 03:57, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I have made a beginning with Template:Civil Parishes of South West Wiltshire. Moonraker (talk) 05:23, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I have changed the name to 'South West Wiltshire' for ease of putting {{South West Wiltshire}} to articles. It appears that the hardest thing may be actually finding the articles themselves. Jaguar (talk) 11:01, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

That's a better name, but I can't quite make out what has been changed. Template:South West Wiltshire doesn't exist. Moonraker (talk) 04:42, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I have moved {{Civil Parishes of South West Wiltshire}} to {{South West Wiltshire}} for ease of putting the template on articles. Jaguar (talk) 22:23, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Article alerts, cleanup listing & recognised content

The bot which created article alerts and cleanup listings for projects stopped working months ago, however within the last few weeks new bots have started working offering this functionality. Wikipedia:Article alerts is a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles tagged by their WikiProject/Taskforce template enter workflows (such as Articles for Deletion, Requests for Comments, Peer Review, and many more). Cleanup listings identify articles within the projects scope which have tags showing problems eg "citation needed" and are updated weekly (examples WP Somerset cleanup listing & UK Geo cleanup listing). Recognised content bot lists project articles with FA, FL, GA, DYK etc. All of these can help a project monitor what is happening with the articles within a projects scope. If you would like any help with setting any of these up just let me know.— Rod ^talk 17:47, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I have added the {{ArticleAlertbotSubscription}} template on the front page in the to do section. I hope this will help. Jaguar (talk) 19:36, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Well it's been nearly two weeks now and either it is malfunctioning or no Wiltshire-related article has been tagged yet but still no articles have been tagged on the template! It's exactly the same with WP:HANTS's page - no articles have appeared on the lists although clearly they have been listed for numerous things. Jaguar (talk) 22:19, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Flag on main project page

I notice that Jaguar has designed a new flag (called Wiltshire Flag.png) and added it to the project. I understand the confusion caused recently by the various competing "county flags", but I don't think that is resolved by yet another new design, and Wiltshire Flag.png has non-standard proportions. The one flag with undoubted status is the Wiltshire County Council banner, designed and granted by the College of Arms, which is the one we were previously using. Does anyone mind if that is reinstated? Moonraker (talk) 18:52, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

The new flag is completely unofficial; I thought that the previous one was too small and that it was not of high enough resolution to keep it for a project. The new flag is on nothing else apart from the Project itself and the WikiProject Wiltshire Userbox. I hope that this didn't cause any confusion. Jaguar (talk) 19:30, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Comparing File:Wiltshire Flag.png to File:Wiltshire.jpg, three things puzzle me: (i) why does it use a white horse and not a red griffin; (ii) why is there a fifth green stripe; (iii) why do the proportions of the stripes vary (the top green stripe is half the height of the others, and apart from the top one, the green stripes are taller than the white ones). --Redrose64 (talk) 20:26, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not at all against having our own image specific to the project, but if we do have one I would suggest it should not look like a flag. Redrose64 mentioned that the stripes of this one vary in width, and the other thing is that the canton is a very non-standard size, to me it looks really awkward. Also, by looking like a flag, even though an odd one, it might suggest to people coming to the page that this is the county flag, which of course it isn't, and that's where the confusion comes in. At this size, I should say the resolution of the image of the real county banner we were using before is fine. Are there any objections to bringing it back for now? Moonraker (talk) 22:58, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

WikiConference UK 2011 16 April 2011: Watershed Bristol

If you missed the Wikibanner, full details of the above at {http://wikiconferenceuk2011.eventbrite.com/} Jezhotwells (talk) 00:50, 22 March 2011 (UTC)