Wikipedia talk:UK Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 1
Hi, feel free to leave your comments here while I costruct this community page. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 19:03, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Subdivisions
This may not be the case, but to get the whole cultural community thing going, you could always try separate Scotland, Wales and England boards. Northern Ireland too of course, although the Irish board is not specifically Republic of Ireland only.
Just a thought! You could always have them as well as this board! zoney ♣ talk 20:31, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- That may be something to do in the future, but at the moment I'm struggling to get enough articles to fill the relevant space just for the UK. Let's start here and see how it goes. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 20:42, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Privatisation of British Rail article
Oh my God! I've just taken a look at that article from the link on here, and just have to say that this article is so wrong in so many respects I'll have to have a go at rewriting the whole thing. I'll have to have a think for a few days what I'm going to say -- having lived through the whole thing as a BR employee (and now officially "retired" rail staff in my mid 40s!) I have trouble remembering exactly in how many ways the whole thing was screwed up. NPOV is going to be difficult on this one....! -- Arwel 23:14, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- The really hard part will be verifiability and references. Quote others' opinions on what a colossal cockup it was ;-) - David Gerard 23:58, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Articles
As the current lot of articles gets cleaned up/created I am conscious that more will be needed to fill their spaces. Feel free to scan cleanup/pages needing attention/requested articles for more than can be listed. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 23:29, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Parliamentary contituencies
I was thinkinging of putting Parliamentary constituencies of the UK parliament (or similar) on the to-do list. An adjunct to this would be articles on the constituencies themselves, past and present. If we worked hard, we might have the lot listed by the time of the next election. No reason not to do the NI, Welsh, Scottish and European constituencies too. Mintguy (T)
- Are individual articles needed? I mean, constituencies tend to be either fairly arbitary divisions of cities, or based upon the districts of counties? If its a district then it'll probably already have a page... and how much is there to say about divisions of cities? [Example: Portsmouth south is the electoral constituancy covering the southern portion of the city of Portsmouth; while the North tends to vote Monster Raving Looney, the South has a tendency to vote Green]... these could be added as sections within the description of the city. --NeilTarrant 17:30, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- There are a handful already - see Category:UK Parliamentary constituencies . Virtually every constituency has a history of past members and voting patterns that is worth detailing. I don't think it's workable to sticking this info on the relevant city page as many seats cross local government boundaries, others take in several local areas and the result is quite confusing. Better to have individual pages so the info can be easily accessed. Timrollpickering 17:38, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- Just to note, "constituencies" before the nineteenth century were just the counties or boroughs. So, in effect, this task would cover all constituencies that have existed since the Reform Act. -- Emsworth 17:50, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- No, before the Reform Act there were the county constituencies, some boroughs and the universities (Oxford and Cambridge and Trinity College Dublin from 1801), these all have a rich history and should be covered as contituencies and not lumped into the county or town articles. We have plenty of articles that say soandso represented suchandsuch in parliament and these should link to the constituency article and not the town/county. Many modern day constituencies have been formed from the merger and division of those older county/borough contituencies. My home constituency which was formely a borough has sent representatives to the House of Commons since the Model Parliament of 1295, that's over 700 years of representation, more than enough information for an article I'm sure you'll agree. Mintguy (T) 23:19, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- Good, I'll hang on till you've done that then see if I can get the same for Aylesbury and the rest of Bucks. Incidentally, I noticed a message on Morwen's talk page about some controversy surrounding Chiltern Hundreds - is anyone able to clear this one up in Morwen's absence? -- Graham ☺ | Talk 00:42, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Constituencies keep changing names and precise boundaries. How do you define what constitutes a different constituency? And anyway, I'd imagine not all of them are worth an article in their own right, just some of them. Jongarrettuk 20:59, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- In the current pages the "same constituency" is taken to be the use of the name, with the various boundary changes noted - for example Mid Ulster (constituency) currently contains about 30% of the original seat of that name (and West Tyrone (constituency) contains more) but a single page is used to cover the seat since it was created in 1950. When the name is changed a new page is used - for instance Armagh (constituency) is treated as distinct from the subsequent Newry & Armagh (constituency).
- I'd guess this is workable, although if the boundary changes were massive, or alternatively the name got reallocated, we may want to split the pages. Fortunately Wikipedia is not paper... Timrollpickering 21:12, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- Since the Reform Act there have been enfranchisement, disenfranchisement, redrawn boundaries, constituencies united, constituencies divided, constituencies merged, redivided and abolished. Mostly these changes have happened as a result of Representation of the People Acts of 1918, 1928, 1948 and 1969 and now the continual reviews by the Boundary Commision. I think that it is possible to list a continuity for most constituencies. where there is a minimal change such as a small boundary changes or simply a renaming I think that can contain everything one one page. Those constituencies that only existed for one or two elections still have the potential to contain details of the results of elections and the wards etc.. Where else on the web can you get all of this information in one place? Mintguy (T) 21:32, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I've been to the library and have got the elected members for Lewes from 1298-1820 with a gap for 1473-1547 where the results have apparently been lost. Mintguy (T) 11:23, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Reworking of British toponymy
Comments and suggestions would be very much welcomed at Talk:British toponymy regarding the (currently very poor) arrangement of the British toponymy articles. Toponymy itself isn't the greatest-looking of lists either. violet/riga (t) 09:03, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I've left my thoughts at Talk:British toponymy. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 00:03, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Complete todo list
Do we have a "complete todo list"? I can't see a link... fabiform | talk 13:35, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- Not yet but if you want to start one here's the link.
- I was going to go through several lists and transcribe all the red links into one list later this weekend. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 13:41, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Fair use
Does anyone know if there is a UK equivalent to the image fair use policy? -- Graham ☺ | Talk 14:30, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- The equivalent concept in UK copyright law is "fair dealing", which is apparently less flexible than fair use under US law. --rbrwr±
Wikimedia Meetup 2005
Hi - glad to see that a UK noticeboard has been set up. I see that our friends across the Irish Sea are mounting a campaign to run the Wikimedia Meetup 2005 in Ireland. Meanwhile, the UK's entry on the list of possible venues - see the entry for London - is pretty pathetic. Rather than improve the entry for London, I think it's worth considering Oxford. There are lots of potential advantages: possible availability of accommodation for visitors at colleges, good transport links, less crowded than London and, of course, the presence of the Bodleian Library. As the 'meetup' page points out, the main evaluation criterion when selecting a venue will be the availability of local wikipedians who are willing to help organise the event. I live 30 mins from Oxford, in Newbury, Berkshire and would be willing to consider helping. Is anyone else interested in getting involved? I think we should at least include a possible venue in the UK, whether or not it's Oxford. Jerry 16:10, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I'm willing to help out if you want to add Oxford to the list of possible venues. However I feel that as the Wikimedia Meetup 2004 took place in London the likelihood of it coming to the UK again for a couple of years is slim. However on this score I am interested in organising a UK WikiMeet 2005 prior to the Wikimedia Meetup (if it's not to take place in the UK) so that more UK users' views can be represented in the broader forum. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 16:53, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- Oops - I didn't realise that the 2004 event was in the UK: should have investigated further. Jerry 18:03, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I think that we should support Dublin for the meet in any case. It's not that far and it's a very pleasant city for a weekend trip. -- Derek Ross | Talk
- Very -- it's nearly two years since I last visited the Porter House on Parliament Street.... not to mention that I can get there and back for £4 and 75 eurocents! :) -- Arwel 19:51, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I missed the 2004 meet-up (I have to say I wasn't aware of it until after the event). I agree I think we should put our lot in with the Irish and support Dublin. Mintguy (T) 08:15, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Separate notice boards for each country?
Things seem a little quiet around here. Maybe it's just early days, but given that the UK isn't a 'country' (or is it? I'm never quite sure) perhaps we'd do better with separate boards for Wales (in English, that is, there's already a Welsh language board for Wales), Scotland, England and Northern Ireland (depending on whether or not you recognise the term 'Northern Ireland', the province is already covered by the Irish Wikipedians notice board). Jerry 04:13, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I think that might make things worse, tbh - fewer people per board. I think we should just try this for a while and see how things go, particularly during the UKCOTW. violet/riga (t) 07:10, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- Point taken, and you may well be right. Let's see how people respond. Jerry 07:19, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Erosion of British English usage and spellings
There is a tendency in Wikipedia for articles to be modified over time to have predominantly American spellings and usage; and then someone will come along and says "It's time to standardize (sic) to AE spellings". They then cut out all BE spellings. I think we need some kind of firewatch over the erosion of BE usage. The latest is User:Deglr6328 who has been going round systematically changing sulphur to sulfur because the IUPAC recommend "sulfur". AFAIK the IUPAC have no jurisdiction over the English language Mintguy (T) 08:43, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I believe that goes against WP policy, which is to keep the original article's spelling (whether British or US English) unless it refers specifically to one of the two areas. "Sulphur" is definitely BE rather than "incorrect", and so I'd feel perfectly justified in reverting all his edits. Proteus (Talk) 08:57, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- In pages like Encyclopaedia, where contributors so far spell at will, with or without the 'ae'. I have no doubt that somebody soon will go through the lot changing them all to the 'e' spelling Apwoolrich 10:14, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)