User talk:Lancsalot/archive

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[edit] Possible Sockpuppet

This user is a County Watch vandal. May be a Sockpuupet of User:Owain or one of the other recationaries.--87.75.131.249 11:25, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

The only vandal here is you - reverting useful information out of pages and accusing people of being sockpuppets. Please desist. Owain (talk) 11:51, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
OK I realise that the fake/administrative counties have struggled to establish an identity but do you really think your obsessive vandalism is going to help? Lancsalot 13:08, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Looking at the user contributions and actions by these users, I also suspect the same. - Andrew Duffell 13:20, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
People can agree without being puppets! On the same score you would surely be a sockpuppet of User:87.75.131.249? 194.203.110.127 14:40, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Friends of Real Lancashire

I have left a long list of references and sourced material on the Article for Deletion page - would you be able to work the information into the article with citations in the next couple of days? It should then be in a good enough state to keep, otherwise the article may suffer a (in my opinion) undeserved deletion. I would do the job myself, but I am extremely busy in real-life at the moment, and you seem interested in the article given your recent edits! See you around, Aquilina 12:44, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Met Boroughs and Trad counties

Quite a bit of what is now Sandwell was in Worcestershire until 1966. And much of Dudley was in Shropshire until 1844. It all depends what years you date your tradition from I suppose... (I'm not touching the infoboxes myself as I am not getting into the whole trad counties debate.) Lozleader 14:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to add this info, my knowledge of the area is limited. The traditional county is a standard part of the infobox though so I don't think there's a debate about including this info. Lancsalot 15:56, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Have amended Sandwell accordingly. However I think Halesowen is considered to be part of Worcestershire rather than an exclave of Shropshire. Lancsalot 16:34, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Met counties

Re: [1] - the central metropolitan councils were abolished then but the met counties still exists as the union of the councils of their constituent boroughs, which act as quasi-unitary authorities.

As for infobox labelling - traditional and ceremonial are not ideal. Traditional is not a well defined term; you only have to read the articles I've put together at Traditional counties of the British Isles and Traditional counties of England to see that. I'm going to propose changing these labels to Modern and pre-1974, or Modern and Ancient as compromises. More importantly, these have verifiable secondary use - the best online authority on these matters, the Vision of Britain website uses these, whereas the phrase traditional county is used almost exclusively by the Association of British Counties and Wikipedia. I have not seen it used in scholarly or official contexts. Aquilina 21:43, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I think we have to look at the substance rather than the letter of the law here. The met counties were created solely for admin purposes. The fact that they no longer have any admin role (apart from Lord-Lieutenancy) means that to all intents and purposes they no longer exist. They are also no longer shown on OS maps and where they did form part of the postal address eg. Merseyside this is no longer the case.
I think that the descriptors traditional and ceremonial are perfectly adequate and well understood. Traditional is the word used by the government in its comments on the matter. I'm not sure why you think the VoB website is the best authority on this - it's just a research project from one of the lesser universities and has no more official significance than the ABC website. The label pre-1974 in particular is totally inaccurate as the traditional counties still exist and are still widely used - the vast majority of people in towns such as Bolton would say they live in Lancashire not the defunct administrative county of Greater Manchester. Lancsalot 08:32, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
they no longer have any admin role: just not true. Bolton certainly isn't being administrated by Lancashire any more, is it? Each of the boroughs around Manchester/Birmingham/... has its own council; the collection of which forms the metropolitan county. They still retain several county-wide functions, such as emergency provision.
Remember - Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia of what is verifiable - and if our national statistics office still recognises met counties, e.g. [2], to all intents and purposes they exist in some sense. I have seen no equally reliable official source which says metropolitan counties are defunct.
"Traditional" is occasionally used by the government, but nowhere near as much as "historic(al)" in this context; a simple Google search of Hansard backs this up. Historic is also the prevalent use in scholarly research into the matter. VoB may come from, in your view, "a lesser university", but it is the most widely and fully-sourced (a rarity in this field) historical record we have - the level of detail goes way beyond anything the ABC have ever produced. It's not official, but it's remarkably thorough and precise. If you can find a better researched, more comprehensive source I will be extremely glad to see it.
Overall, I feel historical and modern have the best verifiable external usage.
I fully agree with you on your Bolton example - this is exactly why we still mention the ancient and historic counties in articles. But the geography of current administration should also be shown, and it should be shown according to the agreed Wikipedia convention:
Southwark is a village in the London Borough of Southwark in Greater London. It is in the traditional borders of Surrey (although I prefer historic)
If you want to try and change the consensus, that is your prerogative; but you must change the consensus before you change the articles. If you feel bold, propose a change at the talk page of the UK Geography wikiproject, but unless you have truly new evidence or arguments I can't see it succeeding. Aquilina 11:13, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
I have no problem with using the word "historic" but I don't see the problem with "traditional" either. As far as I'm concerned all my edits are in line with the agreed conventions. It is 84.9 who is causing problems trying to delete all reference to traditional counties for reasons best known to himself. I thought he was supposed to be banned. Lets not forget we are talking about counties that have existed for 1,000 years and are of huge historical and cultural significance. While the admin counties were dreamed up by a bunch of pen-pushers in the early 70s to decide how people's bins would be emptied. Lancsalot 13:10, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Traditional, historic, ancient, it all means the same thing. The so-called "ceremonial counties" are not defined in statute by that name anywhere either, but the name is used as a description. Similarly, although the 1889 administrative counties were abolished in 1974, that doesn't stop us calling their successors administrative counties either. Owain (talk) 13:19, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
If they mean the same thing, then it is best to use historic, given its more prevalent external use. This external use is all important when it comes to justifying its use against people who would rather not mention pre-1974 geography at all - the higher the verifiability factor and the higher the number of reliable sources, the easier it is to justify its inclusion to those who disagree. I'm just trying to reduce the number of edit wars.
All in all, it is best not to remove the current administrative geography county from the first line of any article - whether an infobox is present or not - as doing so will most likely provoke arguments. But feel free to add an mention to the historic county afterwards - and best using the exact phrasing of the example given above - it was agreed in the naming convention, so it's no-one should complain about it. Aquilina 13:55, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] UA templates

Hello. I note you have added the two "UA templates" to some places in the metropolitan counties. These are not really suitable for places in metropolitan counties as it implies the status of the county is only for lietenancy which isn't the case. It also says "Unitary Authority:" which is only de facto in these cases. However, the templates should of course be used for places affected by the 1990s reforms as in these cases not only were the local authorities changed but the county structure. Kind regards. Mrsteviec 23:03, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I think you are wrong here. All the met boroughs are now unitary authorities, the county councils having been abolished in 1986. To put Merseyside under "administration" for Southport is very misleading as it imples that the borough is still administered from Liverpool, which is clearly no longer the case. Lancsalot 08:03, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
There is a difference. The Local Government Act 1985 only abolished the authorities and not the administrative divisions whereas the 1990s UK local government reform changed the administrative divisions and the authorities. Mrsteviec 08:25, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
But as you say above they are "de facto" UAs. What use is an "administrative division" if it has no administrative purpose? It's far more realistic to use the UA infobox. Perhaps we can replace "unitary authority" with "metropolitan borough"? Lancsalot 08:39, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
That is a question for UK government I think. :) I'd considered creating another infobox for the met counties but it would result in instruction creep with too many boxes to choose from. The metropolitan counties continue, under current legislation, to be divided first by county and then by district. They are current UK subnational divisions. They may not serve much practical purpose, aside from joint boards, policing and fire etc. but they remain administrative divisions. Mrsteviec 09:20, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shaw and Crompton

Thank you for experimenting with the page Shaw and Crompton on Wikipedia. Your test worked, and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. A link to the edit I have reverted can be found here: link. If you believe this edit should not have been reverted, please contact me. Jhamez84 10:45, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Regarding your edit, the opening paragraph you changed was sourced, and was inline with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places). I repeat User:Aquilina's comments from above:

All in all, it is best not to remove the current administrative geography county from the first line of any article - whether an infobox is present or not - as doing so will most likely provoke arguments. But feel free to add an mention to the historic county afterwards - and best using the exact phrasing of the example given above - it was agreed in the naming convention, so it's no-one should complain about it. Thanks, Jhamez84 10:51, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

With regard to Shaw and Crompton: My apologies regarding tense - a mistake on my part. I am currently facing problems from another user removing mentions of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham in place of Lancashire with no context simply because he does not like the borough council - I was wrong to presume you were in league with him and making the same change - however, the reference should not have been removed by yourself and still constitutes vandalism. It was provided in a sensible and well formatted way and is a verifiable source. Regards, Jhamez84 11:07, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

We don't need a reference to show that Oldham and its neighbouring towns are in Lancashire! I know you are trying to improve the article but 250k google hits for "oldham lancashire" (as opposed to just 50k for "oldham greater manchester") shows that this is a pretty widely accepted fact. Lancsalot 11:33, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
On the contrary, the reference is there to stop the removal of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham from the opening line, following a longstanding dispute on the borough status, not the county status..... You assume I am trying to remove mentions of Lancashire which I am not- I'm actually including it with a context and source - so please don't assume it. Citation is actually encouraged on Wikipedia, and removal of such references is vandalism.
And Google is not the be-all-and-end-all (it can tell me that David Hasslehoff is the Anti-Christ for example, but it doesn't mean it's true), on Wikipedia the convenstions are the be-all-and-end-all, and outside of wikipedia, it is the legal positions.
With regards to county status however, I could argue that England is in the traditional boarders of the Roman Empire, and keep reverting every England article to say that and argue that if I believe it and can provide a Google or obscure ancient source then it must be true. Well I'm not doing that because I have Wikipedia's best interests at heart, and am simply trying to improve and source the content rather than cause disputes. I trust this ends our line of communication, as I've outlined my objectives and reasons here and on the talk pages. Thank you for pointing out the tense issue, but you did have no right to remove the source and should not make assumptions that I'm hiding the beloved Lancashire county from the world.
I cannot add anything else, given that I've read the above messages to yourself, and exhausted my reasons for structuring the article in such a way. Regards, Jhamez84 11:51, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
OK, but equally we don't need a reference to prove that Shaw is within Oldham borough. As far as I'm aware this isn't disputed, and neither is the administrative status of any other town. The geographical status of Shaw as a separate town is distinct from its administrative status as a part of Oldham borough. You seem to accept this but the same logic also applies to counties. Geographical and administrative arrangements should not be confused. Lancsalot 12:16, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Please stop reverting my contributions, you are adding erroneous content....For example, Lees, Greater Manchester is in not in Oldham - Lees is it's own town. So please do not add content to my talk page again, patronising or otherwise. I do not want to converse with you. Jhamez84 11:41, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll quote you on that; I'll revert your changes to the Shaw and Crompton page then, given your apparent imformed logic. Sit down. Jhamez84 11:54, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Please refrain from adding nonsense to Wikipedia, as you did to Helen Bradley. It is considered vandalism. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. A link to the edit I have reverted can be found here: link. If you believe this edit should not have been reverted, please contact me. Jhamez84 12:00, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

You're like a kid with a new toy. But I can't be bothered with an edit war over this. Please now stop trying to revive a "county" which was abolished 20 years ago. You are completely out of touch with reality as my point re. google proves. Lancsalot 12:25, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your edits to User_talk:Jhamez84

Following your recent editing pattern. I wish to reiterate my cause - which appears that it may not be clear enough.

The problems I have faced on the Shaw and Crompton and Royton articles relates to an old dispute regarding the BOROUGH status - NOT the COUNTY status!

Assuming good faith that you are not working with this unregistered member, please note that this user has a problem with being linked to Oldham (possibly due to the stigma surrounding it's high Asian population and inter-racial troubles.

This user has targeted me in the past as I've tried to rectify the issues (this user accepts Greater Manchester is fine - but Oldham is not). Please see this edit as an example of the mentality I've been up against.

This arguement has spilled over for many months and insists that the two towns forsaid are not in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham but in Lancashire (see this edit).

I apologied for making a tense mistake to you, and scored through the warning as it was a genuine mistake. But you insisted on calling me a kid and drawing out an arguement that was not required.

There was never an issue as to the inclusion of Lancashire - JUST OLDHAM!

Additionally, you may be interested to know that I voted to keep the Friends of Real Lancashire article as outlined on the deletion page here.

However the unregistered user provokes other members like yourself into thinking I'm hiding Lancashire - I'm not, as per my history. I've even tried to make amends with this user but he just won't accept me because I'm an anti-racist and he's a BNP supporter (see Talk:Royton as an example of my efforts to reach NOPV).

I am writing this message to highlight my cause with a full context and to make amends. I apologise for the excessive rant the other day (OK it was excessive and inappropriate and I apologise sincerely), but I am at the end of my patience with the Shaw and Crompton article (one which I've put so much content into - Look for yourself!).

I am actually trying to keep to the Naming conventions so the Shaw and Crompton articles say a) is in b) in c), and is in the traditional county of d) - the article currently says a) is in c). It is in the traditional county of d) in b) (b) -being the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham). This method of description is just not appropriate or inline with any geographical article in Britain.

If you remove certain incivil comments about me from my talk page and other disscussion pages I trust we have a mutual understanding.

Should you not however, (and not rapidly given the amount of fuel you will give to the unregistered user), I will have no choice but to refer the case to Requests for arbitration. Jhamez84 14:47, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

OK I'll be happy to put an end to this argument. Note that I said above I couldn't be bothered with an edit war over this, however as I explained the naming conventions are for articles about places and are clearly not appropriate for biographical articles where there is absolutely nothing wrong with Oldham, Lancashire. I'll remove those comments on the Shaw and Crompton talk page if you wish. Lancsalot 20:19, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your understanding - Much appreciated. Given the information below, I'll alter the Helen Bradley article to Lancashire, should it need it. However, do please note that biographical articles should use the geography of the time (as understood in the conventions) so Lancashire on say Michelle Marsh (model) would not be appropriate.
There are some articles like Shobna Gulati which state Greater Manchester. I'll alter that to Lancashire, however.
Jhamez84 21:11, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fourth opinion

Hi all. Just popped by from my (soon-to-be-ended) wikibreak and saw there had been a few skirmishes on the quiet little articles dearest to my heart. I don't know whether my opinion will carry much weight in this, but I know all three editors in this, as much as you can know anybody here, and just wanted to make a couple of comments:

  1. Jhamez84 was indeed previously pestered by this anonymous contributor, who admitted freely he was removing Oldham from the articles about his previous school and home in case someone reading his CV checked up and found he was from there(!).
  2. Lancsalot is not Owain. If anyone is absolutely desperate to check this, take it to RfCU rather than slinging templates on here. And although the admin there will delete the request as fishing, it would still have come back negative.
  3. Any vandal templates applied to any of these users have been vandalism themselves, AFAIR. No need to drag them up, as they are irrelevant and unjust.
  4. That single example given in the naming conventions does not mean you can refer universally to historic counties in the present tense (the more I research by the way, the more I realise historic is so much more apposite than traditional counties). Please use the exact formalism defined there - is in <met county> lies in the traditional/historic/17xx-19xx borders of <hist county>. I don't agree with this formulation myself, but there is not the consensus to change it. If you want to use another formulation, go change the consensus with good argument. Until then, just use the wording that is backed up by policy and gives least friction and nothing else OR go start official movements to change the naming convention.
  5. In historical articles, priority is given to the geography of the period to avoid anachronistic statements. There have been massive arguments about this on the articles about Prussian history (i.e. largely whether to use German/Polish/Lithuanian/... naming), and that was what was agreed. References can and should be made to put this in context of newer geographies, but this is secondary.
  6. This has not escalated to anywhere near RfAR levels. The admins there would just tell you to go through all the other dispute resolution measures first, and top of the list of those is third opinion, which is what I have given you even though you didn't ask (hope you don't mind!)

Right, time to go on wiki-leave again. Feel free to leave comments on my talk page - I'll read them even if I don't reply for a (long) while. Look forward to editing with you all again, Aquilina 16:08, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, hopefully we can now put an end to this dispute.  :) Lancsalot 20:26, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Counties

It's good to see someone else on here who understands that counties pre-date and survive the Local Government Acts of 1888 and 1972 and that the 1974 "counties" are not valid as geographic references. Keep up the good work! 194.203.110.127 12:20, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your support, itˈs good to have another enlightened editor on Wikipedia :) Itˈs amazing the level of ignorance on here about this issue. Lancsalot 14:29, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
If you apply their logic Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland exist but England doesn't!

[edit] West Riding of Yorkshire

As far as I can see your West Riding Ramblers have as much right to be there as my original examples, but Mais oui! has reverted it three times in less than two hours. I don't know how to initiate proceedings under the 3RR rule but I will revert to your edit, then if he changes it again that will be four times. 194.203.110.127 12:58, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Mais oui!, when heˈs not pushing his Scottish nationalist agenda, has been going around reverting edits by User:Owain and now me for abolutely no reason whatsoever. It really is just senseless vandalism. Thanks for your help on this. Lancsalot 14:35, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Darwen

Darwen is in lancashire. Thats it, end of !

So why sat otherwise Lancalot?

Believe it or not, I am aware that Darwen is in Lancashire, and that is what the article says. I also included it in the list of principal towns in the Lancashire article. There are some on wikipedia who would have you believe that Blackburn with Darwen is a separate county, however I am definitely not one of them! Lancsalot 21:18, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jhamez84

Hello, the Shaw and Crompton page has been locked and user:Jhamez84 banned after reverting perfectly reasonable edits. I am well aware this person has abused you personally. Would you please take a look and consult with the administrators involved. Thanks, Filmfan1971 22:29, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi, my apologies for this message placed on your talk page. As I mentioned in my earlier message to you above, I am still being targetted by multiple accounts and sock puppets regarding the inclusion of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham (this is racially and politically motivated).
As you can see, I'm not banned, and this is just petty slander as part of an ongoing vendetta.
I hope that we still have a good understanding (indeed I trust I did not abuse you, but was excessive because I thought you was this guy above, but since wholly apologised for that).
Keep up the good work, Jhamez 23:44, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm staying out of this now!! Lancsalot 11:39, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New user template

Please consider adding {{User British Counties}} to your userboxes and promote it to any other advocates you're aware of. 194.203.110.127 10:23, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:West Pennine Moors

Hi, Just a message about Category:West Pennine Moors. I understand that the West Pennines moors cover land which lie within the boundaries of Greater Manchester, Derbyshire, Cumbria and of course Lancashire.

For example, parts of Oldham (like Saddleworth) lie on the West Pennine Moors, and it seems Bolton, Greater Manchester is part of the category. Will you re-consider your revision to this page? Thanks, Jhamez84 22:32, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

The WPMs are not part of the main Pennine chain, from which they are separated by the Irwell valley. They are nowhere near Oldham, Yorkshire, Derbyshire or the administrative county of Cumbria. As I said they are entirely within Lancashire. Lancsalot 23:58, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
I think I understand now about the West Pennine Moors, rather than the West Pennines. But I think Bolton should be removed from the category. The article says itself it is merely located near them. Jhamez84 09:38, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
They include parts of Bolton and Bury. Lancsalot 09:53, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Which thus places part of the moors in GM. Jhamez84 19:31, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Not in any sense which is relevant to the article. Lancsalot 09:00, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
But inline with the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places); so to have broad consistency, applied consensual geography, and the least amount of confusion and edit wars. Afterall, We should use the current, administrative, county. Whilst I respect your affiliations, I'll have to edit the article within these guidelines. Jhamez84 11:55, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
There have been no edit wars so far on these articles and I suggest you don't start one. If you follow the above link you'll see that they are guidelines only, not rules set in stone. Those of us who have an interest in the area (you clearly know nothing about it) have determined that the existing geographical description is perfectly adequate. Lancsalot 12:15, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
A regressive political affiliation, and personal interest in some backwater grassland, is certainly not grounds with which to break the conventions on geographical boundaries. The current description is not adequate, it is clearly objectionable and not within the guidelines which should be applied for reasons I outlined above. I was perfectly polite with you, simply asking you to justify your edits. You have not replied with a very amicable attitude, nor justified why this article/category should be treated differently from any other.
As to what the conventions are - they are guidelines yes - not set in stone simply because name, laws and boundaries change with time (NOTE: boundaries change with time). The guideline should not be used only when a "particular convention is "obviously" inappropriate. But when in doubt, follow convention"
A little respect and justification, rather than rudeness and provokation, would probably been much more helpful to your fellow Wikipedian. Jhamez84 14:01, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
Your are the one being provocative creating this lengthy discussion on a subject in which you have no interest. Administrative boundaries are constantly changing which is why it is basic common sense to be using the fixed traditional boundaries instead. And their use, in this case, clearly does follow conventions, in particular "follow local conventions", "the shortest form is preferred", and "determine prevalent usage". Lancsalot 15:21, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
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