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[edit] Violence articles and death statistics in towns

A couple of things. I think there needs to be consistancy on how bombing or gun attacks are titled. There's a discussion ongoing at Talk:Greysteel massacre. The Remembrance Day Bombing article used to be called the Remembrance Day Massacre, but was changed as "massacre" was too emotive. If some articles are "massacres" and some others are not, it looks very POV to me.

Also, I have a slight problem with deaths being listed on Northern Irish villages and towns. I spent about a day removing a lot of this, but left incidents were 3 or more people were killed or it was a significant event. A lot still remains that could be deleted I feel though. Whilst these deaths were tragic, is it necessary to list them here? A person going into a Northern Irish village or town article is going to find a list of the people that died there. If you go to town articles of any other country that has had a situation like our own, you're not going to find a list of the victims. The only things that should remain are major attacks that made national news at the time, such as Warrenpoint, Greysteel, Claudy etc. All this information is available on CAIN anyway, we're just replicating it here. Any thoughts? Stu ’Bout ye! 15:22, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind me moving this here Stu - it seemed more appropriate to discuss it here. I've left an alert on the News section on the project page and signed it with your name though.
As for your suggestion - yes.. perhaps some kind of standardisation needs to be put in place. It should be up to us to think of these standards and put them into practice. The word massacre is obviously emotive. However, so were the actual events. Many of the events have semi-official names ('Bloody Sunday' for example - which is emotive in itself). Some are called several different things: I've personally heard the Enniskillen bombing labelled as that I've just mentioned, as well as the Poppy Day Massacre, the Rememberance Day Massacre etc. It was a bomb, it took place in Enniskillen, and it took place on Rememberance Sunday.. so perhaps the combination of these facts should be considered when thinking of any possible new title for that.
It would perhaps be helpful if a list was created of all the articles relating to violent events during the Troubles, and perhaps we could put that into a separate page to discuss them both as a whole and individually.
As for the town, city and village articles, I agree again - only events which are particularly 'notable' should perhaps be put into these articles.. for example, definately in the articles on both Omagh and Enniskillen. If we are to put a limit on other location articles, then we should probably come up with a figure.. for example (off the top of my head) 20+ casualties, or 10+ casualties in the space of five years, or 5+ casualties in a single event.. something like that maybe..? --Mal 21:09, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
I've edited most of the town and village articles, I may have missed a few though. But there actually weren't as many as I thought. In regards to the naming of articles, I've started a list here of incidents here:
Can't think of any more at the minute. The obvious ones that stand out are the Kingsmill, Greysteel, Narrow Water and Teebane massacres. So the issue is using the word "bombing" or "shooting" v. "massacre". Stu ’Bout ye! 11:01, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
The Remembrance Day event article is redlinked. Is that the correct title for it as it currently stands, or does the article not actually exist at the minute? --Mal 11:12, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Oops, fixed now. Stu ’Bout ye! 11:15, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
It was capitalisation. There is, I think, reason to change the article to remove the capitalisation of the word bombing in some of these articles though.. according to Wiki policy. Perhaps these articles should be moved to start with. I'm going to create a subpage from this talk page so that we can better discuss the articles without cluttering up this (main) talk page. I might also look at the CAIN website and list some of the major incidents that it has listed, for discussion on whether these events deserve their own articles within Wikipedia or not. Unless of course, anyone can come up with a better idea. :)
(NB: I see you fixed it already - I got an "edit conflict" when I tried to post this message!) --Mal 11:19, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for not commenting before, but I have only just noticed this discussion page. I was one of the people adding death/incident info from CAIN to the lists of towns. I was happy to comply with not listing single death events, but rather listing only those of multiple deaths (more than one in an incident). I believe these are important to list in towns/villages so that people outside NI understand that the troubles affected all types of people and communities, including very small ones. When you talk about notable events you need to be very careful - a double killing in a pub in a small village was a notable event for that community and should be listed in my view. As an encyclopedia we should be reflecting encyclopedic knowledge of the town or village in question - clearly this includes the troubles. I accept that much of the info is from CAIN or even FAIR, but there it is not as readily available to readers (in town/village format) as is our work, which is also all clearly referenced. Ardfern 19:26, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ardfern. I have gone through all of the town/village articles and removed any entries with less than 5 (I think) deaths. I think this is fair, what do you think? Stu ’Bout ye! 14:04, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
OK by me - can this be set as a standard rule in some way? Ardfern 21:17, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Fatalities by town rethink. Having done further research and just had my input to Crossmaglen reverted, I think this policy of removing entries with less than 5 fatalities is wrong and tantamount to censorship of the effects of the troubles. For instance, reverting the Crossmaglen entry means that Crossmaglen would have no troubles incidents entries at all, yet there were 8 incidents with 2 fatalities each and 4 with 3 fatalities each. To exclude these gives no impression of the troubles in Crossmaglen - it would look as if nothing happened at all - exactly the opposite of what an encyclopedia is all about. On the same basis, for instance Magherafelt, with 1 incident with 3 fatalities and 1 with 2 fatalities and Killeen with 3 incidents of 2 fatalities, 2 incidents of 3 fatalities and 1 incident with 4 fatalities would also show nothing. I would propose that incidents with 2 fatalities or more should be listed to allow readers a truer impression of how the troubles affected so many towns and villages here. Rethink please. Ardfern 21:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

You know we could make the policy guideline such that any town or location with more than 5 fatalities in a single incident OR more than X number of total fatalities should have these incidents noted. Would that make sense? In my mind, Crossmaglen is a town that has seen its fair share of the Troubles, being situated in south Armagh and so close to the border etc. Perhaps we should develop that policy guideline further and make note of it in these pages and on a subpage of the Northern Irish articles project.

Further to that, we may want to include other policy guidelines for articles relating to Northern Ireland on such a page, and include other polcies such as the policy on the Derry/Londonderry naming policy that consensus was reached on, for example. We could create a redirect page .. something like WP:NIPOL or something. --Mal 01:07, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I have to disagree. I think five is a good indication of what is a significant incident, and that's all that should be listed. The Troubles in general are mentioned adequately in the text of the Crossmaglen article. If two or more deaths are listed then most NI village and town articles are going to be taken over by this information, skewing the balance of the article to create the impression that the Troubles are the only thing that ever happened there. On a broader note the Troubles are covered in huge detail in other articles, there's no need to clutter every geographical article with them.
In regards to the Derry/Londonderry agreement, that's already mentioned on the WP:IMOS. The proper place for the agreement is the manual of style I think, but a link to it from NI articles project would be a good idea. Stu ’Bout ye! 08:05, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
This is an encyclopedia - it should have encyclopedic knowledge displayed in the articles - by no stretch of the imagination could the current Crossmaglen troubles section be said to be adequately covering the troubles there. I can assure you that adding 2 of more deaths incidents into towns would not skew the articles to any extent in the vast majority of cases (I have the research to back this up by the way), no more than my adding Census information skewed the articles to demographics, or adding schools in a town skews it to education. The troubles were not, of course, the only things that happened in towns and villages, but whether you like it or not they were, and are, significant incidents in those locations and should be recorded as such. If you think an article is skewed, fill it with other information, don't hold back others from trying to build an informative and encyclopedic encyclopedia accurately reflecting the troubles. It is not clutter, it is reality. Rethink please. Ardfern 19:56, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Well I still disagree Ardfern. I think the best solution is to raise this somewhere it's going to get more attention, and therefore a better consensus. I suggest the WP:IWNB? Stu ’Bout ye! 20:49, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Not sure of the relevance of going to the Irish notice board - this is an issue affecting Northern Ireland articles only. I think we need to consider how to we get other NI Wikipedians to consider this first and reach a consensus ourselves. If not possible, then happy to go elsewhere. We need to get some sort of agreement soon, as I have to say I do regard this reversion policy almost as censorship - troubles denial - as much as anything else. Happy to do whatever is necessary to get this resolved as it is holding up important work. Ardfern 21:46, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the more correct place to mention this, for the attention of people interested in Northern Ireland, would have been WP:NIWNB.

Having read Stu's reasoning, I can see that his argument makes sense also.

So I would propose another possible solution - we create a new article, listing the deaths of people in Troubles-related incidents by town, and then we only add major Troubles-related events to certain individual towns. In this way, the Wikipedia serves as a repository for encyclopediac information about deaths of people relating to the Troubles, and we also don't have lots of Northern Irish towns - a lot of which are undoubtedly stubs - having a list of deaths that is longer than the article itself.

Another solution might be to include a sub-section in the town's article which includes only a link pointing directly to the page on CAIN for deaths relating to the Troubles (unless the number of deaths per incident is more than 5). --Mal 01:39, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

My reason for raising it at the IWNB (as well as here) is basically the low readership here most of the time.
A seperate statistics page is an excellent idea. If we want to represent how the Troubles affected the various towns and villages around the country, combining all this information in one place makes sense. It may have to be split into separate articles for each country depending on lenghth, but we could then include and possibly expand on the tables in the main Troubles article. It's still my opinion that only events with a death toll of 5 or more should be included on the town articles. Stu ’Bout ye! 08:12, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Then if Ardfern is willing to apply his excellent work to a separate project, we might well have a solution.. while we still keep the mention of 'major incidents' (5 or more deaths in a single event) in the town articles, there is also a record of all of, or most of, the other deaths.

The are some possible problems associated with such an endeavour though. First of all, formatting and structure. What about injuries? "x number of people killed and y number of people injured (a of them seriously and b of them minor scrapes etc) in a bomb explosion in townZ".

NPOV: it has to be factual.

Naming the articles and categories associated with the project. Seek consensus. I propose that a preliminary article (or articles) be set up, with the provision that the names of said articles may be reviewed and changed according to popular consensus

The article itself would presumably be a list. However, the structure on the CAIN website is actually quite complex. Some of the categories from there include year; age; religious background of victim (including a "not from NI" field); organisation responsible; status of victim ("civilian" or organisation); year of event.. and we'd like to include location also.

Some of the victims may be noteworthy enough to warrant their own articles, and some already do have their own articles. The problem with categorisation is that most of the 3,500+ victims do not have their own article.

Therefore I propose several articles, based on:

  • location of event (possibly include in this info about numbers of injured where applicable?)
  • year of event
  • status of victim
  • organisation responsible
  • religious background of victim (include here location/nationality origin if not from NI?)
  • status of victim (include here location/nationality origin if not from NI?)
  • age range of victim

.. with various subheadings in each article.

This isn't an easy task, though I would be happy enough to help out in any way I can. Please give me your thoughts. --Mal 16:25, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Some very useful and constructive thoughts here - thanks Mal in particular. In order to take the issue out of Towns/villages articles themselves, I would propose that a new category is set up under History of Northern Ireland to group Troubles (1968-9 onwards perhaps) articles. Within that could be a subcategory Troubles by locality to group articles by county, with a further sub-cat grouping articles by Town/village (eg The Troubles in Newry, under the Troubles in County Down). Such articles could then list incidents with fatalities of two or more (as I had been adding and having reverted). This would enable us then in Town/Village articles simply to have an internal link to a Troubles in Town/Village article and thus not "clutter" up such articles. With regard to format I would propose that used currently in the article on Magherafelt (not yet reverted, but doubtless will be soon), which is a simplified version of CAIN material. Hope this is acceptable - I have a lot of this research complete and could start to add such articles suggested fairly easily and immediately. Ardfern 18:39, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Please note the proposal to delete/merge the article - see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Troubles in Moneymore. I have responded pointing out that proposal would be against the position already debated and agreed that troubles incidents material should be a separate article from the towns/villages article it relates to. 97 articles have been added on this basis. It would be helpful if other NI Wikipedians could add to the debate. Ardfern 11:46, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IPA pronunciation for NI place names

I'm putting in the International Phonetic Alphabet pronunciation for a few towns, and being from Armagh I don't quite know how to pronounce ALL of them correctly.

Just looking for confirmation of the above. - THE GREAT GAVINI {T-C} 08:30, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

'Coke' for Caogh is correct, though I don't think that is the correct format for Phonetic pronounciation. Killylea is pronounced 'Kili-lay' (again - not the correct IPA format). --Mal 13:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm guessing there's a place called Killylea and you're not referring to Killyleagh? Which is pronounced the same, I may add. --Dom0803 15:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Yup. One is in Down and the other is in Armagh. --Mal 20:00, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, I think I've got it fixed now. -- THE GREAT GAVINI {T|C|#} 07:10, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Railway stations

I've just been doing a stub sort through Category:Railway stations in Northern Ireland and its subcategories. Whilst doing that it struck me that nearly all of these articles are in a pretty poor state, with pretty much no content in any of them. I was hoping that someone with the relevant local knowledge could start expanding them. Is anyone interested in doing this? Thanks, RFBailey 12:40, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Belfast development

As I'm sure most of you are aware Belfast has had a lot of money injected into its development to turn it into a better city (some £300M) and I'm thinking perhaps if we can compile enough information we can have one page for the Greater Belfast development or something to that effect? Some comments, chaps, please. --Dom0803 14:08, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

If you have the time and inclination, you could set up a mini-project for Belfast as a subproject of the Northern Irish articles project. Just a thought.
One million pounds per person roughly, eh? I look forward to seeing the results! --Mal 14:49, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I think this would best fit into a new section on the History of Belfast article. There's already (a very small amount of) information about redevelopment there, and the 3rd and 4th paragraphs on the main Belfast page could also de adapted and included. Other areas that could be expanded on are the Cathedral Quarter, Titanic Quarter, more about Laganside, the Gasworks etc etc. Stu ’Bout ye! 15:02, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
What are your thoughts on a mini-project Stu? --Mal 16:11, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I think, Mal, you've got the same sort of idea in mind. A mini-project hadn't crossed my mind but I think something like that could work. If it's posted on the NIWNB then I'm sure it could attract a little more input from others. As I've never done a mini-project before perhaps I should backseat this and let someone else call the shots. It's a learning curve. --Dom0803 18:06, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Dom I created the Project for the Northern Irish articles, though its not very well used. Possibly because it hasn't been particularly well publicised, and also maybe because the scope is quite large - especially considering the small number of people from the region who contribute to WP.
There is a new Bot that has been set up to help with the categorisation of articles, and I'd be happy to attempt to use this bot to set up a Belfast-related project, if I thought it was going to be worth it - if its going to be updated and used etc.
For an example, have a quick look through some of the pages of the Beatles Project. I'd certainly appreciate help on the whole process, from both yourself and Stu, and anyone else, if you are willing.
My first question would be: what do we call the project?
Also, Projects have a tier system within WP. A project on things relating to Belfast would undoubtedly be a sub-project of the Geography Project. I wanted to set up a new project for Northern Irish-related articles to replace the old one with the use of the bot etc. When (and if) this gets done, the Belfast project would need to be made a sub-project of that one, logically speaking.
Please let me know your thoughts. --Mal 16:52, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
OK I'm going to be bold and call it simply Belfast. If there are any problems with that, I'll just rename it. --Mal 21:01, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Northern Ireland article

I have requested a Peer review on the article, considering the recent edit war. --Mal 12:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Unrelated to the peer review, the simple english wiki on NI is hugely lacking. Just bring this to attention, as I'll probably be giving it some attention quite soon. --Dom0803 00:48, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Dom I had some thoughts about that after you mentioned it, which Im' only getting around to saying now. Bear in mind the object of that wikipedia is simplicity. Once you start adding detail, as most people who contribute to NI articles are only too aware, it gets more complex and you end up having edit wars regarding NPOV. Good luck with it though. :) --Mal 16:31, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Belfast WikiProject

OK the project has been started. I'm just going to tag a couple of articles with the template as per step 3 of the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Using the bot guide, and I'll leave it there for tonight probably. For the Belfast article itself, I've used the WP Belfast notice|class=GA tag (inside curly brackets, on its talk page. I will add more tags to other article, but bear in mind the tags I add tonight will be for testing purposes only. They are not proper assessments. --Mal 00:38, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

It works. :) --Mal 09:17, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Northern Irish roads

Can anyone help me with the Roads of Northern Ireland article please?? --TheM62Manchester 10:28, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure thing.. how are you going to go about it? As far as I know there's already a pretty meaty NI Roads category somewhere. Almost certain. --Dom0803 11:49, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] County shields

I would like to bring attention to the Italian wikipedia page on NI. Look at how detailed their county sheilds are. I don't see them here, can we use them? I can't read the copyright, but surely it's all the same server/site. Click. --Dom0803 23:49, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why not, the only bit of the copyright I can make out is the non commerciali bit. Although on the website they link to it says "All original material copyright - © Eddie Geoghegan 1990 - 2006".   Keithology  Talk!  09:07, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
So non commerciali, obviously non commercial, that means we are able to use it on this website freely?

It looks like some kind of Creative Commons tag to me. "Non-commercial" can be misleading as content on Wikipedia can be legally copied and used for commercial purposes elsewhere. See Template:Db-ccnoncom for details. I would go ahead and use it anyway, if it's used there it should be ok here.

Also, I would only use the Italian ones where the crest is missing on the our county articles. Stu ’Bout ye! 13:21, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Stu ’Bout ye! 13:12, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Primary schools in Northern Ireland

I have been adding Primary schools articles for NI, largely stubs, to which new contributors have started to add to and develop etc, but have come under attack by people proposing that all such primary school articles should be deleted as being non-notable etc. You can see the debate at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abercorn Primary School. A little help would be useful (assuming you agree with my arguments). Thanks. Ardfern 23:35, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More NI articles under attack - Derry Anime and Manga Association

Help to defend this article would be useful, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wakaratai. I think this is a most useful article - yes it could be improved etc. I am really getting concerned at the numbers of people attacking articles and proposing deletion rather than trying to help to improve or develop them. Ardfern 11:47, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Victims of The Troubles

I think this should be renamed to Category:People killed during The Troubles, or something similar. "Victim" seems POV to me. I'm also not sure you can label the paramilitaries of both sides as victims.

Same goes for the subcat Category:IRA murder victims to Category:People killed by the IRA. Any thoughts? Stu ’Bout ye! 11:47, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree - especially for the latter. While my personal thoughts and feelings conflict, the word "murder" is too evocative and pov. --Mal 05:07, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Historic houses in Northern Ireland

Any thoughts before I expand it? Useful, or not? Stu ’Bout ye! 09:25, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Would it be a good idea to make it in the same style and colours as Template:Northern Irish topics? --Mal 00:44, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
Maybe it could be expanded to be a general "tourism" box along the lines of the Northern Irish topics template. It could include things like the Giants Causeway, Marble Arch Caves and even museums? Unless there is alreay one I have missed.  Keithology  Talk!  09:09, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed on both points. That template looks good and expanding it could be a good idea. There's already a museum one, so we can discount them? Or not, whatever yous think. So the title would be "Tourism in Northern Ireland"? Or "Attractions in Northern Ireland"? I'm not keen on either of those but something along those lines? Then sections down the left hand side (as with Template:Northern Irish topics) with Castles, Houses, etc. I haven't time to work on it today, so I'll have a go tomorrow unless someone a bit more technical wants a go! I'm currently struggling to figure out how navigation pop ups and AWB work! Stu ’Bout ye! 16:02, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

First draft: Template:Tourism in Northern Ireland Before I expand it, what should be included? We should try and keep it a modest size I think. Is there a top ten list of tourist attractions in NI? Stu ’Bout ye! 11:34, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
Attractions with visitor centres maybe, if they're popular enough. For example, Tyrone Crystal and Bushmills Distillery. Also the Ulster-American Folk Park and the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum. --Mal 13:47, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Looks good, Here is a top ten list from the NITB [1], I think don't thank adding a few more attractions would hurt.  Keithology  Talk!  16:21, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Peace Maze

I've been looking through the Guiness Book of Records, and see that the Peace Maze at Castlewellan Forest Park is the largest permanent hedge maze in the world. As such, I think it deserves an article. Anyone for this idea? Mouse Nightshirt 12:07, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, or a Castlewellan Forest Park article with a section on the maze? Stu ’Bout ye! 12:58, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hockey

I noticed someone removed the Irish hockey association from the Northern Irish topics template, I don't know enough about the sport to contribute to an article, but it seems like an article of that nature really should exist. Pauric 13:48, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DYK

The DYK section featured on the main page is always looking for interesting new and recently expanded stubs from different parts of the world. Please make a suggestion.--Peta 02:07, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Máire Nic an Bhaird case

Does anyone have any updates on this? The most recent news I've seen is from September. Thanks! --Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 20:46, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

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