Talk:Perth, Scotland

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Is Perth a city? This article consistently refers to it as being such, but the Scotland article states that there are 6 cities in Scotland, and Perth is not among them. Does Perth have a cathedrale? The nomenclature should be consistent. 129.234.4.10 02:29, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Perth is the former capital of Scotland and, like Brechin, one of the Scottish settlements which have been cities since Time Immemorial. Its alternative title is The Fair City. It was always thought of as a city until the Government decided to change the legislation on cities a few years ago and make an official list of Government approved cities on which it does not appear. Now it is a former city, (like Brechin or Rochester). -- Derek Ross 09:29, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Redirection of Perth 2 dab Perth 3 How Stupid 4 Perth - The Name 5 Disambig - Alexanders 6 City? 7 Pre-historic origins 8 The Enchanted Kingdom?

[edit] Redirection of Perth

Why has Perth been redirected here? I thought it was fine as a disambig page, or if it should go to a particular city, Perth, Australia would be the best choice? The fact that there are differences in opinion about this should mean that no one city should have preference in this case. --Chuq 01:49, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I agree. It was decided (by others, not by me) early on in Wikipedia to place a disambiguation page at Perth, rather than having the Australian city there, since the Scotland city was what all the other cities were named after. But to redirect Perth to Perth, Scotland is ludicrous. My city is approximately 27 times the size of the Scotland town. While disambiguating links to Perth the other day, out of over 100 links, I only found about 5 or 6 which were meant to link to the Scottish town. - Mark 04:47, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

After complaints on #Wikipedia (and some application of common sense), I redirected Perth to Perth (disambiguation), which leaves us in the same situation as before, but with a redirect in the middle. When people type in "Perth", they probably mean the state capital of 1.4 million in Australia, not some relatively small "former city" in Scotland. -- Cyrius|✎ 04:51, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

That depends very much upon the people concerned. When some type in Perth, they mean the former capital of an independent nation, a settlement with over 2000 years of history which has seen royal assassination, religious strife, military occupation, and has featured in literature more than once, rather than some recent settlement where nothing much has happened since its foundation and whose chief claim to fame is that it is the capital of a large but -- to put it mildly -- sparsely populated state, most of whose population is to be found in the settlement itself. Put it that way and it looks ludicrous to redirect Perth anywhere but Perth, Scotland

But let's face it, there are plenty of ways to be rude about either of the Perths and no call for them to be used. Disambiguation is the best answer from an NPOV. -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:12, 2004 Jul 3 (UTC)

There has been a disambiguation page there for over two and half years. I don't want to redirect Perth to Perth, Australia, I just want it back the way it was. - Mark 05:34, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, Mark. -- Cheers Derek Ross | Talk 05:41, 2004 Jul 3 (UTC)

I can't let that "ludicrous" statement go without comment.

Look, Mark disambiguated about 150 links to Perth. About 5 were to the one in Scotland, the rest to the large city in Australia. Saying that it would be ludicrous to redirect to what was intended by 97% of actual ambigous links is just silly. Redirects are for getting people to the article they want, and most people don't want the Perth in Scotland.

I'm not arguing against the disambiguation. It's just that doing the wrong thing for not very good reasons bothers me.-- Cyrius|✎ 06:32, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Well, fine. I thought that the original disambiguation was appropriate since both cities are important in different ways and I had nothing to do with changing it to point to Perth, Scotland. My use of "ludicrous" was merely a rhetorical device, counterpointing Mark's original use to demonstrate its POV nature.

The reason that so few ambiguous Perth links were to Perth, Scotland was partly that I, and other Scots, knew about the ambiguity and had already pre-emptively disambiguated most of the Perth, Scotland links and partly that the Perth, Australia article contains a great deal more geographical detail than the Perth, Scotland, and thus is referenced more. There are currently about 75 pages linking to Perth, Scotland and about 300 pages linking to Perth, Australia, so the ratio for all links is nowhere near the 97% which you have stated for the ambiguous links. I don't know how low the ratio has to be before you stop thinking it "ludicrous" to redirect Perth to Perth, Scotland. However I am sure that if I spent as much time writing about Perth, Scotland as Mark and other Australians have done writing about Perth, Australia, I could reach that figure. (Not that I'm going to. It would be pointless since I don't believe that the relative importance of the two cities can be solely determined by the number of links to their articles.)

And while we are speculating about what "most" people want when they search for Perth, I would guess that most people looking for historical information about Perth, want the Scottish city, whereas most people looking for geographical information want the Australian city but I don't think that it is so cut and dried that we can make assumptions about what people do or do not want. That is why I, for one, prefer that Perth points to the disambiguation page. -- Derek Ross | Talk 07:21, 2004 Jul 3 (UTC)

I didn't say it was ludicrous to redirect to the city in Scotland. You said it was ludicrous to redirect anywhere else.

I'm well aware that it was Mark who made the first claim, not you. I'm also well aware that I didn't say what you claim I did. I said that the the argument could be phrased to make the redirection elsewhere look ludicrous but I certainly didn't say that the redirection elsewhere was ludicrous. I merely wished to demonstrate that its ludicrousness was a matter of opinion; not a matter of objective fact.-- Derek Ross | Talk

Redirects are not about importance. Redirects are about getting people to the page they want. Redirecting to the one in Scotland would reduce the number of people getting to the article they wanted, especially before the correction of ambiguous links.

I am not arguing against the disambiguation page. I just couldn't take you calling redirecting to the apparently more popular page "ludicrous". -- Cyrius|✎ 20:08, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

It's always been obvious to me that you are not arguing against the disambiguation page. We all agree that the disambiguation page is required. But I'm surprised that you thought that I said redirection elsewhere was ludicrous. As I explained above, I didn't say that it was, so there's no need to worry. My only point was that the word "ludicrous" shouldn't have been used in the first place. Please read what I said more carefully and you will see that for yourself, I hope. Derek Ross | Talk 06:11, 2004 Jul 5 (UTC)

I took your statement "looks ludicrous to redirect Perth anywhere but Perth, Scotland" on its face, and not as a rhetorical device. I'm pretty sure now that we've been arguing about nothing.

Redirecting to Perth, Scotland is the wrong thing to do, but is not ludicrous. The same goes for the one in Australia. On the other hand, one can say redirecting to Perth, New York is ludicrous with some confidence. -- Cyrius|✎ 07:07, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. Let's shake hands and move on to more productive work. -- Cheers, Derek Ross | Talk 07:13, 2004 Jul 5 (UTC)

Just give me a few days to find my remote hand-shaking hardware... -- Cyrius|✎ 07:23, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've restored the disambiguation page to Perth, where it was originally. - Mark 11:12, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Of course Perth, Western Australia should be the main topic, unless there is a bigger city with as much if not more influence?

[edit] dab Perth

Hi all just wanted to let you know that i've been dabbing Perth, the list is now below 50 will have it down to hopefully just this page by end month. My appologies if i've dabbed the wrong way let me know i'll fix Gnangarra 13:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How Stupid

I agree that a search on Perth alone should show all centres with the name PERTH whether they are 200 years old or whether they have a population of 2,000,000 or 2.

But what I cant fathom is when time is spent correcting links from the disambiguation page to the article that is object of the link people are going back and removing the disambiguation. Gnangarra 14:32, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Perth - The Name

I know its a sore point with some Editors that other centres are also called Perth.

Given that all of these centres have for various reason been named after the fair city should it be a topic within the article that its the origin of the name for all these other centres. As the other centres acknowledge their naming origins can Perth not take pride in its legacy to other parts of the world. Gnangarra 13:50, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Why on earth should it be a sore point? I'm sure that those other places were named by people who had fond memories of Perth. Naturally Perth takes pride in those other Perths founded in its name. The Perth page contains this information, although not as prominently as it used to, and I think that it would be an excellent idea to add a paragraph on this to the current article. -- Derek Ross | Talk 15:58, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disambig - Alexanders

Hi I was reading your article and noticed that Alexander links go to disambig pages suggest someone who knows more about the articles check the links, Then consider putting it forward for FAC Gnangarra 01:35, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] City?

Perth is no longer a city, but PRESTON is? What gives?! Wikipedia should treat it as such --MacRusgail 23:16, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Then Wikipedia would be wrong, and that would be besides the point. Preston is, after all, thrice the size of Perth. Erath 23:22, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Preston may well be bigger, but has neither centuries of historical precedent, nor the same kind of role as a regional centre. --MacRusgail 17:48, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Yep, blame the government for that. Perth will always be the Fair City to you and me but the bureaucrats do not agree with us. Wikipedia is just reporting the sad situation. -- Derek Ross | Talk 00:08, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Why should we have everything dictated to us by such penpushers who stick Caithness, Shetland and Orkney in the Highlands, and leave Argyll and parts of north Perthshire out of it?! I think it says it all. I think nearly all Scots think of it as a "city", so wikipedia should reflect that. --MacRusgail 17:46, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't. As far as I'm concerned, Scotland has four cities and Perth isn't one of them. Marks87 11:56, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Yep, Aberdeen, Perth, Brechin and ... what was the other one again, <grin> ? -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:28, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia should reflect what IS not what we would wish things to be. Perth is, officially, not a city, nor does it have a city or town council and therefore has no corporate existence so we have to say that. We can of course state that unofficially and in popular usage it is regarded as a city.

Exile 13:06, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pre-historic origins

From where comes the pre-historic dating of 7000 BC? It is somewhat odd to me, as I was teached other things at school on European pre-history (of course I might be teached wrong :-)).

Also the wording of the sentence "The name derives from a Pictish word ..." is confusing me. It is probably the name of the city but why it is not in the overview section then. -- Goldie (tell me) 21:38, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

There were hunter-gatherers in the area by then, as shown by several finds of flint tools in the town, but the boat seems to be later and I've not found any references to a Perth hut or midden excavation. A site at Crail shows occupation around 7500 BC, not too far away. Have reorganised the naming into a separate section for clarity, hope that helps. ..dave souza, talk 22:10, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Enchanted Kingdom?

I've lived in Perth all my life (37yrs) but I've never seen or heard Perth called that. Anybody clarify? Grievous Angel 15:43, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Me neither (albeit I'm a Glaswegian with a passing interest). Erath 16:31, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you guys. I'm removing the text until someone comes up with a reference. -- Derek Ross | Talk 17:12, 9 September 2006 (UTC)