Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements

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Contents 1 London 2 UK geo guide to Sections 3 InfoBoxes for Settlements 4 Infobox location on page 5 Units on UK articles

[edit] London

"The county and home nation must be mentioned"

I raised this point in the "lengthy discussion", but does this mean we have to go adding "England" to every place in London? Part of the objection to enforcing "UK" was that it was unnecessary extra information, as England is widely known. London is also widely known; "London, England" sounds excessively American. To borrow Mais Oui's expression, yuk! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Blisco (talk • contribs) 12:02, 22 August 2006.

I actually tend to agree with you. London is the only place in the UK which can very easily "stand-on-its-own" in an international context, being as it is a "global city" by any reasonable definition. Same goes for Paris, New York City etc.

London, England, or even worse, London, England, United Kingdom, is just as ugly, if not uglier than New York City, New York, United States. More so because European English-speakers do not tend to do as much of that "listing" thing as Americans, who will almost habitually add the name of the state to placenames. --Mais oui! 12:17, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

This is also an over simplification of the "lengthy discussion" where it became clear that including the "home nation" is controversial in places such as Cornwall. Choosing to include the home nation and not UK is somewhat misleading: which is the last thing we should be aiming to do in an encyclopedia! Yorkshire Phoenix 12:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] UK geo guide to Sections

I think the guidelines section of the main project page is a little outdated - I'd like to propose they be ammended/updated using the following system:

• Lead - of course(!).
• Geography and administration - By placing this nearer the top, we are telling users what and where the place is, before what it was (with a history section). I think the title also reflects a NPOV as geography can encompass both physical and human/administrative geography. Given this, I think suitable sub-sections should include (roughly):
  • Civic history - about the history of its administration/borders, including charters, former borough/county boundaries etc. This approach removes this data from the history section and so doesn't clog up/spoil the flow for that section, but places it in its own specific section.
  • Political/Parliamentary representation - including constituency/ward/electoral details (this forms part of geography - but if too long may be appropriate for its own section).
  • Physical geography/Geology - self explanatory, may require it's own section if appropriate (I'm thinking especially mountainous areas like Chew Valley etc)
  • Divisions and suburubs - summative style - useful for stopping endless lists appearing in the see also section, and instead use a flowing prose style
• History - divide as appropriate, but I think a good approach is -
  • Etymology - I think this is useful here rather than other sections as it is about the origins (history) of a settlement. I think in most cases it will be too short for a section in its own right.
  • Relevant subsections - including the origins, early history (Stone, Iron, Bronze, Roman, Industrial, Recent) of the area.
• Landmarks - major buildings, important architecture, memorials, public art etc.
• Demographics - census/civil registration data (and more recent estimates where available): population (in cities with their own councils include population of the administrative city, metropolitan area and catchment area), population change, age structure, race, religion, etc etc
• Economics - including major industries and employers (including agriculture and tourism - include statistics on tourist numbers and revenue if available) and, where available, statistics such as GDP and unemployment
• Present day - this helps destinguish between confirmed history and modern events (with a proper context). It can sum up the area/settlement today, including its use/significance.
  • Communal facilities - libraries, parks, sports venues
  • Transport - centres and modes/means of transport of today
  • Education - tables, lists or prose of schools, colleges, uni's etc.
  • Industry and/or /Retail/Commerce - this may need it's own section, or merely balance between this and economics sections as appropriate.
  • Sport - venues, local (notable) teams and relevancies.
• Places of interest - if appropriate and if different to that of the Landmarks section.
• Culture - if appropriate. It may be more suitable to include this in the Present day section if.. suitable. Could include arts, media and sport. Local theatres, radio stations and sports teams. Also any important cultural figures, such as artists and musicians associated with the settlement.
• Notable residents - use notable rather than famous as it is less POV. Residents indicates that some people may not be born in a certain place, It should include (and make it clear) both modern and historic notable people.
• See also - self explanatory
• References - of course.
• External links - as before.

I'd like to make it clear I think these should remain as guidelines as before, and not form an imposing policy! But I do think this is more useful to readers and editors alike, particularly as many articles are maturing fast. I'd welcome feedback, if any. Jhamez84 19:27, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I think these suggestions are quite good as they give much better and clearer guidelines. One comment I'll make, however, concerns the Notable Residents section. I know some entries (for example Stoke-on-Trent is one I know of, as well as many from Cheshire settlements, with which I'm now quite actively editing) get plagued at times with well-intentioned but incorrect, or plainly nonsensical entries with little justification for them being there. For Stoke-on-Trent I suggested that one of the necessary (but not sufficient) criteria for inclusion in this list might be that there should be a pre-existing wikipedia article about that person. I also noticed that in reviews made of the article, a number of reviewers had suggested doing away with this section altogether as it just attracted a certain kind of quick vandalism and lots of spurious entries. They suggested that any entries people thought might go in a Notable residents section (as it is suggested this section is called) be merged in with the other sections in the most appropriate places. I'm not sure this would always be easy, but I think it is worth mentioning this suggestion. Does having this section have any bearing at all on an article's chance of making it to Featured Article status?  DDStretch  (talk) 12:09, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I was fairly sure that this proposal would be welcomed, as I believe it is evident that they improve upon the previous guidelines.

I think you made a valid point with regards to notable residents - the additions you mentioned seem to be increasingly common. I think a soloution to this would be to (like all other sections) be more insistent on sources and citation - this should in turn improve verifiability and notability.

If nobody objects in the next few days I'll re-write the guidelines as appropriate, including a note on the residents issue. Thanks again, Jhamez84 16:35, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

My thoughts about "notable residents" - I don't think it should be a requirement that there is already an article about them, but that they satisfy Wikipedia:Notability (people). Otherwise you could end up with a large number of stub pages - PERSON is a famous THEIR OCCUPATION born in TOWN just to satisfy that requirement Salinae 13:03, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I only just noticed this. I have rewritten the guideline on "Present day" sections and demoted it as it is just a clumsy "miscelaneous" section. Most of the information described as belonging in that section belong in the geography, economy, culture, etc sections as described. Comparisons between historical and modern situations were also mentioned here, but those are not out of place in a history section: most articles deal with them in a "modern history" subsection or as a concluding paragraph of the history section.

Otherwise it looks good. Joe D (t) 18:26, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

You should've requested feedback before making these changes really. Look at Shaw and Crompton - a good article - it uses the former guidelines really effectively. OK it's not suitable for every article, but perhaps that's all we needed to state. Jhamez84 00:40, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

You may be interested that I followed the advice for suggested section names for Middlewich, and there have been some comments raised about those names and their order when it went for GA review (Talk:Middlewich)

Ah. Looking through the revised guidelines more closely I have made further changes back to the original guidelines, which more closely represent the standard style used, and which fit the suggestions of the GA review perfectly. Joe D (t) 09:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] InfoBoxes for Settlements

I think there is a need to update or re-specify the InfoBox information on the page. I do not know how or where the actual specification of the InfoBox template can be altered. can anyone give any help on this matter? Here are some issues I would suggest are discussed and/or addressed:

Latitude and Longitude. Many more entries now have the Latitude and Longitude added into the InfoBox. I suggest the listing for the InfoBox given on the project page be altered by adding the Latitude and Longitude. (This also adds the Lat. and Long. at the top of the actual entry if you place them in the InfoBox.) However see the next point:

Thumbnail Map If one adds the Lat. and Long. to the InfoBox, the thumbnail map changes, and makes the specified way of indicating where to position the dot obsolete. It is much simpler and less time-consuming to do it this newer way. However, the thumbnail map may not be as good as the old one, and so I wondered if any kind of alteration could be made to cater for different thumbnail maps. In fact, I have no way of finding out who or where this InfoBox and the specification of the thumbnail, etc was first proposed so this could be discussed. A link needs to be given somewhere about this, surely?

The following suggestions are only applicable to settlements in England. For Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, changes which reflect their own Local Administrative Structures need to be made. I do not know much, yet, about them, and so can only talk about England. At the moment, the InfoBox is only for places in England, which is unusually restrictive and very unfortunate, given the name of this WikiProject: (UK geography).

Ward The positioning of this entry makes it contextually appear to be the UK Parliamentary Constituency that is meant, and that is how it has been used, according to my observations. But the use of "ward" is ambiguous and, if more changes are made, as suggested in the next section, it should be altered to the more clear "UK Parl constituency" or some such more clear phrase.

Additional Fields to the InfoBox: Civil parish. One can, I discovered, add the field "Civil Parish" to the InfoBox if one so wishes. This should be added to the specification as given on the project page. It can be omitted if the settlement is in an "unparished area" (as in the case of Crewe, for example). For settlements that cross parish boundaries or which contain multiple parishes, all can be listed, as happens with other fields at the moment (see, for example, Mow Cop where this applies to the "Ceremonial County" and "Historic County" fields.)

Additional Fields to the InfoBox: District Council Ward. This should also be added to the InfoBox. It would serve a number of functions (a) it would add completeness to the specification of the local government administrative hierarchy in which a settlement is embedded, (b) It would allow the unparished areas to give the local governement ward(s) they possess, as this or these would be constituencies of the lowest level of local government that they have.

Additional Fields to the InfoBox: County Council Ward. This should be there for many of the reasons given in the previous suggested addition.

I think these changes are now pressing and necessary. I'd welcome comments.  DDStretch  (talk) 12:48, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I think these raise important issues - though, I can see a potential clash with including wards on the infoboxes of larger settlements (places like Huddersfield, Manchester etc have 20/30 plus wards)

Also, the Metropolitan counties don't have county council wards, as metropolitan boroughs are excempt from county council administration.

However, that said, I think these changes may be suitable for suburbs and districts (I'm thinking such as Moss Side), where they are not towns/cities/villages, but are small populated areas, contiguous and verifiably part of a larger town; in this instance I think smaller local government info us much more useful to the reader.

I also approve of the Long/Lat mapping system, but have a dislike for the rather ill looking British Isles that appears on the infobox. I certainly think the green and healthy map is more pleasing!

With regards to UK geography, you may be interested to know there is a very active Scotland project which seems to run very much independantly of this one.

Map aside, it is my view that we consider creating a alternate/sister infobox for this smaller type of land division, to incorporate the changes proposed above by DDstretch. Jhamez84 16:48, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the comments. For the potenial problems, I can see at least two ways to progress if these changes are put in place: (1) The fields are optional, as I understand it (for example the "Civil parish" field, if left empty, is simply omitted from the InfoBox), and so it could be routinely omitted from Metropolitan Districts, with some other way of giving its wards being devised, or (2) A quite similar InfoBox might be made available for Metropolitan Districts. Although I would like more consistency, consistency should sometimes be sacrificed if it makes other things (like comprehensibility) become difficult. However, in this case, I think the first way to progress might be the more useful way forward.  DDStretch  (talk) 17:15, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

About the map. I also would prefer the green one, as it is larger, but think the current colours together with the small size of the yellow dot make the dot difficult to spot: i.e., it is a size-dependent contrast problem to me. It could be solved by choosing a slightly darker green, lighter blue for the sea, and a slightly larger yellow dot, in my opinion.  DDStretch  (talk) 17:18, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll try message a few editors with regards to these changes, as, given the UK geo project is somewhat dormant, this page is seldom visited/used. I'm fairly sure the infoboxes are formulated with a strict convention/consensus as to what their contents is, as part of all the naming conventions and Anglo-Scots-Welsh-Ulster consistencies needed. I'm inclined to think that the use of sister/alternative infoboxes for very small districts, suburbs and settlements may be the answer for including lower level local government wards etc. Though the mapping could be addressed by establishing fresh consensus, and designing a new map. Jhamez84 23:41, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I too like the idea of the extra entries in the infobox. My only concern is that the infobox can frequently be longer than the article at the moment. We can add these as optionals, and if no one objects I will look at doing this over the next few days, once I get my HD swap done (hopefully this weekend). What we shouldn't do is fork the infoboxes. They were reintegrated from Unitary Authority, Non UA and several other versions some time ago. I am trying to remove the template redirects but it is a slow process. Regan123 00:28, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Any news about any developments about the issues we talked about here?  DDStretch  (talk) 14:23, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox location on page

Should the infobox be at the very top of the article as at [1] or lower such as [2]? There doesn't seem to be a guideline on placing here or at WP:MOS -- Foxhill 22:18, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Units on UK articles

Is there a convention or guideline about writing Km & miles & which should come first, in UK articles. I have put Mendip Hills up for FA status and the review page includes the comment "Units are inconsistently used. In some places metric are given predominance, in other imperial. Please be consistent SI (imperial)" - another editor has commented on my talk page that "you ought to put miles first with km in brackets through the article". Any pointers to guidance on this would be appreciated. — Rod ^talk 19:56, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

You may like to look at WP:MOSNUM, particularly section 4. These are guidelines, however, and not mandatory. If I were you, I would conform to "local usage", which is a bit tricky in this case, as the UK is going through a slow tortured changeover from Imperial units to SI units. The fourth bulleted point in section 4 is relevant here, although as it is written, it is USA-centric. Since your article is not about something scientific, there is no need to conform to SI units by paying attention to the second bulleted point of section 4. In the particular case you are concerned with, I would either put in Imperial (miles, etc) with SI (km, etc) in parentheses, or the other way round (SI with Imperial in parentheses), whichever way I felt more comfortable with. You may to consider doing the same.  DDStretch  (talk) 20:31, 12 March 2007 (UTC)