Template talk:British Isles

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Contents 1 Historic states 2 Ancient and early medieval states 3 That Template 4 Channel Islands - include or not? 5 Collapsing 6 Help 7 IONA 8 Ireland/Republic of Ireland 9 New Northern Ireland flag? 10 Use of single map image instead of flag icons

[edit] Historic states

You might want to include these too:

v • d • e Irish states since 1171  Ireland (1937–present)  •  United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (1922†–present) Medieval period Gaelic Ireland (prehistory–1607) •  Lordship of Ireland (1171–1541) Modern period  Kingdom of Ireland (1541–1801) • United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–1922†) Twentieth century Irish Free State (1922–37) Notable declared states Republic of Connaught (1798) • Irish Republic (1919–22) • Munster Republic (1922) See also Confederate Ireland (1642–53) • Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland (1649–60) • Northern Ireland (1921–72) • Southern Ireland (1921–22) †Date marks the secession of the majority of Ireland from the United Kingdom rather than the creation of a new state. Official name was changed in 1927.

There is possibly a case for lising the 5 provinces of Ireland which had also been kingdoms 86.12.249.63 20:24, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd love to but I'm not touching any Irish articles with a Barge Pole after the reception that my template's had on the Ireland page. It'll just be removed because "Ireland isn't British", which is an obvious fact but one that still can't be true if Ireland is in the British Isles apparently. Lofty 20:44, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Considering Ireland is most definitely not in Britain's "British Isles" in the first place that makes the rest of your post a non sequitur. Nollaig Shona duit.

[edit] Ancient and early medieval states

I reverted Danelaw from from the template. I don't see how we can include historical states before the late medieval period in the template itself. Maybe link to a separate page such as List of historical states in the British Isles? But there simply isn't enough space to link to them all. (I also reverted the re-organization of the states currently listed to alphabetical order - i.e. Irish Free State - Kingdom of England - Kingdom of Great Britain .. - "Kingdom of" is only said once to save space.) --sony-youth^talk 22:26, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] That Template

I'd be happy enough with the template so long as it doesn't appear in any article relating to Ireland. (Sarah777 21:58, 18 December 2006 (UTC))

Hi Sarah. Regarding the template, it is being used on Ireland-related pages. There was quite a long discussion on the Ireland talk page regarding the template and a name (assuming that this is the issue you have). The template's name can be changed on a per-article basis, as it is on the Ireland and Republic of Ireland pages. --sony-youth^talk 23:53, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

OK. Right. I understand what you have in mind - very good. Regards (Sarah777 00:07, 19 December 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Channel Islands - include or not?

Like The Tom, I can see why not to include them - some defintion do specifically exclude them, but not many. More explicitly include them. Including them hits hard against the "its-only-a-geographical-term" thing, but surely we cannot exclude them just so one argument about the "meaning" of British Isles looks more consistent.

The people there include themselves. See the Jersey government site. Guernsey is less unequivical (except for Alderney) but a look at the government website shows that they clearly see themselves as being "within" the British Isles, as opposed to "outside" of the British Isles.

Yes, British Isles is different to British Islands. The Channel Islands are always explicity a part of the latter. But what's the case for Wikipedia excluding them from the former when so often they are included. --sony-youth^talk 12:29, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Collapsing

Why is the default of this template to collapse? I think it should be to autocollapse, because for some of the articles it is on, this is the only navbox. Reywas92^Talk_{How's my editing?} 17:37, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I have altered the template to 'autocollapse'.--padraig3uk 17:46, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help

Someone has changed NIR icon to union flag, and NI link now points to uk. 84.68.67.13 19:35, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

sorted. regards.--Vintagekits 19:36, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IONA

Reference to IONA should be included in the header.--Vintagekits 21:34, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree considering the dispute over on the British Isles article on the issue, it should be restored to the template.--padraig3uk 22:01, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

On purpose not stating a preference, but if it's added then it shouldn't be in the header - should be in the main body of the template and needs to be expanded out too (not just "IONA" which either a: means nothing or b: is very confusing with Iona which is British and an Island...) /wangi 22:07, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Agree, but also not in the header, but as it as before. IONA is fine by me. I had considered it an olive branch before. --sony-youth^pléigh 22:11, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ireland/Republic of Ireland

Can the proper name of Ireland please be used. If the UK can be put by its full formal name then so can Ireland. --sony-youth^pléigh 21:44, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

{{Editprotected}}

Can we please sort out the name of Ireland (the state), its name is not the Republic of Ireland, just is just a plain fact. See CIA World Factbook, The Economist Country Briefings, the European Union, the United Nations. Listing it in the the template as the Republic of Ireland is as correct listing the UK as Britain. --sony-youth^pléigh 17:38, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

The protection expired a couple of days ago. Cheers. --MZMcBride 03:04, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Northern Ireland flag?

Editors familliar with this debate need not worry!... I'd just like to point out that I object to the use of a map icon for Northern Ireland on this template. To me, place alongside the 3 other (sub-)national flags, it suggests that the map is somehow the constitutional flag of NI, which it isn't. I doubt any other encyclopedia would put it there in simillar terms. It's a kind of innocent original research being employed here.... Surely, we should have no flag at all? -- Jza84 · (talk) 21:27, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely. As per Wikipedia:Manual of style (flags)#Inventing new flags and using non-flag stand-ins, we should remove any non-flag image that appears in a context where other flags are used. Obviously, Image:Ulster banner.svg cannot be used in this template, so I would recommend we get rid of all flags. They aren't needed. For comparison, Template:States of Germany and Template:Administrative divisions of Spain don't use flag icons for these sub-national administrative units, and they don't suffer from not having them. Andrwsc 21:42, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Well in this capacity, I will remove it. I hope editors can understand the rationale, and if object to this, provide a rationale as to why. -- Jza84 · (talk) 11:08, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I added the icon months ago, it seemed like a good solution at the time. I didn't even think that someone might consider it some kind of offical symbol of N Ireland(well I still don't think anyone would... but lets not get into it).
Anyway I have no problem with removing it, however I do have a problem with suggestions to remove the flags of Scotland, England & Wales; they are the undisputed flags of those regions, they add to the template, & they offend no one. Also, quite frankly, it seems like an attempt to validate the Ulster banner. Kind of like saying "well the Ulster banner is fine & represents N Ireland, but we just aren't going to go in the flags direction". Fennessy (talk) 19:29, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the consensus at Wikipedia:Manual of style (flags) is that they aren't really needed. How do you think they "add to the template"? The MOS guideline states that flags should Help the reader rather than decorate, and I would assert that those flag instances are mostly decorative. From a political POV perspective, I don't see how removal of all flags is an attempt to validate the Ulster Banner. Actually, I think the opposite is true — leaving the other three flags but showing none for Northern Ireland is a way of expressing the opinion that Northern Ireland is not a valid constituent country, perhaps, but merely the "occupied six" instead. It is quite obvious that the Northern Ireland wikilink stands out as the only one in those three navbox groups that doesn't have a flag. That draws undue attention to it, and it shouldn't. I still maintain that the least contentious option for this template (and many others) is to remove the flags altogether. Andrwsc (talk) 20:15, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Andrwsc. Having flags for England, Scotland and Wales, but not for Northern Ireland suggests to me that Northern Ireland is somehow not a "proper" constituent country. As I'm sure we're all abundantly aware, there's no generally accepted Northern Ireland flag, so lets at least remove all the constituent country flags. Personally, I'd support removing all of the flags, but I accept that might be controversial. I just can't see conceive how removal of the English, Welsh and Scottish flags can possibly be considered as a validation of the Ulster Banner. — ras52 (talk) 21:20, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that that's the reasoning that Fennessy was using, Ras. The idea that, "Well, if Northern Ireland doesn't have a flag then we'd better remove all the others' so that Northern Ireland doesn't stand out like a sore thumb." Sweeping it under the carpet so to speak. Not quite "validating", but it would prevent a casual reader from noticing that thing were not all quite right in that neck of the woods.

(Incidentally, Northern Ireland is not technically speaking a "constituent country" of the UK - it was created as a province, along with Southern Ireland, of Ireland, which was a constituent country of the United Kingdom. History of course ran away with all of this, but speaking of Northern Ireland as a "country" in the same sense as England, Scotland or Wales is problematic. But that has nothing to do witht the subject at hand.) --sony-youth^pléigh 21:40, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't really see the harm of having flags in this template. In 12 out of 16 cases they represent "top level" national entities. The only exceptions are for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. However, even in those cases, as Wikipedia:Manual of style (flags) notes, are considered "exceptions to the rule". In no case is there scope for error or confusion in the use of a flag in the template. The use of flags here fit broadly with the guidance of the MoS, so exactly what is the harm being done?

As for the thought that leaving Northern Ireland without a flag makes it look like Northern Ireland is in someway an "occupied territory" - well, ummm, sorry to bring reality in here ... but that perception might actually be the reason why Northern Ireland currently does not have a flag. Expressive little things those little icons, no? Add quite a lot. --sony-youth^pléigh 21:28, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Use of single map image instead of flag icons

I've taken the bold step of modifying the template to use a single map image for visual appeal instead of flag icons for selected wikilinks. I realize we don't have prior consensus for a change, but I thought it would be helpful to see this version first and generate some feedback. Andrwsc (talk) 21:36, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, now take a look at the bottom of the Ireland article, where this template now shows some wonderful symmetry with the navbox next to it (Template:Celtic nations). Andrwsc (talk) 21:39, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

And yet again, at the trio of navboxes at the bottom of Wales (including Template:Germanic-speaking regions of Europe), all with the same style. I hope we agree this is the best approach! Andrwsc (talk) 21:41, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, Andrwsc - we've lost visual information that served several important purposes - 1. breaking up non-prose text for ease of reading; 2. indicating individual elements in a list; 3. marking related information across a table; 4. separating and sub-grouping information within a table; 5. clearly indicating political information as distinct from geographic; 6. ...; 7. ...; ... I could go on ...- and in it's place slapped a great big useless dunce of an image.

What purpose, can I ask you, does that image serve? Hmmm ... ? None. Absolute crud. --sony-youth^pléigh 21:58, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, wow, what can I say. Clearly the other two templates I mentioned, and dozens of other similar navboxes across Wikipedia that lack flag icons, must have those same problems...

There are hundreds (thousands?) of navboxes that use bullets between items to break up non-prose text, so clearly there is consensus for that. Even six of the ten groups in this navbox use bullets, and nobody ever complained that there were problems with them.

"Great big useless dunce of an image"? Really? A map of the topic of the template is not relevant? Again, wow. Andrwsc (talk) 22:06, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

And it doesn't even "clearly indicate political information as distinct from geographic" as the "political cooperation" list is clearly political. No, I'm sorry, Sony, you'll have to do better than that. — ras52 (talk) 22:13, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

On second thought, the no flags at all way is best.
Ras52's edit reminded me of the fact that the Flag of Wales featuing Y Ddraig Goch didn't even exist during the period of the Principality of Wales which it is placed next to, at least not in the form it is now.
This format will stop any future arguments over this issue in the future, hopefully. Anything to put a stake in the heart of this monster of an issue once & for all.
Fennessy (talk) 23:05, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

An over reaction for sure, Andrwsc (and Ras), but there was a discussion going on. In that discussion two participants said that the flags should stay, and two participants said the flags should go. You may have just wanted to "generate some feedback" but that was already coming on the talk page.

Bullets are there for a reason, as you note. Even vertical lists need them, and compliment them with indentation. Here we have a horizontal list with 60-70 entries of highly-varied word-length. The flags do a nice job of breaking that up, silently helping the bullets so to speak, and quickly making a group from related information, pulling it apart from the rest, thus increasing readability. The map you used doesn't show the geographic context of the area. Those could be islands off the coast of Ecuador, for all a reader might know. Initial maps need to show context. To make matters worse, the space it took squeezed an already crowded list of entries into an even smaller space further reducing it's readability.

If there's an issue with the Red Dragon then that is a matter for the Country Data template. I don't recall there ever being an issue with the use of flags (except the Northern Ireland one) on this template before, so I don't see what monster is being put to bed. --sony-youth^pléigh 23:20, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't see what the problem is about the Welsh flag, the flag is recognised as the national flag of Wales, in the same manner as the English and Scottish flags.--Padraig (talk) 23:26, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

The issue is whether it is an appropriate symbol for the (old) Principality of Wales. --sony-youth^pléigh 23:40, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry my mistake, in the case of the principality did it have a flag, if so then that should be used for that.--Padraig (talk) 23:45, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Sony, I admit I was WP:BOLD for a reason — pictures are worth a thousand words when it comes to discussion of visual changes such as these, so I thought it would be easier to solicit feedback after looking at my proposed changes instead of just talking about them. I still am puzzled by your passion for the icons as a readability aid, as surely there are hundreds of standard navboxes that do fine without them. The (larger) portion of this navbox that has always been flagless didn't seem to suffer without them either. As for the map image, yeah, it is somewhat superfluous, and strictly speaking, this navbox doesn't really need it. It can certainly be removed to "unsqueeze" the space, but I note that removal of the flag icons also helped in that regard, as it resulted in the "Historic states" group fitting onto a single line on my current display. I only put the map there because there seems to be a certain amount of consensus (not just here, but wiki-wide) for "visual bling" like that in navboxes. Flags and maps are often the most common free-use images available, so that's why we use them. I was pleasantly suprised to later see that Template:Celtic nations and Template:Germanic-speaking regions of Europe took the same approach! Those maps also lack context or a legend, but in all these cases, I don't think it matters. Remember: this is a collapsed navbox at the bottom of every article it is transcluded on. Better maps and prose text to explain geographic context are going to be present at the start of those articles. Lastly, I note that I updated Template:UK cities a couple of weeks ago in a similar effort at curbing persistent disruptive edit warring, and so far, all I've seen are positive comments. A few days ago, I also made similar edits to Template:United Kingdom constituents and affiliations, Template:UK subdivisions, and Template:World Heritage Sites in the United Kingdom, and in every case, those changes have stuck. Andrwsc (talk) 00:25, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

First some factual errors, Andrwsc:

1. The map images in the Celtic nations and Germanic-speaking regions templates both show context. Look at them again.

2. Who ever said anything about legends. The template already has a title, don't tell me you now want to add a legend as well!?

3. The "Historic states" section is about the same whether flags are included or the map ... but do you see all of those other sections that hadn't flag images before? They get squeezed by the map as well, you know.

4. So you think that a contextualizing map will appear on all pages that use this template? Hmmm ... take a look through Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:British_Isles and reconsider that.

Now for the complicated stuff. As I said, the matter has to do with this template containing 60-70 entries in a horizontal list of highly varying word length. None of the templates you linked to are of that kind, all being relatively brief or with normally single-worded list entries. Also, like I said, the matter has to do with grouping related elements across this table. None of the template that you linked to require that, none of them contain such a diversity of themes and articles as this one. It is my opinion as a usability professional that the flags aid the readability of this template. Take it or leave it.

As for "visual bling", did the flags not add that as well as being useful? A cropped off image of some (presumable) islands floating in a (presumable) sea (presumably) somewhere ain't my idea of "bling".

You are quite right of course, it was useful to see it. Much better of with the flags. --sony-youth^pléigh 01:03, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see how the map icons in the Celtic and Germanic templates provide sufficient context. They show coloured regions but fail to explain what each colour means! You and I can identify each area, but the point remains that they aren't really all that different from the British Isles map icon. To be honest, I don't care either way, so your edit to remove the "crud" works for me. Other editors may disagree. And what irony that you and I work in similar professions yet have such a wildly different view of how beneficial the flag icons are to the readability of this template! (I have been working on user interfaces since the Motif days of the mid-80s.)

Perhaps the biggest issue is that this template tries to do too much. It's expecially goofy at the bottom of the United Kingdom article, where it appears in a "Geographic locale" group (as though it was only about geography), with overlap with Template:United Kingdom constituents and affiliations. Perhaps a better approach would be re-factoring into individual navboxes for geography, political affiliations, languages, etc. The full set of templates would appear on top-level nation articles (like United Kingdom), but an article on one of the languages need not have a navbox link to a list of islands, should it? Andrwsc (talk) 01:25, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Ironic indeed.

To be a stickler for a point, the map of Germanic speaking regions shows almost all of Europe (providing a context), before showing the Germanic-speaking areas. The Celtic Nations map shows all of the British Isles and half of France (providing a context), before showing the Celtic area. The maps used here just showed the British Isles, without context, and even artificially trimmed off the coastline of continental Europe to boot!

I agree that the breadth of this template is wide to say the least, but it has been very stable, so I think maybe it is a "natural" breadth, coving a bear minimum of totality of people, politics, geography, and history. It's also not very uncommon for template to repeat each other on any given article. (Just take a look at the use of "Germanic-speaking regions" and "Celtic nations".) The problem with refactoring is that on those pages where there is dublication already, the "refactored" templates will all simply be included again anyway, solving nothing. --sony-youth^pléigh 01:44, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I think you both raise the very valid point that the template seems too crowded. Like Andrwsc, I don't believe the flags helped; in fact, I think they hindered that. But I do think the crowdedness is a valid point. I don't want to suggest removing anything, because I'm not really sure there's anything inappropriate in the template. So perhaps the solution is to find some way of breaking it up more, even though this will make the template longer (I'm not overly concerned about that as, as Andrwsc says, the templates is always displayed collapsed in current usage.) I don't think the example below is right yet, particularly with formatting or the choice of sections to use, but I hope you can see what I'm thinking. — ras52 (talk) 02:03, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

v • d • e The British Isles Terminology · Naming dispute · Islands of the North Atlantic (IONA) Politics Sovereign states Ireland · United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Dependencies of the British Crown Guernsey · Isle of Man · Jersey Constituent countries of the UK England · Scotland · Wales · Northern Ireland Political cooperation British-Irish Council · British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body · Common Travel Area Geography Islands Channel Islands · Islands of the Clyde · Great Britain · Hebrides · Ireland · Isle of Man · Isles of Scilly · Northern Isles (Orkney · Shetland) Lists of islands of England · of Ireland · of the Isle of Man · of Scotland · of Wales History History of... Britain · England · Ireland · Isle of Man · Jersey · Scotland · United Kingdom · Wales Historic states Kingdom of England · Kingdom of Scotland · Kingdom of Ireland · Principality of Wales · Kingdom of Great Britain · United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland · Irish Free State Society Modern languages Auregnais · BSL · Cornish · English · French · Guernésiais · Irish · ISL · Jèrriais · NISL · Manx · (Ulster) Scots · Scottish Gaelic · Sercquais · Welsh Peoples British · Celts · Cornish · English · Irish · Irish Traveller · Manx · Scottish · Ulster-Scots · Welsh

Great stuff, Ras. Absolute stellar work. Could do with a little tidying (aligning the left-hand column widths, not sure about the colour of the horizontal dividers, etc. blah blah) but a feat of organization. Well done! A fantasitc thing for me to see before my bed time. Thanks! --sony-youth^pléigh 02:11, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I like this too! I took the liberty of tweaking it a bit to address Sony's "tidying" suggestions. Shall we go with this? Andrwsc (talk) 04:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I like that, makes the template easier to follow.--Padraig (talk) 08:15, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I've widened the column so that "Dependencies of the British Crown" and changed the headings a little (simpler? maybe not). --sony-youth^pléigh 08:23, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I think both Andrwsc's and Sony-youth's changes (and Padraig's spelling correction!) have improved it — thanks. (The left column alignments were my biggest concern too.) I'm happy to go with it now, so I'll update the template. — ras52 (talk) 09:27, 6 December 2007 (UTC)