Talk:Friends of Real Lancashire

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 18 May 2006. The result of the discussion was keep.

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[edit] Very dubious claim

I think that this ->

In June 1994 the Local Government Commission recommended the restoration of the historic county for ceremonial, cultural and related purposes. However this proposal was rejected by the government.

-> comes from the Draft Report of the Local Government Commission into Cumbria, which suggested reinstating the Yorkshire and Lancashire borders in Cumbria for ceremonial purposes, at the same time as splitting Cumbria into North Cumbria and South Cumbria authorities. It did not as far as I am aware, address the issue of the Mersey. Neither was the proposal "rejected by the government" as such - the Commission itself decided not to split Cumbria into unitarities, and in the absence of particularly strong local opinion decided to withdraw the ceremonial proposal.

If this what that's based on, it's hard really to see how a summary of that process could be more deceptive. Certainly the Commission conducted no reviews on Merseyside and Greater Manchester at that time. Morwen - Talk 11:26, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Several of the links claiming "support" were either dead links or simply linked to mentions of FORL which is also rather dishonest MRSC 12:23, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lancashire octicentennial

So, it would have been Lancashire's 800th birthday in 1982. Did they do anything for this? Couldn't find anything in The Times (or in fact any mention of the group at all as far as 1985). Morwen - Talk 12:56, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] millennium map

A search on LCC website shows no reference to "millennium map". Is there any other evidence they did anything to support it, other than the FORL claim? Being presented with something is rather different than "supporting". MRSC 13:57, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I find this stuff -> [1] [2] [3] note the very guarded wording used by the Lancashire Evening Telegraph. Morwen - Talk 14:02, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
As I guessed there is no evidence to suggest the council supported the creation of the map. MRSC 14:06, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, hosting a press launch = supporting the publication? if it was feeling especially enthusiastic the council could change its name to 'Central Lancashire' or maybe 'Central Lancs' if that's too much of a mouthful. Wonder if there's been any pressure to do that. Morwen - Talk 14:10, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps the hope is the boundaries will expand out and LCC will control the full former area. This is, of course, unbelievably unlikely as the expanded authority would have responsibility for part, but not all, of two major conurbations and also have expansive rural areas. Commentators such as Tony Bryne (1996) notes that Governments have historically attempted to retain historic boundaries as far as is practicable but efficiency was usually incompatible with this. MRSC 14:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Unlikely to be their policy today as they seem to be trying to unequate "county council area" with "county". The scheme that the Yorkshire Ridings Society presented in 1977 was quite interesting - they called for the abolition of the metropolitan county councils but the retention of the existing metropolitan boroughs, with then new metropolitan boroughs erected based on York, Hull, Middlesbrough and Selby. The Times didn't really explain what was going to happen in the rural parts of Yorkshire (or I can't remember), but their plan was published and might be fishable out of some library. Morwen - Talk 14:24, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Changing the meaning of citations

This edit changed the meaning of text directly attributed to citations to a meaning other than the original authors'. MRSC 23:33, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deciding the meaning of a citation from the title of a book

This edit with edit summary "books on local government deal with local government ie. administrative boundaries. no one is disputing these changed." is downright dishonest. All these citations state clearly that existing boundaries were altered in 1974. There is no suggestion (even implicit) of anything other. Furthermore, it is totally outside the scope of academic writing to take it upon oneself to alter the meaning of a citation, or make decisions about what information a book contains, based only on its title. MRSC 06:16, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I am also concerned about the out-of-context quotation from an anonymous Department of the Environment official being misattributed as some sort of "Government Statement". This is an easy thing to do if you mistake the FoRL as some sort of reliable source, but adding it back after we've checked it out and discovered it to be a misrepresentation isn't really on. Morwen - Talk 09:03, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
These quotes are clearly being taken completely out of context. It's like taking a quote from a book on London which says "the city lies on the River Thames" and using it on the Manchester article. Completely dishonest. You have yet to provide a single reliable source stating that the traditional boundaries have been changed. Lancsalot 09:33, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm sure User:Mrsteviec will be happy to quote the sentences and their context to establish that this accusation is baseless outside of wishful thinking. Meanwhile, can I ask why you added the misattributed so-called "government statement", having already been informed that it didn't check out? Morwen - Talk 10:12, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
None are taken out of context. All explain the changes in county boundaries. An example: Her Majesty's Stationary Office, Aspects of Britain: Local Government (1996) talks about local authorities, and separately, distinctly re:1974 (on p.10) "The county boundaries, which dated back to medieval times, were reformed." (researched by Publishing Services, Central Office of Information). All of the other academics say exactly the same thing. I can gather together all the quotes but it will natuarlly take me some time to complete. The wholesale removal of quotations (without even an alternative academic counter source) for no valid reason is getting increasingly disruptive. MRSC 11:22, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I used the quote from the historic counties article. I thought that you had checked this out. Lancsalot 10:15, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
We had and as explained in various places, presenting an anonymous briefing by a civil servant as a "government statement" is misleading to say the least. Can you also explain your summary of the local government commission's draft report into Cumbria? Morwen - Talk 10:21, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
It was paraphrased from the FORL website. Lancsalot 10:38, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Do you dispute my summary of the reports: and if so, will you agree that the FoRL website cannot be counted on as a reliable source (except as a source for their opinions and suchforth). Morwen - Talk 10:48, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I haven't checked the reports and don't intend to. Really this is hardly a high-priority article and I don't understand your obsessive interest in it. Lancsalot 10:55, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure really how vague insults help here other than to change the topic. Morwen - Talk 11:05, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I would suggest that, on balance, the FORL website is more reliable - generally - than anything put out by local government in this country. Local government output is the epitome of unreliability, in my humble opinion. Arcturus 20:54, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
There was no suggestion that any of the citations were "put out by local government". The texts cited are all written by academics, experts on the subject. Are you seriously saying the word of the FORL website should be taken over the consensus of a group of academics? If you are, please note this is not the Wikipedia position on reliable citation. MRSC 12:09, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
And anyway, I'm comparing the FORL's summary of a report versus my own summary of a report. If you want to call me a liar, please do. I'm certainly calling them liars. Morwen - Talk 13:31, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm not interested! I'm merely asserting that UK local government (i.e. the organisation that empties the dustbins - think local council, think rubbish) is unreliable, incompetent, and they just love brown envelopes. Arcturus 15:49, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
That's nice. How does it have any relevance at all to what we were discussing? Morwen - Talk 16:48, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
Only indirectly. All I'm trying to say is that the views of FORL are as valid as those of anyone from local government, or any academic, on this subject. Arcturus 17:09, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FA

The existence of a football association for Greater Manchester disputes the idea the Football Association "use traditional counties". MRSC 06:47, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References

What's the story with reference 5? Lozleader 10:43, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of citations, changing of meaning

All of the above edits in the last week have either removed citations without explanation or have changed the meaning of the text to disagree with the citation. This kind of disruption cannot continue it is outside the scope of academic writing and this project. MRSC 11:41, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Pot. Kettle. Black. You have also removed citations from this both this article and the Lancashire article. Lancsalot 11:47, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
You need to read Wikipedia:Reliable_sources to understand what an academic citation is. MRSC 11:52, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyvio in history

I've just noticed that the very first version of this article: [12], was copied and pasted from the page here. Since the person who did this wikified it, the page evidently got past new pages patrol. Sigh. I don't think any of the text from that version survives in the current version - can someone crosscheck this? I think deleting parts of the history would be appropriate, but this in itself may cause problems because the current version definitely contains text that isn't copyvio but was introduced in revisions which had copyvio. Morwen - Talk 14:57, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Leave it for the moment. I've contacted FORL to ask for permission to copy. Arcturus 16:47, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
I've been told in any case we don't need to worry about copyvios in history. In any case, the initial version of the article was horribly biased and POV and we wouldn't want to use it. Morwen - Talk 16:49, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
OK, no problem. Arcturus 17:09, 1 October 2006 (UTC)