User talk:Merlante

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[edit] Welcome

Hello, welcome to Wikipedia.

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Again, welcome! - UtherSRG 14:56, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Image tagging

Thanks for uploading Image:Waterfordquay.jpg and Image:Waterfordcathedral.jpg. I notice they currently don't have image copyright tags. Could you add some to let us know their copyright status? (You can use {{gfdl}} if you release them under the GFDL, or {{fairuse}} if you claim fair use, etc.) If you don't know what any of this means, just let me know where you got the images and I'll tag them for you. Thanks so much, hike395 16:40, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hi, Is see you're from Waterford, any chance you culd help out with the History of Waterford articel, which stops at 1850? Cheers, Jdorney 16:59, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikimedia UK/Wikimania 2006

Hi, this is a circular to Wikipedians in Ireland to draw your attention to Wikimedia UK, where the establishment of a local Wikimedia chapter for the United Kingdom (and possibly for the Republic of Ireland) is being discussed. See the talk page, as well as the mailing list; a meetup will take place to discuss matters in London in September, for anyone who can get there. On another topic, plans are being drawn up for a UK bid for Wikimania 2006, which would be conveniently close to Ireland. On the other hand, Dublin's bid was one of the final three last year - might we bid again? --Kwekubo 04:17, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Robust debate

Coming into the Cities in Ireland debate rather late, I can see that the argument is getting rather robust. You have come up against a couple of keen editors (Jtdirl and Djegan) who do have an abrasive way of arguing that comes across as a bit personal at times. If you ever get into an edit war, the solution is nearly always to back to the formal sources. If you can cite the source, then it has to go in (unless the source is discredited - by not by wikipedians - it has to be by peer review). Of course official sources may differ: then you have to say that X says this and Y says that. You must not editorialise, you must not analyse. For most of us, this goes against the grain of years of training. The problem at Cities in Ireland is, I think, that you've invested so much in the article and it is hard to see it being blue pencilled. But the rules of wiki say that you can't contribute original material and that includes analysis. But you can (and you should) summarise and distill. All said and done, I think that the article is tighter now: I can't honestly see what is so terribly different between Djegans of 21:36 and yours of 21:37. As edit wars go, this one has been quite civilised. Others have gotten as far as death threats! --Red King 23:59, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I didn't intend to irk you, best let me know where so I don't do it again. My reason for the note above is that I recognise that you've put a lot of time and effort into that article and you deserved better than the fish-wife abuse you got for your pains. --Red King 22:51, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] R710

I did indeed read the article in question, which points out that although there was a "Phase 1" of an Outer Ring Road, the title now refers solely to the more recent project, which is the R710. I should point out that Statutory Instrument 188 of 2006 [1] (PDF) which defines Regional Roads in Ireland, specifically terms the R710 as the "Outer Ring Road, Waterford".

As such, the article properly resides at R710, and I will be moving it back there. If you wish to further clear up the article (subsequent to the modifications I made myself based on the page move), well and good.

I should point out that roads that are not significant are likely to be deleted by people on Wikipedia who disagree with "road cruft". As such, roads which are significant are clearly denoted as such, as in they are given the article title corresponding to the route classification. This serves to dissuade would-be deletionists from nominating such articles for deletion.

In the case of the Outer Ring Road, there is another consideration. Only official status counts. There is no Outer Ring Road section that is not part of the R710, even if originally there was intended to be (that section which was supposed to be Phase I is not part of the Outer Ring Road now, as of 2006). You have reasonably explained this yourself in the article.

zoney ♣ talk 12:46, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

After further checking, the R710 and in fact the Outer Ring Road both *include* the Phase 1 link. Your initial version of the page was what threw me off. The distinction you made between the earlier and latter route sections is incorrect, and my re-inforcing of it more so.
As I pointed out, it is important that the article re-enforce the fact that it is part of the strategic road network, as a regional road. You can of course have an article about the Outer Ring Road - that's what the current article *is* about.
zoney ♣ talk 13:12, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I've fixed the article. In summary, the Outer Ring Road *is* the R710. That includes the older Phase 1 section of road. I was not attempting to shoe-horn in a separate article, I was attempting to tie your content together with the official route designations (which as it turns out, are *entirely* co-terminous), which are important. Without them, even as a Ring Road, it is "just another road". zoney ♣ talk 13:18, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The document I referred to above, that is linked, is available on the Dept. of Transport website. Earlier statutory instruments are available from irishstatutebook.ie, and some from the IRLII (Irish Legal Information Initiative or somesuch, some of my references link to it). There is a corresponding SI document detailing the National Roads (primary and secondary) at [2] (also PDF).
I was delighted when I found these, as the last comprehensive route designations were in 1994, and a lot has changed since then. And what is worse, is that despite the statutes being set in stone, new routes would have updated signage (suggesting redesignations despite their not appearing on statutes - examples are the M7 upgrades that realigned the N7).
At least now, reference can be made to the 2006 statutes (rather than mere guesswork based on new signage on recent projects), although even now, some projects have opened that change route alignments (I think the N2 towards Ashbourne is already different from the statutes).
The final confusion is that the county councils in particular are disinclined to bother updating old signs. So for example, the N7 is still signposted through Limerick city, despite the bypass being the new N7 (and the old one properly signposted as the R445 where it leaves the new N7).
Sorry for the messy editing and page moves. It's hard to communicate sometimes over talk pages, especially when both individuals are editing at the same time. Your own edits added good content to Wikipedia, I really just wanted to make sure they were correct with regard to official classifications (and of course, I got it wrong too until I more carefully compared the SI, your content, my edits, and maps).
zoney ♣ talk 13:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Addendum - if you were referencing the OS maps, they evidently just guessed at the route classification (not unusual). I note that the R710 is not defined in the 1994 SI [3], so until this year, it was anyones guess as to what it was.
zoney ♣ talk 13:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


Distance precision: The reason I changed the km to the nearest round figure is that I have applied a template to all Irish roads articles to standardise the layout. Most articles contained only rounded km; people from UK/US constantly added miles using automatic converters. Thus a road was described as 25 km in the original article turned into "the road is 16.62 miles (25 km) long". Which, given the original figure was (as is common practice on NRA publications) a rounded km figure and the miles given completely meaningless "precision". Also, to say "the road is 8 km (5 mi) long" is much less cluttered than writing "the road is 8.5 km (5.31 mi)" - which gives no additional useful information; even assuming the original figure is correct; which it is unlikely to be. The 8.5km above is itself almost certainly rounded. Should we go to the nearest meter, and say the road is 8.495 km long? "surely less granular information (when the information is available at a given accuracy) is a disimprovement?" It could actually be an improvement; road plans are usually available to one tenth of a meter; thus in the example above using the granularity argument we could write that 8.4953 km (5.27873 mi) is better. Not for anyone who has to read it! (Sarah777 23:01, 16 May 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Waterford

You might note that changing "town pop = 45,775" to "city pop = 45,775" just causes the population to disappear from the info box. The proper solution is to first change the template:Infobox Irish Place so that "city pop" is recognised and then change to "city pop = 45,775". Igf you are unsure of how to accomplish this change then leave a note on template talk:Infobox Irish Place requesting someone to investigate. Djegan 00:45, 10 January 2007 (UTC)