Talk:Shipston-on-Stour

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Well this keeps moving into Worcestershire for some reason, when Google says it's in Warwickshire. See User talk:G-Man Dunc_Harris|☺ 21:34, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Map shows that it is in the traditional county of Worcestershire. Article also states that it is administratively in Warwickshire. The article look a lot less stubbish with the map, too. I don't see anything disputable. 80.255 21:44, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Looking at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places), the acceptable wording would seem to be something along the lines of "Shipston-on-Stour is a town in Warwickshire, and is within the traditional borders of Worcestershire". Proteus (Talk) 21:54, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"traditional borders" and "traditional county" mean exactly the same thing, only the latter is slightly more precise, and can be linked to the appropriate article, as is the case here. Thus the wording is indeed acceptable. Administrative use of the word "county" is not in parentheses. You will notice that the last example of unacceptable practice is implying that a county, which explicitly continued to exist following 1888, was abolished. And Shipston-on-Stour could only cease to be Worcestershire if this had been the case. Thus stating that it is not in this traditional county is unacceptable according to policy. 80.255 22:25, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

'Yawn, weve been through this before many times. Policy states clearly

We should use the current, administrative, county. E.g. Eton is in Berkshire, not Buckinghamshire.

End of story

Your fixation with traditional counties is obsessional to the point of being disturbing. G-Man 22:33, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

We are using the administrative county; the article (naming conventions) means that this article is not named Shipston-on_stour, Worcestershire. The one line that you quote doesn't really give much practical advice on the policy in question. It is far more enlightening to examine the acceptable and unacceptable examples given.
Policy clearly states that
Middlesex was a county of England
is unacceptable. Thus is it unacceptable to state that middlesex is no longer a county. Yet this county is certainly not an administrative unit. Neither is the Worcestershire that contains Shipston-on-Stour. Thus it is equally unacceptable to refer to this traditional county in the past tense, or otherwise imply that it has ceased to exist.
Let's look at what is acceptable:
Middlesex is a traditional county of England
Thus is is equally acceptable and within policy to state that Worcestershire is a traditional county of England - and it would be obviously absurd to accept this yet insist that nothing lies with the traditional county of Worcestershire! One such place that lies within it is Shipston-on-Stour.
It would be unacceptable if I were to put the incidences of the word "county" in reference to administrative Warwickshire in "scare-quotes" - but I am not. Since the policy itself refers to administrative counties as the entities article-naming should involve, it is right that the term administrative county be used when reference is made to them.
This article states that
1) the town is in Warwickshire (administratively)
2) it is in the traditional county of Worcestershire
Thus, policy is followed!
Rather than throwing about silly exclamations of 'obsessionalism', stop trying to eradicate all references to traditional counties in a manner that is exemplified as being unacceptable and follow the policy! 80.255 23:04, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Please stop selectively mis-quoting and distorting the policy page, this is not what people voted for and you know that perfectly well. Your version of the Shipston page is not acceptable end-of-story. G-Man 23:11, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It is you who are distorting policy to meet your own opinion, and you know it very well yourself. Saying "X isn't acceptable" is not an acceptable dialogue, particularly when I have explained logically how it is, using clear exmaples from what policy says is acceptable to support my position. Either logically counter my argument stop changing. It is against policy to continually revert whilst refusing to discuss and defend your changes in a logical way in talk. I have offered detailed argument for my changes, and shown that they are perfectly in line with policy. You have done no such thing. Either argue your reverts in a logical and consistent way by countering my argument point by point, or stop reverting my changes! To continue blindly reverting and refusing to discuss and argue your changes is a far more serious breach of policy than anything you accuse me of. 80.255 23:23, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
There is a very clear policy which your edits are contravening. To quote from it: We should mention historic counties in articles about places and in references to places in a historic context, but only as an afternote. If you wish to dispute the policy, then you should do so at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (places), not by editing individual articles so that they do not comply with it. Saying "X isn't acceptable" is perfectly reasonable in this case, where X clearly contravenes policy. Warofdreams 13:36, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
There is a very clear policy that mentioning of historic counties is acceptable and claiming that they were abolished is unacceptable.
Examples of acceptable things:
  • Middlesex is a traditional county of England
Examples of unacceptable things:
  • Middlesex was a county of England. It was abolished in 1965
Thus it is completely within policy to say XYZ is in the traditional county of Middlesex. Similarly, it is completely acceptable to say XYZ is in the traditional county of Worcestershire.
The convention is largely concerned with how articles are named, and it states the administrative counties should be used as qualifiers in article names - thus XYZ, Middlesex would would not be acceptable under this policy. This is not a dispute about naming. This is not a dispute about replacing administrative information with traditional counties. Reference to the administrative county appears first in the article. In an article of this size, the concept of what consitutes an "after note" (however you define that) has little meaning. Saying that Shipston-on_stour lies within the traditional county of Worcestershire is totally within this policy and it is clearly not contravening it in any way. The examples of unacceptable things given by the policy also makes it clear that reference to "former counties" or use of the past tense to describe traditional counties is unacceptable (and indeed completel illogical, since traditional county is a term used to describe entities that exist). G-Man is attempting to do this in direct contravention to the example above given as part of the policy to describe unacceptable usage. 80.255 15:45, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)


I was just going by what's further down that page:
Examples of acceptable things:
  • Coventry is in the West Midlands, and within the traditional borders of Warwickshire
Proteus (Talk) 23:01, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Map used

Can I just point out that the map used on this page, although from a 19th century Encyclopedia is a John Cary published in 1787? I can tell because of the style used. Compare this Cary map of Bucks dated the same year. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 15:38, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The style is completely different, and the map looks nothing like any of Cary's. Have a look at the whole map [1] and compare to as many examples of cary's work as you like. This map was published in 1888. You will note, if you compare to to a Cary map of Worcestershire, that the county lacks the exclave of Iccomb (locally in gloucestershire), a large enclave of warwickshire and a smaller enclave of Herefordshire, all administratively affected in 1844. The style of the map is completely different, and rather more precise than Cary, too. It may have a long-evolved basis in a Cary work, but it shows the situation in 1888, not 1787. I can only suggest you look at a lot more Cary maps and get more of a feel for them; I've looked at dozens. 80.255 15:54, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Plus, it's got railway lines on it: has to be the second half of the 19th century to have that sort of extensive network, I'd have thought. [[User:Noisy|Noisy | Talk]] 18:27, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] References

80,255 asked for references for the claim that SoS is commonly considered to be in Warwickshire. Well for starters the town council website describes it as a "town in southern Warwickshire"

Secondly a google search of Shipston-on-Stour, Worcestershire turns up only 153 results, most of which refer to SoS being in Worcs in the past tense. And the rest are geniology websites.

Whereas a google search for Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire turns up 10,400 results, roughly 62 times more than for Worcesteshire.

Thirdly Shipston-on-Stour is featured in many books about Warwickshire. For example Warwickshire Towns & Villages states that until 1931 Shipston was in Worcestershire. Do you need any more convincing. G-Man 22:37, 13 August 2005 (UTC)


Firstly, you are being very selective in your use of Google. A Google search for Shipston Worcestershire[2] produces 33,200 results; A Google search for Shipston Warkwickshire[3] produces 64,000 - not even twice the number of the first search!
Secondly, you are welcome to mention in the article how many google search results various phrases involving shipston and various counties produce; I, for one, would not consider this very encyclopaedic, however. It doesn't justify your sweeping assertion.
Mention that the town council considers it to be Warwickshire — fine. (This isn't surprising as the town council is funded by hierachy of council within the body called "warwickshire county council" - so naturally, it would use a purely administrative frame of reference.)
Provide specific citations from your "many books about Warwickshire" if you wish — fine. The fact that books tend to be concerned largely with administrative functions makes such evidence misleading, and of not a lot of value out of context (the context of local government).
But unless you can produce a survey or similar, adding things like "it is commonly considered bla bla" is unverifiable and POV, just as if I were to add that the Labour government was "commonly disliked" in the article concerning it, however true I may feel such a statement would be.
Lastly, why is it necessary to add such a statment anyway? It has nothing to do with policy; the article clearly states the administrative county at its start, and it seems to me that you are persuing this silly little piece of completely unsubstaniable POV for no other reason than to start an edit war over it. 80.255 23:00, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
I am astonished at the Google argument. Surely you understand that to search for a phrase in Google you must put the words in quotes as G-Man did? Also, I wonder if you read any of the hits returned by your Google search ?
This does not follow; G-Man's search using quotation marks would obviously not register pages using the shorter term "Shipston" rather than "Shipston-on-Stour", and nor would it register pages including the text "Shipston is a place in Worcestershire" or "I am from Shipston, a town in Worcestershire", etc., etc. My search was merely to show a strong connection between mentions of the town and mentions of Worcestershire; there is little else that can be shown using google.80.255 13:50, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
The top hit for Shipston Worcestershire reads, 'Shipston on Stour 1861 Census, formerly Worcestershire, now Warwickshire' (My emphasis).
The second hit reads the same and is from the same website.
The third reads, 'This parish was transferred from Worcestershire to Warwickshire in 1931'
And that is a single result, from a census document that will naturally use wholly administrative divisions. The trouble with google in these matters is that official government documents will always be over-represented, but the views of normal people who consider the town to be in Worcestershire are far less likely to create web pages about it for google to find. This fact of internet mechanics does not 'prove' that the town is overwhelmingly considered to be in Warks, by any stretch - it is not possible to 'prove' this using google! 80.255 13:50, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
The fourth is not about Shipston at all, it's about Burmington which it says is 'on the Worcestershire border, about four miles south of Shipston'. This says nothing about which county Shipston is in.
The fifth is an historical article about the workhouse. It refers to a time when Shipston was in Worcestershire.
Shipston has always been in Worcestershire and still is. The entity called 'Worcestershire' and used for local government purposes until 1889 still has never been abolished, and still contains shipston. Successive government have made this fact very clear though their statements; General Register Office's Census Reports of 1891, 1901 and 1911 further showed that the Ancient or Geographical counties containued to exist. 80.255 13:50, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
There's really no need to continue except to say that adding the quotes results in 27 hits for Worcestershire and 119 for Warwickshire. In no way can Google be used to support your assertions in the Shipston article. Chris Jefferies 08:48, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
I'm not using google to support anything; on the contrary - I am arguing that google results mean very little in disputes like these, and cannot be used to justify the line to which I initially objected. Claiming the Shipston is 'usually considered' to be in warwickshire is not verifiable information, and, short of an full survey in support of it, it does not fall within the high standards of accuracy and verifiability acceptable, in my opinion. Unless you or G-Man confine this statement to specific examples of who considers the town to be in Warwickshire (e.g. Local Government), I shall continue to object to it. Professional statisticians frequently make mistakes when trying to determine what people think, and it falls well below the verifiability standard to have articles containing vague statements like this on the whim of someone who happens to think in the same way. 80.255 13:50, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Actually all of the available evidence shows that SoS is overwhelmingly considered to be in Warwickshire as has been clearly demonstrated above. You have yet to provide a single scrap of evidence to the contrary, other than make vaugue bleatings about "well the people think its in Worcestershire really" well prove it then, provide evidence. Or could it be that most of the world doesn't subscribe to your extremist views about traditional counties, and use administrative boundaries instead. G-Man 21:38, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

It isn't up to me to disprove you; it's up to you to substantiate your generalisation. I'm quite happy with the article stating that local government consider it to be in warks. Google search results, though acceptable for proving the mere existence of a phrase, do not meaningfully support your point. You are adding simply what you think is true; and this cannot possibly be verified short of providing a wholesale survey. Remember, this is your change, not mine; the ball is still in your court. 80.255 22:06, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

I have substantiated my statement to all reasonable degree. Of course you have set your goalposts of "acceptable proof" to rediculously high levels, which you know perfectly well can never be met, how convenient. Frankly I'm not interested in meeting your absurd criteria.

Your present wording of "considered to be in Warks for local government" gives a highly misleading and POV impression, that it is not considered to be in Warks geographically. Which there is not a shred of evidence to support. If you would like to porvide any evidence that people in SoS consider it to be in Worcs then I would be happy to see it. Of course you wont be able to because there isn't any. G-Man 22:27, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

It was you who mentioned the fact that the parish council, etc. considers it in Warks, not I. I should have thought that this fact was blantantly obvvious, but you wanted to add it. I've removed the "considered to be in Warks for local government" bit. Are you happy with it now? 80.255 23:01, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
Incidentally, just to show the quality of your google 'evidence', the following search for "London, Scotland" (in quotation marks) produces over 57,000 results. So shall I rush to the London article and add "London is often considered to be in Scotland"?
I don't have an 'argument' here to persue which says Shipston is usually thought of as being in Worcestershire; that sort of statement would just as flawed as yours. My argument is merely with exactly this sort of generalised and unverifiable attempt to promulgate a POV. You have not substantiated this to a reasonable degree at all, because it is not a statement substantiatble by a 'google test'. Would you be happy to see the Bexleyheath article changed to say that "Bexleyheath is usually thought of as being in Kent" on the grounds that "bexleyheath, Kent" produces over 35,500 google hits, whereas "bexleyheath, London" produces only 3,200, and "Bexleyheath, London borough of Bexley" produces only one, the very same wikipedia article on it (so much for your ideas about naming things using the administrative county!)? 80.255 23:24, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
Addendum: "bexleyheath, Bexley" produces a mere 517 results, most of them listing both bexleyheath and bexley, rather than giving the former as being in the latter, just in case you were thinking about accusing me of selectively using google.
"bexleyheath, Greater London" produces even fewer - just over 400. So off you trot to the Bexleyheath article to emphasise the fact that this place is almost universally considered to be in a county that you would have us believe ceased to exist 116 years ago! 80.255 23:31, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Of course it suits your argument to omit that most of the sites you have dredged up are of little relevance. I could carry on arguing but I cant be bothered. As far as I'm concearned (and so apparently is most of the world) the fact that SoS used to be in Worcestershire is an obscure historical footnote, rather than having anything to do with modern day geography. Which the artcle as it is seems to refelect. Frankly I can live with the article as it presently is, as long as Warwickshire is far more prominent in the article. G-Man 00:24, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

My argument is that google tests in these sorts of situations don't have much value; my own examples serve to prove this, and are not designed to constitute a new argument for Bexleyheath or anywhere else. Pending any possible forthcoming change of policy, I find this (Shipston) article tolerable as it stands. Perhaps, then, we can therefore desist from this silly, back-and-forth reverting?
Incidentally, I couldn't give two hoots for your irrelevant opinions on whether this-or-that is an "obscure historical footnote" or not, so please don't waste your time giving them to me. 80.255 00:35, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sports

I thought i would add something about sports in the town. TomBelton —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.61.83.76 (talk) 13:43, 17 April 2007 (UTC).