Wikipedia talk:UK Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 6

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Contents

Wikimania travel plans

Which flights are people taking to Wikimania? Should we try and take the same one? I figure I booked pretty much the standard one for people going from the London area and just staying four nights. Edward 28 June 2005 22:32 (UTC)

Mine's a special one 'cause I'm helping out with the organisation (and desperately efficient - well, no, not really, but...). James F. (talk) 4 July 2005 23:17 (UTC)
Sadly I'm not going though would like to. Never mind, maybe I'll make it next time. -- Francs2000 | Talk 21:34, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

British Airways - London Heathrow (LHR) / Frankfurt (FRA)

  • Going out: Saturday, 30th of July, 2005: BA0904, depart 10:40 (BST), arrive 13:15 (CEST)
  • Coming back: Saturday, 9th of August, 2005: BA0905, depart 14:40 (CEST), arrive 15:15 (BST)
  • Going out: Thu, 4 August: BA0904, dep 1040 BST, arr 1315 CEST
  • Coming back: Mon, 8 August: BA0911, dep 1855 CEST, arr 1935 BST
  • Going out: Thu, 4 August: BA0906, dep 1155 BST, arr 1430 CEST
  • Coming back: Mon, 8 August: BA0909, dep 1715 CEST, arr 1750 BST
  • Going out: Thu, 4 August: BA0908, dep 1355 BST, arr 1635 CEST
  • Coming back: Mon, 8 August: BA0909, dep 1715 CEST, arr 1750 BST
    • IulianU 20:15, 1 August 2005 (UTC) (booked early May; 1315 arrival time sounds much better :D )

Ryanair - London Stansted(STN) to Hahn Frankfurt(HHN)

  • Going out: Thu, 4 August 2005 Flight FR756 Depart STN at 10:55 and arrive HHN at 13:10
  • Coming back: Mon, 8 August 2005 Flight FR755 Depart HHN at 13:35 and arrive STN at 13:50

BMI - Heathrow Airport Flight BD3197

  • Depart at 12:40 and arrive at Frankfurt 3:10

British Airways - Bristol (BRS) to Frankfurt (FRA)

  • going out: Thu, 4 August: BA4101, dep 15:30 (BST), arr 18:20 (CEST)
  • coming back: Mon, 8 August: BA4102, dep 19:00 (CEST), arr 19:50 (BST)

Scots Wikipedia

Just to let people know in case anyone missed it. A Scots version of Wikipedia is now operational. Anyone who knows some Scots and wants to contribute is welcome to do so. -- Cheers Derek Ross | Talk 3 July 2005 23:14 (UTC)

I've added it to Wikipedia:Wikiportal/United_Kingdom -- Joolz 3 July 2005 23:30 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/British and Irish current events

Thought I'd bring to your attention that British and Irish current events has been proposed for deletion, since nobody's put anything on it since May. Personally I object to this listing since the proposer and most of those voting to delete seem to have little posting history beyond a month or so, and seem to limit most of their edits to VFD!! You may care to pop over and vote to keep. As I note on the VFD page, several other regional current events pages haven't been edited since May either, and they're not up for deletion. -- Arwel 6 July 2005 18:41 (UTC)

The best thing to do if you want to keep it is to add to it and keep it updated. If you demonstrate that it will be updated that's the best way to get it kept. -- Joolz 6 July 2005 18:46 (UTC)

Charva

I'd really like help with this page - I'd almost nominate it for VfD but for the unpleasant people who hang out there. This page is not NPOV, and really should be merged with chav anyway. It's appalling class prejudice - calling them "scum" in the first para etc. There seem to be lots of regional variants appearing all over the wiki - all with similar problems. This one has a photo of someone to illustrate the stereotype - does this person know they are being used like this? (They are actually people which may surprise some contributors). This is just nasty and horrible. I hate the pure prejudice that has produced articles like this. Thankfully our articles on race issues are nothing like this. Secretlondon 19:31, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Yep I would certainly support Vfd, or perhaps a complete re-write, it is certainly pure bullshit. Following my attempt to NPOV it just now and the reaction by User:Hedley, I think its probably a fairly hopeless case. G-Man 20:14, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
Seems to have been written by some sixteen year-olds with a superiority complex. Let's get it deleted. adamsan 20:52, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
Agree with everything said above, particularly after reading the edit summary which reverted G-Man's changes.--Telsa 21:57, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Done, SqueakBox 21:28, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

Open Tech 2005

I know it is short notice, but I going to Open Tech 2005 in London this Saturday, 20 July 2005 and I wonder if any other wikipedians are going. Edward 21:55:42, 2005-07-20 (UTC)

Edward, this Saturday is 23rd July. I know that because I'm helping to organise a family history event here in Aylesbury (if anyone fancies a day out). -- Francs2000 | Talk 22:05, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
Whoops. Thanks. Yes, I meant Saturday, 23 July 2005. Edward 06:32:26, 2005-07-21 (UTC)

Heads up

Someone just removed all references to Scotland and England being nations, inserting "kingdom" instead. I've reverted their edits, but it might be one that needs watching. -- Francs2000 | Talk 23:32, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm assuming it was Dudtz (talk · contribs); did you leave a note on their talk page? Talrias (t | e | c) 00:37, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
How did you know? -- Francs2000 | Talk 00:41, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
I cunningly looked through the edit history of England :) Talrias (t | e | c) 13:30, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Well Dudtz might want watching in general. He's leaping between pages, making wild generalisations on their talk pages about the content, and then getting leapt on by a multitude of users. It's actually quite fun to watch. -- Francs2000 | Talk 22:02, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

It's strange - I don't think I've seen anyone trolling talk pages like that before... Shimgray 22:49, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

more vandalism

Somebody who understands the sport might like to review the anonymous edits to Aberdeen F.C. today. They look quite POV to me, and I've reverted a bunch of edits to other football articles from one of these editors, but I can't tell if anything's worth keeping in this article from the last 13 edits (ten in the last 5 hours). --ScottDavis 14:28, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

London Meetup

There will be (yet another ;-)) London meetup on Sunday, the 11th of September.

James F. (talk) 15:07, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

1996 Manchester City Centre bombing

There has recently been an edit war at the 1996 Manchester City Centre bombing page. As User:Lapsed Pacifist who appears to be a noted Irish Republican POV pusher (by a number of people), keeps removing references to terrorism on the article. Even though that is quite obviously what it was.

I thought I should bring this to everyones attention. G-Man 20:17, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for letting us know, though I will leave it to others to sort out as it was a bit close to heart, that one. If you know what I mean. -- Francs2000 | Talk 21:37, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
It appears that User:Lapsed Pacifist has been blocked for several days. Never the less he should be watched carefully. G-Man 22:23, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
User:Lapsed Pacifist is continuing his war against NPOV on many other pages. I'd like to ask for assistance in dealing with this person, as he is an unapologetic broker of bigotry. Nearside 22:17, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

British vs. English in category names

I realize that there's a significant distinction in meaning between "British" and "English", but in practice it seems to me that it's often applied arbitrarily in Wikipedia categories. For instance, I just grouped several titles by Virginia Woolf into a Books by Virginia Woolf category, and noted that some of them had been filed as "English novels" and others as "British novels". I'm not going to suggest a category merge, since I know they're two different things, but I would suggest that somebody should probably take a few hours to do some cleanup on English vs. British in categories. Bearcat 22:19, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

This is the same problem as has dogged English literature - as to whether it means literature in English, or literature of England, or British literature in English. People seem to have had various intentions as to categorising what they perceive as novels in English, novels of England, and (presumably) British novels in English. Man vyi 15:33, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
Leaving aside the ambiguities around English (ie. referring to the language or to the country), I think there is another point here. The adjective 'British' means pertaining to the island of Britain (ie. a piece of topography). It has no particular political or cultural significance, unlike either United Kingdom or English (or indeed Scottish or Welsh). I would treat with great suspicion *any* category with British in it, unless it is clearly in a topographic context. If not, it is almost certainly a misnomer for a category that is really about either the UK or England. -- Chris j wood 18:04, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
I couldn't disagree more. This country is called the Uninited Kingdom of Great Britain (and N.I.). The correct adjective to describe things that come from this country is British. "England" hasn't existed as a nation since 1707. The idea that we should pretend that England Scotland and Wales are countries is nothing less than fanciful regional nationalism. Next the cornish will be wanting a seperate group of Categories from 'England'.
Things from Great Britain should be called British; the main language of Great Britain should be called 'British English'; 'England' and 'Scotland' should refer to former countries that ceased to exist in in 1707; 'Wales' is nothing more than an area of Great Britain that has never been an independent country in its 'popular definition' or its definition for the purposes of local government. 80.255 16:33, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
If one is to debate this topic one must recognise that the term "nation" and the term "country" are not synonymous. One is cultural, whilst the other is political. Using terms such as "English", "Welsh", "Scottish" etc. does not mean that one recognizes them as seperate countries, but as seperate peoples. For example: Robert Burns and William Williams Pantycelyn were both British poets, but their writings were informed by very different cultural heritages. Rje 22:58, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

BET: Black Entertainment Television

I'm trying to verify an edit by a problematic editor who does some good edits but too many nonsense edits. Does anyone know if Black Entertainment Television has any broadcast in the United Kingdom? I couldn't find out anything on their website, but I am guessing that at least BET Jazz might be available on cable or satellite in the UK. TIA. BlankVerse ∅ 05:44, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

This appears to have been sorted. Someone has checked and not available on sky or telewest. We could possibly check NTL cable and freeview but afaik it is a US-only channel. Secretlondon 19:42, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
If it isn't on Sky it isn't on UK TV, SqueakBox 20:13, August 1, 2005 (UTC)
FYI, there are channels on UK television that aren't carried by Sky ... --Vamp:Willow 13:23, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Lancashire Parliamentary Constituencies

Don't know where else to put this!! I am amending the Lancashire Parliamentary Info pages to the best of my knowledge. If anyone can help, please do. dok 21:08, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

(Transferred from Category talk:UK Wikipedians by Francs2000 | Talk 10:01, 8 August 2005 (UTC))

The place for discussion of and working on constituency pages is Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Parliament constituencies. There's a few people helping out on them there. Vclaw 17:51, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

England geo-stub Weirdness

If you check out Category:England geography stubs, you'll notice that there's a load of stubs there for Northumberland towns and villages. However, a few hours ago, hardly any were there, even though many pages had the stub linking to it. I went through List of places in Northumberland and for every page with england-geo-stub, I clicked edit, changed nothing, then saved. They then popped up on the England geography stubs page. Why is this? Is it a bug? Is it just me? - Hahnchen 23:52, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Categorisation sometimes is weird like this - AIUI, if you have transcluded things (like the stub templates) which include a category, then it sometimes needs a null edit (ie, what you did) to the page with a transclusion for it to show up on the category page. I believe this is also the case if the transcluded category changes. Shimgray 00:36, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Malt whisky

I note that this has been deleted, although it is still linked to from several places (mostly via the broken redirect Wikipedia:WikiProject Malt Whisky) and only three people participated in the deletion discussion - and one of those is a VFD addict. I've no idea whether it was worth keeping or not, but I thought I'd bring it to people's attention anyway. If nobody wants it resurrected I'll list the broken redirect for deletion. sjorford →•← 15:46, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Heads Up: A Familiar Soap Box

At Talk:Buckinghamshire and Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (places)#Trad counties of England infoboxes User:80.255 and User:Owain have pulled out a familiar soap box and are asserting that Buckinghamshire (traditional) should exist as a separate article from Buckinghamshire or History of Buckinghamshire. This does get rather repetitive I'm afraid. -- Francs2000 | Talk 23:42, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Deletion list

Hello,

I just wanted to let you know about a list of UK-related items on Votes for Deletion. It's part of WikiProject Deletion sorting, and you can find it here. I hope you can use it to track and contribute to UK-related deletion debates. This list gets a lot of traffic, and it might be useful to subdivide it further -- however, I will leave that up to expert local editors such as yourselves.

If you find the list useful, please also help keep it up to date.

By the way, new deletion sorters are welcome and needed. Join us!

Cheers,

-- Visviva 03:33, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

  • Thank you for this. It took me a mere 3 hours to go through it all... Secretlondon 06:18, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Wow, this looks like a good idea, but I imagine it might take a lot of work to maintain? -- Joolz 09:47, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

London Meetup finalised

This is just a notice that the next London Meetup will be as follows:

Date  
Sunday the 11th September 2005
Time  
13:00 onwards
Place  
A pub, yet again, this time The Archery Tavern just next to Lancaster Gate tube station (they do food, too).
People 
All welcome, especially people who haven't made it to one of the London meetups yet.
Topics 
Anything and everything wiki, including further discussions on setting up a UK Chapter. Maybe.

Meetups are always fun (well, they have been so far); feel free to come along. If you are going to do so, please add your name to the list (yes, I know, it should probably be on Meta; it isn't for hysterical raisins). If you're already on the list, please check that you can still make it, and possible upgrade your status to "definite".  :-)

Look forward to seeing as many as possible of you all there.

James F. (talk) 23:22, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Cricket disambiguation

There is currently a debate about whether cricket should be about the sport or a disambiguation page (triggered largely by the claim that US people only recognise the insect. Please see the discussion and "poll" at Talk:cricket. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:32, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Birmingham meetup

User:TheoClarke is proposing a meetup in Birmingham in January (about time too), see Wikipedia:Meetup/Birmingham. G-Man 12:27, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

How do I add my profile?

Hello,

I'm a Uk TV presenter and would like to add my profile.

Is this possible?

Thank you.

  • Hey there, it's probably best not to do it, many will consider writing autobiographies vanity, if you're important enough someone else will come along and write it instead, the guidelines (see links) say don't do it! :P -- Joolz 11:18, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Assuming you are James McCourt, there already is an article about you. As the links Joolz provided say, you should be careful editing articles about yourself. i.e. make sure you keep it factually accurate, verifiable and Neutral point of view. --Vclaw 13:32, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
  • And adding it to Richard McCourt is just plain wrong! -- ALoan (Talk) 23:25, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
  • You could just create yourself a user profile like everyone else. -- Francs2000 | Talk 00:00, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
  • By the way if you uploaded that photo, Image:Test17.jpg (horrible name!), sooner or later it'll get listed for deletion for having inadequate copyright release information - we prefer photos to be released under the GFDL (put {{gfdl}} on the image description page), or a similar "free" license, or in the Public Domain. See Wikipedia:Copyright and Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for details. If you paid for the photograph to be taken, you may own the image copyright and be able to grant us a license, or the photographer may still own the copyright and you'd need to get his/her agreement. -- Arwel 00:17, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Ilfracombe

This page needs watching. I've just removed an awful lot of nonsense editing from the article that has been added in spits and spurts since the beginning of August. As the editor(s) appear to have been coming back to the page again and again I wouldn't be surprised if it gets added back. I can't warn them personally because they have a proxy IP. -- Francs2000 | Talk 20:28, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Bill Oddie

A tense debate has arisen as to whether to categorise him as a native of Birmingham. It's not where he was born but it is where he grew up, SqueakBox 22:22, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Sounds remarkably like another debate Morwen and I had with a certain usera while back regarding Engelbert Humperdinck, who although he was actually born in India is widely regarded by Leicestrians as being a Leicester boy through and through. I'm not entirely sure that one got resolved fully either, I just think all parties burned each other out. -- Francs2000 | Talk 00:24, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Maybe the problem is with the word "native", which is generally taken as meaning born there. Perhaps if the category was changed to "People of Birmingham" it could be more acceptable. I would suggest changing all of the "Natives of county" to "People of county/city" etc.
It would also be more consistent with Category:People by nationality, which are all "country-ish people", or "people of country" (note there are policy proposals for the "x by nationality" categories, see Wikipedia:Category titles. --Vclaw 11:17, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Well when I created Category:People of Buckinghamshire it was with the intention of including people who live there who weren't born there. That was because the original list on the Buckinghamshire page includes all sorts. -- Francs2000 | Talk 11:42, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Two different concepts would best be reflected by two different categories: "Residents of Birmingham" and "Natives of Birmingham" are both potential subcategories of "People of Birmingham". Oddie is a native of Rochadale and a past resident of Birmingham and (I understand) a present resident of Blackburn and London.

Photos from Geograph website

I just noticed the Geograph website at http://www.geograph.co.uk/ and it has loads of medium-sized photos that are cc-by-sa-2.0 and aims to cover the whole of the UK and Ireland. I have already contributed 1 image and if you're just searching for general things it's a good idea to use google to search it - http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=site%3Ageograph.co.uk&meta= but I just thought I'd mention it here. Dunc|☺ 19:44, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Now that is cool! Very handy, especially as people tend to take photos of major buildings! Greg Robson 22:51, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Not sure - terms say (after creative commons notes) - looks dubious alas:

The Geograph.co.uk Collective reserves the right to impose additional terms and conditions upon Your use and viewing of the Site, and any such terms and conditions may be posted on the Site in connection with those Site Materials. You may not reproduce or retransmit the Site Materials, in whole or in part, in any manner, without the prior written consent of the owner of such materials, except as follows: You may make a single copy of the Site Materials solely for Your personal, non-commercial use, but such copying must be consistent with any applicable additional terms and conditions and You must preserve any copyright, trademark, or other notices contained in or associated with such Site Materials. You may not distribute such copies to others, whether or not in electronic form and whether or not for a charge or other consideration, without prior written consent of the owner of such materials. Justinc 23:28, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

very unclear what this refers to as the images are clearly CC licensed (although low res).Justinc 23:34, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Their terms and conditions are a load of rubbish in my opinion. The images are clearly licenced as cc-by-sa-2.0. -- Joolz 00:21, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

First note that they are cc-by-sa-2.0 not cc-by-2.0 and cover the whole of the UK and Ireland. It does appear to be contradictory - I might have to contact them. But they seem to be pro-open source and it also says in their FAQ "Images are licenced for re-use under a Creative Commons Licence" Dunc|☺ 21:18, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I got a msg back Dunc|☺ 16:20, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

As long as you abide by the terms of the CC licence linked from each individual image (which at present is always 'CC-by-sa-2.0', but not guaranteed to be) you are free to use the images! If you're planning a large scale reuse of the entire archive, please work with us so we can give you a dump of the images without hitting the primary server too hard. Let me know what you need and I'll see what we can sort out for you.

Lancashire railway stations

Just to advise - I have created articles for the Lancashire rail stations of Leyland, Euxton and Chorley. The more technical side of Wiki is burning my brain a little, so I hope the boxes and templates greet you well. dok 09:15, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Finished some more new entries on the railway stations category. It's very frustating to see how many blank spaces there are! When I got to Ormskirk, I noticed I couldn't find any pre-chosen colour for Merseyrail so I chose yellow (as their trains are yellow). I hope this is okay with people. Is there a railway "group" or community on here? I can't find anyone specific to talk to about this! dok 06:00, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps Portal talk:Trains is that specific place? Thryduulf 11:13, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Aluminium

People are trying to enforce US spelling on the Aluminium page, see talk:Aluminium. Jooler 06:42, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

People are trying to enforce US spelling on the Aluminium page... because that is the first version of English used on that page as per Wikipedias guidelines. Note that this does not affect the spelling of the word Aluminium itself. Please stop revert warring on this issue. Note that I am also a UK Wikipedian, and wrote/rewrote most of the section on the history of spelling aluminium. -- Solipsist 07:10, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
The first version of the article was written by an English Medical student (user:Sodium), using the British spelling of Aluminium. End of. Jooler 08:32, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

There are some legitimate questions over the original use of English in the article beginning to appear at talk:Aluminium. Its threatening to become a messy argument now, which is a shame because there had been a stable truce for a while. -- Solipsist 14:06, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

This kind of petty argument is probably inevitable, despite your best efforts. I'm keeping away from it. Spelling doesn't matter as much as good behaviour. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:49, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

I would agree that it can be petty, however, I do think it's important to stop the US contributors from dictating a minority perspective, especially if they think they are the majority. I don't know where this "the US has the most native English speakers" bit comes from (it's illogical if nothing else), but I have noticed that the article on the English language tends to support that contrived view. Since they like to self-reference perhaps we should make an effort to find some more accurate sources to improve that article. It would give a firmer foundation for arguing against minority perspectives dictating against factual accuracy in other areas. Wiki-Ed 13:23, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Talk:Unionists (Scotland)

What does 'unionist' mean in a Scottish context (as opposed to Ulster). Some informed Scots contributing to a debate on this article would be helpful. --Doc (?) 08:05, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Support needed

Support is needed to prevent those who have little understanding of the matter from moving the pages at Talk:The Football Association and talk:The Football League Jooler 13:24, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Presumably, "those who have little understanding of the matter" are those who don't agree with you? -- Necrothesp 14:39, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
This is a manual of style issue. They should be at Football Association and Football League. See [1]

. I'm afraid you are wrong on this one. Secretlondon 14:44, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm afraid you're wrong on this one. The Football Association and The Football League are the correct and official names, and The FA is even cited 0n Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(definite_and_indefinite_articles_at_beginning_of_name)#Official_names Jooler 17:42, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
It really shouldn't have been according to the page's own rule of thumb: "If the definite or indefinite article article would be capitalized in running text, then include it at the beginning of the page name. Otherwise, do not include it at the beginning of the page name." I think very few people would capitalise it in the running text. The BBC, for instance, doesn't appear to. Neither does The Times, the British newspaper of record. -- Necrothesp 17:54, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
The FA should be capitalised in running text. What better authority in this particular case than FIFA? [2], [3],[4],[5],[6] (also as The F.A. [7], [8],[9],[10]) -sometimes writers do not adhere to this rule as you find when people write "the Hague" or "the Beatles", but it is the correct rule in this case. The main point is that there are many national Football Associations, but there is no "England Football Association", or "Football Association of England", it has primacy as the founder of the game itself and it is "The Football Association". Football Association without the definite article simply doesn't convey this. User:Jooler|Jooler]] 06:12, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
As the policy says, this is about common usage, not the organisation's official policy, and common usage is very definitely not to capitalise in running text. Sorry, but if The Times and the BBC don't do it then it's not common usage to do it. We always use common usage on Wikipedia, and that's how it should be. -- Necrothesp 20:57, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Talk:Jim Davidson (comedian)

A proposed addition to this article is languishing on the talk page. The sole comment on it so far has been an objection from one of the vandals who had been scribbling all over the article before I protected it, on the grounds that the cited source doesn't support what the vandal had been scribbling. Comments from editors who haven't been vandalizing the article would be welcome. Proposed additional text further discussing how people view this person, similarly attributed to specific cited sources, would also be welcome. Uncle G 02:58:58, 2005-09-09 (UTC)

Election coverage - request for comment

New Zealand has its general election in one week's time. Can British wikipedians who covered the 2005 UK election for Wikipedia comment at the New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board on what pages were set up and how the coverage on Wikipedia was organised. Any suggestions for improvements we could make to the process? Thanks in advance.-gadfium 03:00, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

BBC Archive

The BBC have opened up an archive of material under the Creative Archive Licence ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4225914.stm )and initially I thought that this means that Wikipedia will be able to use the archive to create images for Wikipedia, however http://creativearchive.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/03/the_rules_in_br_1.html says "The Creative Archive content is made available to broadband users within the UK for use [primarily] within the UK" - so I don't think we can use the material. Jooler 19:06, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

More importantly, no commercial use: "you can't sell or profit financially in any way from the use of the Creative Archive content." Which disqualifies our (commercial) downstream re-users, as discussed ad nauseam in the old debate about "non-commercial only" images. –Hajor 19:32, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
Lousy. Why does everything have to be so restrictive? All the hype re:using a creative commons style license. They are nc-by-sa but with UK-only and no endorsement restrictions. Secretlondon 23:04, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

It is a shame about the UK only restrictions, though they claim this is because of copyright problems they would face if they allowed these things outside the UK. Presumably the commercial problem is based on the wikipedia copyright releasing the material for commercial purposes as well, as we are not responsible for what others do with our product. I think wikipedia are right to release under a copyright that includes for commercial purposes, so we just have to resign ourselves, SqueakBox 23:15, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

I think it's based on an out-of-date perception of the way people work. The internet doesn't respect national boundries - how can you have a UK only license? Do they go by server location or user location? Would we be expected to limit access by IP address or something? Their definition of non-commercial is also awful - personal or "education use within any educational establishment". They define educational establishment as bodies covered set out under S174 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 and accredited and/or state funded museums. All use by a non-educational body seems to be banned. Secretlondon 23:37, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I am sure it will be an IP address based restriction. I was not happy when they first announced UK restrictions to the programmes they were then still planning to release (possibly everything they broadcast), and they wrote back to me saying such a restriction was fundamentally because of copyright reasonsand changed their publicity (article) to reflect this fact. So no EastEnders for me (an ex pat)! On a side note MSN only let you watch their videos on IE or Netscape (ie not on Opera or Firefox), so the BBC aren't alone in introducing a restrictive policy, SqueakBox 23:48, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Download is IP-based. It's the re-use geographical restriction that seems unmanageable. It's a great shame that the Open University is also going to be using this license for their releases. The BBC are welcoming feedback - I've given them mine - but maybe the Foundation should give them some. An active UK chapter might even have produced a press release.. Secretlondon 00:09, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

The main reason for their geographical restriction, in the case of the Creative Archive, has little to do with copyright reasons. At the moment, the stuff they have is largely less copyright-sensitive, hence lots of wildlife clips (penguins don't have agents). It's more to do with the fact that the BBC is licence-fee funded, and they can't justify spending the licence fee on materials to be used too widely outside the UK. Silly, I know, but there you go. OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 15:52, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

Date articles

This is probably as good a place as any to get the attention of editors who have their preferences set for the "22 August 1954" automagic date format. Here's the situation: All 366 date articles begin in a similar way:

  • September 11 is the 254th day of the year.

Now, if you turn that date into a link ([[September 11]]), date display preference kicks in:

  • 11 September is the 254th day of the year.

Just the display preference: doesn't make it a link because it's a self-link, and it doesn't appear as a self-link would because it's already bolded. So whenever I open a day-of-the-year article, I make a point of linking the date. People will see the date in the intro paragraph the way they like. Surely this is a Good Thing? Apparently not. One editor has taken to reverting me (on today's article and several surrounding ones), arguing that

  1. Self-links are bad (even though, as seen above, this one doesn't display as such).
  2. It's illogical to have an article titled "September 11" begin with "11 September".
  3. Beginning a paragraph with a number is considered poor form.

The only one of those that gives me the slightest cause for concern is No. 3 but even then, (IMHO) the convenience of having one's chosen date format displayed overrides that. Í'd be interested in hearing other editors' opinions and, if anyone agrees with me and has both the inclination and a moment to spare, please re-link today's (and any others you come across) -- I've already used up my three reverts. Thanks. –Hajor 10:24, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Broadsheet obituaries

Just thought I would flag up that for the last couple of weeks I've been maintaining a list of people who've had obituaries in UK newspapers. Any help filling in the red links (especially the ones in bold, who have had an obituary in more than one paper), greatly appreciated. (And yes, I know that as of today only one of them is actually a broadsheet). OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 15:59, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

Congrats!

Nichalp congratulates the English cricket team on regaining the Ashes. User:Nichalp/sg 06:23, September 13, 2005 (UTC)

England page, Scotland page, Wales page: National Arms or UK Arms

User:Astrotrain is persistently trying to apply the UK Coat of Arms to the Scotland Page. When asked why he/she had chosen to remove Scotland's national arms, but not for example the three lions on the England page, they replied "I will not be removing the English 3 lions, since this is the only avaliable coat of arms to represent the country of England in a solitary capacity." This is clearly nonsense. The lion rampant is also "the only avaliable coat of arms to represent the country of Scotland in a solitary capacity." Why do we allow the Enland, Scotland and Wales pages to all show the flags of each respective country, but only Scotland is forced to have her Arms replaced by the Arms of the UK? If Scotland must display the UK Arms, then the three lions of England must go too, to be replaced by the UK Arms as used by the monarch when in England. Fair's fair. I do not want to remove England's national symbols from Wikipedia, but this seems to be a concerted campaign to remove Scotland's. I suggest as a compromise that we do not show the full royal arms of the former Kingdom of Scotland, but a simple shield with the lion rampant, in line with the simplicity of England's shield. (The Scottish Standard - lion rampant flag - used to be shown in that spot, as by far the most familiar use of the lion rampant to the Scottish public, but someone removed it some time ago.) However, it is worth pointing out that the Scotland page is also the page for the Kingdom of Scotland, whereas there are two separate pages called England and Kingdom of England. If anything, this makes it even more daft to remove Scotland's arms from a page about the Kingdom of Scotland.--Mais oui! 05:15, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Of course you are right on this subject and I have supported your arguments on the talk:Scotland; but I think you're wrong if you're interpreting it as a sign of some sort of anti-Caledonian conspiracy. People have disagreements; it doesn't have to mean that civilization will come to an end. Doops | talk 07:59, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
I think the original intent of Astrotrain was to use the Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom for use in Scotland because they are the currently-official version used in Scotland. Whereas the Royal Arms of Scotland are no longer used in any official capacity. However, the Arms of England on the England page are also no longer official, but it does serve as a common symbol of England. I would agree with Mais oui!'s suggestion of using the shield with the lion rampant for the Scotland page, since it is a historic symbol representing Scotland alone (as opposed to Scotland in the UK). Also, I think it would be a good idea to have a separate Kingdom of Scotland page, for a detailed description of Scotland as an independent nation pre-Union, this page would be the place to put the old Royal Arms of Scotland. --JW1805 17:01, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
There is no seperate English government, therefore the UK coat of arms is used in England. The 3 lions are only used by the English sporting insitutions as the national shield of England. The last offical English coat of arms would be that of Queen Elizabeth I, see [11]. In Scotland, we can clearly see a coat of arms used to represent the country in current use, the Royal Coat of Arms of Scotland. The version you prefer is clearly not used by any instituion in Scotland, either offically or unofficaly. The Lion Rampant shield is used by the Scottish Football Association, as this is a Scottish symbol, but it is their personal shield, not the country as a whole. Astrotrain 19:51, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
Mmmm... by far the most common and popular expression of heraldic devices in Scotland is the lion rampant flag: you see it all over the place. And yet Atrotrain has been deleting it every day and inserting the arms of the UK. Yesterday he reverted 4 times. I would also point out that there is not a "separate" Scottish government either: it is a devolved body of the British parliament, hence its use of UK arms. If it was "separate" it would no doubt use Scottish arms. However the Scotland page is not about the Scottish Parliament or Scottish courts or Scottish officialdom, it is about Scotland. Wikipedia is not here to represent "official" (sic) versions of everything, it is here to try to represent topics to the general public as they really are. In that context it would be downright daft to display the Arms of the United Kingdom on the England page or the Scotland page, when both countries have perfectly good, well-recognised and popular heraldic devices of their own: the three lions and the lion rampant.--Mais oui! 07:34, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Just popping up once again to say: the lion-rampant-in-the-border-flory-counterflory is not "not official" in the sense of "fictional" or "having no basis in law." Quite the reverse. Indeed, think about it this way: the Scottish Football Association's usurpation of those arms is technically illegal (although of course nobody cares) precisely because those arms exist. They are called "Scotland," as any herald will tell you. And they belong to HM the Queen. She doesn't use them on their own -- she uses them in conjunction with other arms -- but they do exist! Doops | talk 08:01, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Open House London

Open House London happens this weekend (17th and 18th September 2005). A chance to see inside 600 buildings in London, might be a source for some articles and photos. Edward 07:43, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

And a similar sort of thing in Scotland is Doors Open Day [12]. Different areas each weekend during September. There's usually a few interesting buildings open. Vclaw 12:25, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
I was a volunteer at Kingsley Hall on Saturday 17th and House Mill on the Sunday! LoopZilla 22:26, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
Alas I was working. Usually go. Justinc 00:06, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Free access to Dictionary of National Biography online

this weekend only [13] Arnie587 21:49, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

This is excellent - thanks for the heads-up! Shimgray 12:09, 24 September 2005 (UTC)