Talk:Whitwell railway station, Norfolk

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

About referring to travellers as a different race, the wiki page on travellers states: Irish Travellers are not considered a separate ethnic group for the purposes of the Race Relations Act Amendment (2000). --Kevis 17:20, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

The date and year should be clarified on the sale part as this date has yet to come.

[edit] Context

This article lacks context. For example, what is a "traveller's site" really? --Apoc2400 09:27, 18 March 2007 (UTC)#

[edit] Controversy

Is this really an article which deserves to be on Wikipedia? it seems to be a bit of a rant about travellers, and a current planning application which reads like a blog not an encyclopedia article. So much of it is hearsay and unverified that I've deleted the "Controversy" section except for matters of fact. Ghughesarch 15:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, I think it is against the ethos of wikipedia to simply remove 90%+ of an article's content on the pretext 'it seems to be a bit of a rant' without any prior consultation with anyone who made/contributed to the article. I think a tag would have been more suitable given the situation.

While I strongly feel it is not a rant, I do see your point about there being:

A) Many unsourced pieces of information.

B) Some information whose notability has not been fully explained.

My appologies, but I have reverted all but your first edit, on the basis we can discuss on here what needs to be improved/removed, and to signify to other Wikipeidians that this article is in need of a clean-up. --Reverieuk 02:33, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you can explain why a long list of "the council (which council?) did this," and "so and so said that", none of which is linked to any verifiable source, is worthy of inclusion on Wikipedia. The person who made most of the edits relating to this entry (and most of the "Whitwell Station" edits under the Reepham and Marriott's Way articles) has made hardly any contributions to any other page of Wikipedia and this looks like somebody pursuing a single issue from a single viewpoint. It's a matter of minor, current, local interest, rather than something that should be part of an encyclopedia. Where 90% of an entry ostensibly about a disused railway station concerns itself with travellers' sites and alpaca farms (and 0% about the history of the station during its use as such), then that too is against the ethos of Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is surely not the place for every site which has ever been hinted at as a possible travellers' site to have a dedicated page explaining at length that some locals mounted a campaign against the "proposals" (despite the fact that there has never been an application to use the site as such)

The only reference for the whole page is a link to a press story which (though, alas, it probably counts as a wikipedia source) contains a number of inaccuracies and fails to present a balanced view of the issues relating to the current planning application. It also doesn't mention (this can be checked in Broadland District Council's files) that the "alpaca farm" applicant was told, through their agent, that consent for residential use would probably not be forthcoming more than a month before they committed to buy the site and that they went ahead anyway, nor that farming alpacas forms no part of their application which is just for a house in the countryside, nor that if the application were given consent the public cycle access to Marriott's Way at this point would cease, nor that SAVE Britain's Heritage have withdrawn their support until it can be shown that all non-domestic options for the site have been exhausted (Norfolk County Council marketed it at a low price because they were told that a house would be a non-starter.)

I have gone over the section again and removed the more obvious statments that cannot be verified as fact, and added some balancing information with references.

Ghughesarch 16:36, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your edits. Your point about the article's diary-style nature is very true. If indeed it is me you refer to in the above (it would only be polite to say so if so..), then I admit that in many of my article edits I neglected to remove repetition or to summarize.

I shall now go read over the revisied article, and see if there's anything that still raises an issue.

One thing I did see removed that suprised me however, was the figures for the size and sale price of the property. True, the source was never noted (probably the same paper), but I class these as important to describing the basics of the article's subject.--Reverieuk 22:58, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

No, it's not you I was referring to! The size of the site can be ascertained from a variety of sources, the price paid was on the basis (I understand) of a "best offer" system, so we'll never know, though I doubt either figure has much relevance in an article about Whitwell Station as opposed to Whitwell station site (does the St Pancras article go into that much detail?)Ghughesarch 00:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Can the whole of the "controversy" section now be removed? despite officer recommendation, the planning committee of BDC voted to grant consent for conversion to a house on 18 April 2007 Ghughesarch 16:53, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I think a lot of it could do with being summerized to give the general picture of events without going into too much detail. Whatever the end outcome, there was significant disturbances along the way.

There was another article about this I'd like to bring to your attention. I shall return soon. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Reverieuk (talk • contribs) 22:32, 22 April 2007 (UTC).

As all the content about the alleged "traveller" site is no longer relevant to the Whitwell Station site, I have edited it away. The new plans for a railway museum, explained briefly on the web site set up by the new owner, put this argument in the past and, imo, remove any need for retention in a wikipedia article on the station.