Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Greater Manchester/Archive 2

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Contents

People from Categories

A discussion has been opened at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject London#Category:People from Ealing by district about upmerging local area categories for People from... into current local government boundaries only. This could have implications across the whole of England if carried through. Your are invited to join the discussion. The proposer is planning a massive merge by 22nd June if no objections are received. --Regan123 11:33, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

User 88.104...

Can I bring to the attention of the project user 88.104___. Following his failed nomination of the recatagorisation of the Oldham Borough, he appears to be excerting a new geographic frame of reference on the Royton article.

He uses dynamic IP addresses, and has issued some minor threats.

From the evidence I've gathered, it is my personal concern and interpretation that he is a long-standing chronic troll and sockpupeteer who has been banned in the past. Community support and commentry is welcomed. Jhamez84 17:41, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

What is it about Royton/Oldham that feeds such obsessive behaviour? Is it racially motivated? Whatever the reasons, the Royton article is starting to look like a mess IMO. ---- Eric 23:44, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
My personal, humble opinion is it is racially motivated - and that is assuming good faith! Frankly, the borough of Oldham has a very poor council (verifiably so!), as well as a lot of underlying socio-cultural problems - which means some highly disgruntled Oldhamers who want to use Wikipedia as a soapbox. I've worked hard to combat this, but I agree, without support, some articles like Royton are messy. Jhamez84 00:15, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Mid term assessment

Aims

By 2008, we hope to achieve the following:

Other aims include the general maintainance, expansion and improvement of all Wikipedia articles concerned with Greater Manchester, including:

  • Improving all wikipedia articles that are concerned with Greater Manchester, including its history, geography, people, constructions and buildings, etc etc.
  • All relevant articles should be included in the Category:Greater Manchester or one of its subcategories.

So how are we doing? ---- Eric 23:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Quite bad I think is the answer! Though Shaw and Crompton is a featured article candidate (not even my nomination!), and these were always ambitious targets!
I have worked on a new, improved and standardised {{Greater Manchester}} navigation template, and I know we've had alot of work on the GM categorisation of late. Manchester is looking alot better, as is some of it's daughter articles (Culture of Manchester etc). It would be nice to get Greater Manchester up to GA though - it's surely something we can all relate to!
Some WikiProjects issue newsletters to their members once editting dries up a little - I think we may have to persue this idea to reinvigorate our efforts. Jhamez84 00:06, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm reminded of a question I was asked on a time management course, years ago. The question was "How would you eat an elephant?" The answer is, of course, one bite at a time. --Malleus Fatuarum 04:59, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


Is there a standard format?

Is there a standard format for articles in this project? Information that ought to be included, sections, ordering of sections and so on? ---- Eric 23:30, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

In case anyone else has the same question, the answer is WP:UKCITIES. --Malleus Fatuarum 13:50, 9 July 2007 (UTC)


New articles

Hello project,

Just wanted to bring your attention to two new articles:

They are only stubs at present, but with the help of the project we could get two very useful articles here, and would welcome input. These are also linked on our {{Greater Manchester}} navigation template. Jza84 12:44, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Per the message I left above, we also have two table's which would very much benefit from a collaborative effort to find and input the various figures needed to complete these. Once done, the figures on these could be used on hundreds of our project's articles. I've started us off, but I'm not so strong at maths:
Greater Manchester Compared[1][2]
UK Census 2001 Greater Manchester North West (Region) England
Total population 2,547,700 6,729,764 49,138,831
Foreign born 7.2% 5.0% 9.2%
White 91% 94% 91%
Asian 5.7% 3.4% 4.6%
Black 1.2% 0.6% 2.3%
Christian 74% 78% 72%
Muslim 5.0% 3.0% 3.1%
Hindu 0.7% 0.4% 1.1%
No religion 11% 10% 15%
Over 75 years old 7.0% 7.4% 7.5%
Unemployed 3.5% 3.6% 3.3%
Manchester Compared[3][4]
UK Census 2001 Manchester Greater Manchester England
Total population 441,200 2,547,700 49,138,831
Foreign born 15% 7.2% 9.2%
White 81% 91% 91%
Asian 9.1% 5.7% 4.6%
Black 4.5% 1.2% 2.3%
Christian 62% 74% 72%
Muslim 9.1% 5.0% 3.1%
Hindu 0.7% 0.7% 1.1%
No religion 16% 11% 15%
Over 75 years old 6.4% 7.0% 7.5%
Unemployed 5.0% 3.5% 3.3%
I've inputted some figures from this source, with this signature. Jza84 22:09, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
Tables complete! Jza84 22:37, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

User:79....

User 79... (our second/third city friend) appears to gone off on an all out campaign of vandalism against Manchester related articles tonight prefixing any mention of Manchester with the "UK's third city" as well as removing sections of articles. Unfortunately the editor is IP address hopping so I have taken this to the Administrators Noticeboard Pit-yacker 22:47, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I find this second/third /fourth/... city issue hard to understand. Measured in different ways, different cities will have different rankings. What does it matter? Mentioning in an article about Birmingham or Manchester that it has been described as the second city on whatever basis is one thing, but having a whole article on the second city is ludicrous in my opinion.
So far as User 79... is concerned, all (s)he has done is to demonstrate once again how easy it is for anyone on a mission to take advantage of the wikipedia ethos of assuming good faith. Perhaps it would be less wasteful of limited resources to assume bad faith, and to ask that all editors are registered? --Malleus Fatuarum 00:09, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
User 79... appears to be going aroung Manchester related articles and adding Manchester "the UK's third city". Whether Manchester is the UK's second or third city seems trivial to me, but the argument is spilling into other articles (such as River Medlock, Mancunium and Castlefield) where mention of Manchester's status as second or third city is irrelevant. Nev1 10:28, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I see what you mean. Sheer vandalism. --Malleus Fatuarum 10:33, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
I've started to block them, though its akin to playing whack-a-mole. Oldelpaso 10:54, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
List any new ones on WP:AIV. Oldelpaso 11:04, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
My experience with this user is one of bad faith. Just check the edit history of the main GM project page to find that he's tried to disrupt here. I think this pretty much sums up his mission - which is purely mischeivious. Jza84 00:33, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Manchester Peer Review!!

Hello all. The Manchester article is now up for peer review here in order to obtain comments on how to bring it up to Featured Article status. Anybody who could contribute anything to the review please do not hesitate to add your comments as they would be most welcome. Thank you all! └and-rew┘┌talk┐ 16:28, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Manchester certainly looks better than it once did!!! I'll certainly take a look at this article, and give a couple of interested parties a nudge about pushing towards FA. The references to me seem to be the biggest problem. Jza84 23:00, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Didsbury

Didsbury is currently a GA nominee but has been placed on hold whilst suggested improvments can be made. I'd appreciate any editors who would help me in instating Didsbury as a good article per the criteria on the talk page. Thanks. Onnaghar talk ! ctrb 18:53, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Newsletter?

I was looking at some other editors usertalks and seen some monthly newsletters. I was wondering whether the same idea could be applied to this project? To view the outline of the monthly see here. Onnaghar talk ! ctrb 13:48, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Well you can sign me up! └and-rew┘┌talk┐ 13:54, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Cool - Onnaghar talk ! ctrb 15:20, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Do sign me up too :) M A Mason 15:39, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Ok. Will start as soon as. Onnaghar talk ! ctrb 15:17, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Me too! A great idea! Jza84 12:58, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia ads

I have submitted a request for a wikipedia ad for this WikiProject as people have said they would like to see more members. Please see here and feel free to add anything on to my request going into any specifics you want on there. Cheers └and-rew┘┌talk┐ 15:02, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Good work - well done! GRB1972 16:08, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

This is truely excellent stuff! I think this project is becoming ever more pro-active and we're really starting to function as a team - even if I say so myself! Jza84 16:50, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Climate facts and figures

Are there any users of the project that have any idea where we might obtain climate figures at a more localised town or borough level? Manchester as a major city obviously has a weather station and well publicisised average figures, and thus has a beautifully rendered climate table for its article.

However, there appears to be nothing I can find from a cursory search of the web that gives figures for Oldham, Rochdale, Bolton etc etc, which to me is a great shame in furthering the articles our next tier of major settlements in the county. Any body out there with any suitable ideas/books/sources/solutions? -- Jza84 · (talk) 01:41, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

According to this list (warning, large page) of all the Met Office weather stations, there are stations at Manchester, Manchester Airport, Urmston, Bolton (several), Rochdale, Prestwich, Oldham, Royton, Altrincham, pretty much everywhere, though whether that data is available is another matter. You can get all sorts of data from the Met Office, but I think they charge for anything beyond the basics. As for non-Met Office weather stations, I've found this one for Salford, but little else other than school ones, which are used for education rather than long term data collection. Oldelpaso 08:11, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I was the one who wrote the majority of the climate section on the Manchester article and created the climate table and when researching the data it all came from the Manchester Airport weather station. I am unaware of any other weather stations in Greater Manchester which data is published for. I think the best place to start would be to email Dianne Oxberry from BBC's North West Tonight as if anybody knows the weather of the North West it will be her. I don't see why she would not help us as she is a lovely woman and great at her job. If we found out where she gets her data from we could probably use it here although she may only use the major weather stations but who knows! └and-rew┘┌talk┐ 13:23, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect unreferenced article

I have come across an article that comes under Greater Manchester that appears to be based on a misconception. The article on Don Estelle says that he was born in Rochdale. He is then included in the Rochdale article (which also doesn't give a reference, and has a cleanup tag) under "Notable residents". However, I know two people who grew up with him in the Cheetham Hill area who tell me he lived on Founain St. which is either Cheetham Hill or Crumpsall (I need to check that out) both before and after the war. They didn't know exactly where he was born but were pretty sure it was in that area. He certainly died and was buried in Rochdale, and there is a BBC webpage herethat says he was buried in his "home town" of Rochdale but then goes on to say he was born in Manchester. I wonder if this is where the miconception, if indeed there is one, came about? A google search throws up a lot of sites that say he was born in Manchester, or more specifically Crumpsall, and only one or two that say he was born in Rochdale. I have put questions on the discussion pages for both articles but so far there have been no replies. I am tempted to just change the article and it's category but I'm concerned that the original contributor may know something I don't. I am trying to find out more information via a friend who's into genealogy but I am worried that an unreferenced article like this just makes us look amateurish - especially if it's wrong. I have even seen a web discussion where someone suggested a Rochdale Street should be named after him! I have put an unreferenced tag on the article for now and will change it if and when I get more information. Is there anything else I can do? Richerman 18:29, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Don't be afraid to be bold! If you have a reliable source you are entitled to challenge and change the material. If there really is a conflict of sources, then there is no harm in saying this in the article. If you read the first section on the Gordon Brown article, one can find a simillar example of how to go about this. -- Jza84 · (talk) 18:49, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
The newspaper obits seem agreed that he was born in Manchester. Independent - Don Estelle was born in the Crumpsall district of Manchester; Telegraph - Don Estelle was born in Manchester; Guardian - Born in Manchester; Times - Born in Manchester. Mr Stephen 19:26, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes I agree, the Gordon Brown article example will be the way forward if I don't get any more firm information in the next few days. I used a similar ploy in the first lines in the Heaton Park article that I rewrote recently (which you may like to look at to see if it needs any improvement - maybe an infobox?). It makes it a bit difficult to get the right category then, but I would agree that the newspapaer obits are probably the most reliable sources. Richerman 20:10, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I've found the dispute tag now and put that on both articles. maybe that will bring someone out of the woodwork. Richerman 23:22, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia 2.0

Did anyone see the article on the future of wikipedia in New Scientist recently? You can read it Here They're talking about making wikipedia more reliable by having edits invisible for 30 days unless they are from a trusted editor - i.e. one who has a good history. It sounds ike an excellent idea to me. Richerman 13:25, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the link's broken. Nev1 13:34, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, it works on my pc. Try going to www.newscientist.com and searching for Wikipedia 2.0 Richerman 13:44, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Check out Wikipedia:Stable versions and the links from there. Mr Stephen 14:12, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

The link works fine for me too, but I think the idea is completely arse-about-face. Everyone should start out "trusted", until they demonstrate that they can't be trusted. And I can't even begin to imagine the problems any editor would have in trying to make changes to an article with invisible edits in it that are scheduled to become visible at various dates in the future. Bad idea, and one that I hope the English wikipedia doesn't adopt. --Malleus Fatuarum 14:35, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Bad source

Could I bring to the attention of the project that www.manchester2002-uk.com is a self-published tertiary source and thus a breach of the reliable sources criteria. It's a lovely site, but contains alot of inaccuracies, point of view content, and doesn't itself cite its own sources.

I've seen it being used in a number of articles, albeit innocently, but it really is one to avoid. Local history books (secondary sources) are always a higher quality source for historical infomation, and would recommend all users to try to go for this kind of source. -- Jza84 · (talk) 20:38, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

That's a good call, I'm sure I've used that site as a reference myself more than once, have to go back and check some time. On a somewhat related topic, I'm becoming a fan of separating the References section into two subsections: Notes and Bibliography. That way, for printed sources, it's much easier to point to the page number(s) in the relevant book/magazine. I've started doing it on the Stretford article, but before I go much further with it I'd appreciate any views comments on that structure. --Malleus Fatuarum 16:48, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
We've been here before, see talk:Manchester#Featured Article. I'm for the name/page structure where there are multiple references to a single book, and we did once have it for most of the refs in the Manchester article. Mr Stephen 17:35, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Ah, so we have, I'd forgotten about that. Pity we didn't choose to go with the Johannes Kepler style of references. It works particularly well, as you say, when there's more than one reference to the same book. --Malleus Fatuarum 17:49, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
There's 128 links to manchester2002-uk.com as of now, see here. Not all are in article-space but it still points to a fairly big cleanup. Mr Stephen 19:54, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
127 now. Good call on this by Jza84. I saw two or three in that list that I thought might be down to me, so I checked the first of them, and blow me down it seems not to have been right. It wasn't a big thing, only the date of a park being donated to Manchester City Council. www.manchester2002-uk.com said 1914, Manchester City Council said 1919; maybe they're both wrong, but I changed the reference to agree with what the council says. --Malleus Fatuarum 23:00, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Our ad

Our ad is here:

└and-rew┘┌talk┐ 01:43, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Very Manchester United! -- Jza84 · (talk) 09:57, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Isn't the spelling wrong? Shouldn't it say "Hail from Greater Manchester?", not "Hale from ..."? --Malleus Fatuarum 14:11, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Unless one is referring to South Manchester/Cheshire? Heheheh ---- WebHamster 14:30, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Is anyone here familiar with the concept of a 'pun'? Nev1 14:39, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Only in the context of an amusing play on words. :)--Malleus Fatuarum 14:47, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Touché. Nev1 14:51, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
In any case, Manchester's more famous for rain than hail <groan> :P. Seriously though, I can't say I'm a big fan of that ad. ---- WebHamster 15:33, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Well if you're not a fan then there is no reason why you can't make a new one and post it here to see if anyone prefers it, it is only a simple gif file and there are plenty of free-to-use gif creators around. I agree that it is a little Man U'ish and has pixelated a bit from being stretched. └and-rew┘┌talk┐ 19:50, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
How about this then? On the grounds that "less is more" and subtlety is never a bad thing.---- WebHamster 21:32, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Lovely! Would be nicer if you could add maybe two more slides to it giving a little bit more information about what the project covers? Other than that it is a lot nicer. └and-rew┘┌talk┐ 21:50, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it looks pretty classy. It's direct too, I like it. Nev1 22:01, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
We're a talented bunch us sometimes! That's a great ad and a vast improvement - even if I am a Utd fan.... or not! I created the crest- it's probably my worst ever contribution to Wikipedia, and wish I'd spend more time on it. What about a few images of different settlements from the county? Maybe I'm getting too creative now, so I'll forget it. Great ad though, non-the-less! -- Jza84 · (talk) 22:14, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks folks :). I have to admit though that it's "to the point" as I didn't really know what else it needed to say, so I went with the basics. Tell me what else needs to be said and I'll add it, along with any other suggestions ---- WebHamster 22:47, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
If you really are open to suggestions... as the Project is very much involved with furthering the articles about the settlements of Greater Manchester, perhaps some element of the county's cityscapes and townscapes? (I think) this ad for WikiProject Vancouver is a nice one - but is it too technical? And does anybody else agree? And can you get suitable imagery? -- Jza84 · (talk) 22:57, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Technically it's not particularly difficult at all, the trick is, as you say, getting relevant images. The text and text effects are simplicity. I'm sure I've seen a Manchester skyline somewhere but I'm buggered if I can remember where I saw it. And yes, I'm totally open to suggestions, but I don't want to appear to step on anyone's toes. I only produced the above ad in response to And-Rew's suggestion. ---- WebHamster 23:07, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
There's this one
::::::Image:Centralmanchester.jpg<
that you might be able to crop/resize. --Malleus Fatuarum 23:38, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
I like WebHamster's version, it's nicely Zen, and as Nev1 said it looks pretty classy. I'd suggest just changing the text a bit, to be more like the Vancouver ad. Somethimg like:
  • Interested in Greater Manchester?
  • Want to see wikipedia's coverage improved?
  • Join WikiProject Greater Manchester/Click here for details

--Malleus Fatuarum 23:33, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Here's MkII. Is fading preferable to scrolling do you think? ---- WebHamster 00:24, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
That's beautiful to me! Certainly has my vote! -- Jza84 · (talk) 00:30, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Even better. I wasn't convinced by the skyline, I thought it would be too strong and make the text difficult to read, but this looks very good. Nev1 00:35, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Excellent! That's certainly got my vote. --Malleus Fatuarum 01:07, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Fantastic! Loads nicer than the current one, we should have done it all ourselves straight away! Would have been quicker! └and-rew┘┌talk┐ 01:50, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks guys. Now all you have to do is tell me how I replace the old one with the new one (and without pissing anyone off :) ). Do I just upload it as a replacement for the old one with the same filename? That way it will maintain its place in the ad rotation. ---- WebHamster 02:09, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
That is the only way you can do it, uploading under the same name, you need to upload to commons. └and-rew┘┌talk┐ 03:08, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Cheers, it's all done now...I hope <g> ---- WebHamster 10:34, 21 October 2007 (UTC)