Wikipedia talk:UK Wikipedians' notice board

Archive 1

UK WikiMeet 2005

OK I want to get the ball rolling thinking about having a UK wikimeet sometime in 2005, before the international one, wherever it's going to be. What are people's feelings on this, and what ideas do people have as to venue, timing, agenda etc? -- Graham ☺ | Talk 04:08, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, if in London, or indeed elsewhere, it would be more satisfactory to think about a meal in the early evening, rather than 9.30 pm, for those who need to get a train home. Charles Matthews 15:49, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think it ought to be significantly earlier than Wikimania so people don't feel they are choosing between the two. Perhaps February? My preferred venues would be Essex or north or east London. Further afield would be fine if it's earlier in the day. Angela. 07:06, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

That's what I was thinking. I'll start a sub page about it. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 22:14, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've started the discussion off at this page if you want to go and have a look. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 19:04, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

On this topic, I'd just like to remind all UK Wikipedians that the Wikimania organising committee will sit on Sunday 31st October to decide a venue, so do express support for Dublin in the interim. You know you want to... --Kwekubo 02:08, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

An easy one for all UK Wikipedians

I noticed Children in Need was much-linked-to but not written, so I had a bit of mad rush stab at writing something about it. But everyone has seen Children in Need... so it should be dead easy to write, right? Pcb21| Pete 15:24, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps suggest for COTW? --Joe D 15:35, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'll support it if it goes there. I'll even nominate it if you haven't done already. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 15:46, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

To create

Why the River Dwyryd in particular? There is scope for an entire Rivers of the United Kingdom project, or even four projects, to fill in all those on the to-do list. --Keith Edkins 08:50, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I just selected one of the many at rendom. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 16:05, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There are a great many articles related to the Waterways in the United Kingdom. User:Renata wrote most of them, but she stopped contributing some time ago. Mintguy (T) 21:40, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Talking of rivers, I expanded a stub on my local River Leam. But, being a newbie, I am not sure how to categorise it nor where it should fit in the great scheme of things. Also, perhaps a more experienced Wikipedian could advise me whether I've filled in enough detail to remove the stub tag? I intend to add to the River Cherwell stub and start articles on a couple of other local rivers which are redlinks ATM so any advice would be useful to me. Ta. Andy F 02:23, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Erosion of International English Usage

It would, I think, be advantageous to list pages on which attempts are being made to erode the usage of correct English, so that others can get involved and put an end to such behaviour. Here is my first example: aluminum. It is proposed on Talk:Aluminium to use "aluminum" on the grounds of the "Google Test." -- Emsworth 13:35, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ho hum. Once we graduate to joined-up handwriting, there'll be so many squiggles in aluminium that you wouldn't even notice the odd "i" missing. ;-) But seriously, considering the number of people who contribute here without even having English as first language at all, the compromises we have to make between British and American English do seem pretty minor. I'm all for correcting text which departs from what is pretty much universally agreed to be correct English, but I think you're talking about "correct English" in a more debatable context here. ,,,Trainspotter,,, 23:15, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Aluminium and Aluminum are both well within the range of English usage. IUPAC has standardized on Aluminium, and people in some countries still use Aluminum. As it's a very common material and has entered the public domain in both guises, it really isn't worth bothering about--just make sure you stick to a consistent spelling (one or the other) in articles except where discussing the two spellings. --Minority Report 12:26, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

<Sigh>, Yoghurt is under attack again for not using the American spelling. -- Derek Ross | Talk 04:08, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)

New set of icons

For use on lists of places of intrest in England, e.g. county pages:

Code	Translation
{{EngPlacesKey}} (Template:EngPlacesKey)	Key Abbey/Priory/Cathedral Accessible open space Amusement/Theme Park Castle Country Park English Heritage Forestry Commission Heritage railway Historic House Places of Worship Museum (free/not free) National Trust Theatre Zoo
[[Image:NTE icon.png|National Trust]]
[[Image:EH icon.png|English Heritage]]	English Heritage
[[Image:FC icon.png|Forestry Commission]]
[[Image:UKAL icon.png|Open access land]]
[[Image:Museum icon.png|Museum (free)]] [[Image:Museum icon (red).png|Museum (not free)]]	/
[[Image:HR icon.png|Heritage Railway]]
[[Image:NTS icon.png|National Trust]]	National Trust
[[Image:CP icon.png|Country Park]]

Any comments or suggestions for improvements? --Joe D (t) 12:43, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I like these. It would be better if the images were titled, i.e. [[Image:NTE icon.png|National Trust]] => gives you something meaningful if you're not using images, and tells you what the image is when you hover over it. fabiform | talk 18:58, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ok, I'll do that in any future edits. I'm considering adding icons for national trails, castles, churches etc, but then we might have to start a customised key for each use (to avoid having a long list of icons which aren't actually used in the text). By the way, you can already see examples of this in action on Dorset, Bristol and Cornwall. Joe D (t) 19:11, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A useful one for my county (Isle of Wight) would be 'pleasure park' - i.e. not as good as an amusment park (such as Chessington or Alton Towers), but in a similar vein. --NeilTarrant 23:02, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes, wouldn't it? Why don't we use the standard brown tourist signs and definitions? That could be really helpful. Black on white is fine, but the icon style and definitions could be the same. I like the red museum one though - thats a useful distinction. Naturenet 14:45, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Nice idea but why restrict it to England ? All of these icons would be useful for Scotland apart from English Heritage. -- Derek Ross | Talk 08:28, 2004 Oct 28 (UTC)

I'm not restricting it to England, only the template as it includes English Heritage and the National Trust for England logo, which I think is different to NT for Scotland(?). I think the template may become a bit useless if we start adding more icons, so we have to just make our own key each time we use them anyway. --Joe D (t) 12:20, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'd be very careful about the Access Land one - these are not always easy to identify and can be highly controversial. There are legal ramifications to this, and unless we specify boundaries calling something 'open access' might be problematic. Might be better to keep this particular one on the sidelines until we see how it settles down. Naturenet 08:53, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

How about adding a footnote to the key, linking to another page perhaps, with a simple disclaimer along the lines of "Land marked is assumed to be accesible either legally or permited by the landowner, but this is not evidence that there is a legal right to access this land. Please consult local bylaws or the landowner for further information." ? Joe D (t) 12:20, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Not a bad compromise, but it's still dangerous language. I don't think we need go there at all. Perhaps we could say 'Public open space' or some other less loaded term. Naturenet 14:45, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've gone with "accessible open space" because I think that's a more accurate description. Joe D (t) 15:41, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thats much better! I've no qualms with that. Naturenet 16:26, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

When applying it to Kennet and Avon Canal on Somerset I thought maybe "Accessible land" may be better, but all possible wordings I've come up with so far have been a bit over simplified. Any objections to using "Accessible land" until we can come up with something better? Joe D (t) 20:18, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Seems OK to me, maybe even a little better. Shorter, anyway! Naturenet 10:44, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Query - A matter of Style

If a tourist site offers a Country Park and Historic House run by the National Trust, should one list it under the most 'notable' category, or all three? --NeilTarrant 18:05, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Surely either all three: , or, if HH icon excludes NT-run houses, two: , no? -- ALoan (Talk) 18:52, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A similar dilemma would often present itself with AL/NT icons. Common (although not universal) practice on roadsigns is to have only one sign per attraction, and so it is a matter of judgement which is the most useful. In this case I'd suggest that the NT/EH signs are the most useful if you know that they are involved, especially if there's a fee to pay, as members of those bodies might want to go there. Otherwise the element of the attraction which is most well-known would be the best one to use; or all of them if you feel keen. But use of multiple icons could start to look overfussy and add little information, in my view. Naturenet 19:28, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A Vision of Britain

You have to laugh don't you. This morning on BBC Breakfast a chap from this new website that was launched at noon today was asked if they were worried about the site having the same problems that the 1901 census site had. "No they'd learnt from that experience" he said. So take a look at http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk. Mintguy (T)

Ah... Well it looks good anyway. So what's the website about then? -- Graham ☺ | Talk 22:11, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You are supposed to be able to look at maps and get lots of other information for almost everywhere in Britain for the last 200 years apparently. Mintguy (T)

Sounds useful, depending on the copyright status, which of course I can't check because they've turned off everything... -- DrBob 22:27, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps I shoudn't say this on a public forum (but I will anyway!) but I just discovered that you can get past the front page by going to http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/index.jsp Mintguy (T) 22:30, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for this link Mintguy... great site. I posted it to a historical authors' email group I belong to and I got a lot of responses. You've made lots of authors very happy. :) fabiform | talk 01:43, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

English Counties

I've been looking through the pages for the different English counties. While the wikiprojects have done well with the infobox, many of the articles, IMO are seriously lacking. I have done up Dorset with the sections and subpages that I think these articles need and have co-opted the old page Wikipedia:Counties of England for further discussion of this. --Joe D (t) 17:32, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If you can take a look at Buckinghamshire and let me know what you think of it - whether it's lacking or good, I'll have a guideline of what you mean. I wrote most of that page and (personally) consider it to be quite good. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 21:43, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Poll on Wikipedia:Manual of Style

Current Wikipedia policy is that every time the abbreviation for the United States is used, it should always be written U.S. rather than US. This is regardless of whether the article puts stops in other abbreviations or not. There is a proposal to remove this policy. If you wish to vote on it, please go to Wikipedia:Manual of Style. The poll ends at 8pm GMT on 8 November. jguk 23:27, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Music articles

Recently List of Number 1 singles from the 2000s (UK) (and related) articles were split from the main number ones list. That's an improvement, but I've now created the 2004 in music (UK) and 2003 in music (UK) (not quite finished) articles. Comments (or help for the other years!) would be great. Basically, is it worth the time and effort? violet/riga (t) 22:15, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Another London meetup?

There will be a Meetup on the evening of Friday 3 December. Please see Wikipedia:Meetup/London for details.

List of United Kingdom-related topics

Sigh. User:Wikiuser has determined that England, Scotland and Wales should not eb listed as subjects under the heading "Nations and states of the British Isles" in the article List of United Kingdom-related topics. I've RVd his edits twice, whichs seems to be my limit for the night. Over to anyone else who happens to care. You will be called a racist by WikiUser, hence the sigh. --Tagishsimon (talk)

A new take on the let's use US English debate

As far as I can tell on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style, some are now suggesting that since three-quarters of English speakers are American, we should use American terms more often. Oh well......we fight on. jguk 21:58, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Where on earth did the figure that three quarters of the world's English speakers are American come from? -- Graham ☺ | Talk 11:22, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It's absolute nonsense. See my comments on that talk page. Even if the majority of people with English as a first language use US English (which is not a foregone conclusion) - taking those using it as a second language, the majority of English users do not use US English. zoney ♣ talk 11:57, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hmm. It was added to American English, and I rewrote it slightly to beg-the-question somewhat less. If we assume that 90(?) per cent of Americans (USians) speak English as their first language, then there are ~ 260 million native speakers of English who use the American brogue. There are 10 million Canadians, but some of these (1 million?) speak French as their native tongue; 8 million Australians; 4 million each Irish and New Zealandic; and, of course, 60 million British. Given these figures, there would be ~ 85 million native speakers of English who don't speak it in AE, which is almost exactly on third the size of those who do.

James F. (talk) 12:54, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Err, you're a bit out of date with your population figures -- from our own articles, population of Canada is over 32 million, Australia over 20 million, and don't forget all the first and second language speakers in the Caribbean, Africa, India, Malaysia... -- Arwel 13:34, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I would like to suggest that we change all articles to Australian English. Here are some global changes to institute:

1. Change all instances of the word "woman" to "sheila"
2. Change all instances of the word "man" to either "larrikin" or "pommy"
3. Change all personal names to "Bruce"

If you can think of others along these lines, please feel free to add them. ;-) func(talk) 14:39, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Milton Keynes

Hey there,

Just randomly came across this article today. It was a bit of a mess, so I reorganised it with new sections and headings (Old, New).

It seems like quite an odd/interesting subject, judging by the references to it in popular culture (currently almost a quarter of the actual content in our Wikipedia article!). Perhaps some UK wikipedians can expand it with some more interesting details? At the moment it just sounds like a bunch of roads with some big mad shopping centre and sports facilities.

zoney ♣ talk 23:33, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Milton Keynes sounds that way because, to be honest, that's about all it is!  ;-)

Andy F 00:38, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)