This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
I've created a full list of the unparished areas (with some commentary) here. The talk page may be best place for discussion on specifics - Gloucester is off-topic for Newcastle :)
I intend to use this to re-write the WP article on w:Unparished areas, which is focused exclusively on the historic instead of the current situation first (with a secondary interest in history).--Nilfanion (talk) 16:11, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
By the way, I've uploaded a map of the Westminster unparished area (to right). I imagine that map, and similar, will be helpful? I will be producing full set of these.--Nilfanion (talk) 09:18, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
I couldn't find evidence that Bigbury-on-Sea is a village, it appears not to have had a church for ages. The others are indeed villages but I removed the towns and villages cat because the parish is also in the towns and villages cat (see COM:OVERCAT) (e.g. Chillington is in Stokenham parish which is also in Category:Towns and villages in Devon). Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:29, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
The definition of a village versus a hamlet is quite difficult, and is necessarily subjective. But, a church does not make a village nor does a village need a church. Bigbury-on-Sea is a village in most common usage. I recall reading that the settlement pattern in the rural areas of Devon (and Cornwall) is somewhat atypical - instead of one nucleated settlement within a parish (the village, there were often several smaller non-nucleated settlements; so instead of a large village with a bunch of hamlets in its hinterland, its not uncommon to get a bunch of small villages.
With regards to OVERCAT , I'd forgotten about that - because its not helpful to follow it in these situations. The parishes and core villages are separate concepts, so by rights should have distinct categories, removing the OVERCAT issue. However, splitting the concepts is a very low priority (as you know there are many, many, files with no localisation).
IMO it is more useful in these cases to ignore OVERCAT. By ignoring OVERCAT, users can find Beesands from the Town/Village cat without knowing its in Stokenham CP. And the negative problems OVERCAT describes would not occur in this instance. Furthermore this matches the ideal end state - where Beesands would be in the Town/Village cat, alongside Stokenham etc. In that end-state, the Stokenham parish cat would not be there, and the town/village cat would not contain thousands of images of fields as it does at present.--Nilfanion (talk) 17:35, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
The definition of an English hamlet appears to officially be a settlement without a church, which is also not a parish. Yes there is sometimes ambiguity in the definition but as far as I can see, we are supposed to use official definitions, rather than what people simply would classify as a hamlet in everyday usage. If we started using what people merely think then you open the door to complication and disputes as well as being potentially inaccurate.
In regards to OVERCAT, I agree with the point, what you are saying is that both Stokenham and Beesands as villages but because Stokenham is also a civil parish which includes Beesands, it makes it more difficult to find than if it was included in the towns and villages cat. While in the case of Halwell and Moreleigh, it is a parish containing those 2 villages which is uncomplicated to cat. A potential solution I think you are suggesting is to have a Category:Stokenham (parish) cat which contains all the settlements in Stokenham parish including the vilages its self. I personally wouldn't object to splitting the cat, but it might be considered overcategorization, what do you think? Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:44, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
There is no such thing as an official definition a word in the English language, and the OED (and certainly not the OALD) does not define the English language in the way the Académie française controls the French language. Certain things are controlled by government - such as city status - but the majority of words are not defined so precisely. Yes that leads to potential for disputes and those are resolved by discussion like what we are having here :)
My viewpoint is the dictionary definition is not the be all and end all. I'm saying Bigbury-on-Sea is a village because its described as such by a wide variety of sources [1][2][3] etc. Bigbury-on-Sea is the largest settlement in the parish by some distance. Indeed in contrast, Bigbury itself is much more like a typical hamlet.
Splitting the category is the correct solution to this dilemma. And is not overcategorization in any way shape or form. What it is is a very low value activity, when it would be much more productive to focus on other tasks - like populating all the CP cats that don't even exist yet :)--Nilfanion (talk) 22:12, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
The most official definition of hamlet does appear to be a place without a church. Yes there may be other variations but it appears that that is the best definition that we can use. Yes reliable sources might well state that some places are villages that don't have a church but in terms of reliable sources they are probably not a good source for the definition of what the places it but will be for other things, see w:Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Define reliable sources.
I don't really understand what your response is to splitting the category, what I think that you are saying is that although it would solve this problem, it would be much better to focus on ensuring everything is populated in a parish category first. Crouch, Swale (talk) 15:04, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
There is no such thing as an official definition of a hamlet! Yes, what you are saying may be easiest to apply, but that's not the same as official. And furthermore IMO its incorrect in these cases.
Incidentally, the Oxford English Dictionary definition is "A group of houses or small village in the country, especially a village without a church". That does not say a lack of a church is a necessary and sufficient condition for a settlement being a hamlet. This also reinforces that this is hardly a big deal - a hamlet is simply a small village - and hamlets in X should be a subcat of towns/villages in X. The OED definition is subjective - as it should be, because the OED follows how a word is used but does not dictate how it should be.
And yes I'm basically saying it ideally should be split, but a huge amount of labour would be required to implement a split - and that labour is better spent elsewhere.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:10, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
As you say even if there are other definitions, wouldn't (as you said) still be easiest to follow the standared definition for hamlet to avoid complication etc., in w:Necessity and sufficiency#Necessity it would be 1 doesn't have a church, 2 isn't (currently) a separate parish (that is to say it is within another parish or is in an unparished area), 3 is a separate settlement (that is to say not a suburb). Crouch, Swale (talk) 11:47, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
Its easiest to follow it as a starting point, but it should not be treated as an inflexible rule - allowing be exceptions to be considered on a case-by-case basis is better in the long run. That contrasts to the approach needed for cities - Welwyn Garden City is not a city, as it is not on the list of cities (and not because it doesn't have a cathedral).
My point about necessity and sufficiency is its not a sufficient condition for a location to have no church to define it as a hamlet (a single house in the countryside has no church, that doesn't make it a hamlet). Nor is it a necessary condition for a location to have no church to define it as a hamlet (a tiny settlement is not a village simply because it does have a church, but may be a hamlet). For example, Black Rock in Crowan CP (grid ref SW660349) has a methodist chapel - calling it a village is absurd, calling it a hamlet is at least possible.--Nilfanion (talk) 12:19, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
OK, we'll go with that unless we have a disagreement. I am not in favor of strict rules when it comes to contributing etc. but I am strongly in favor of making sure everything is factually correct. Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:21, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
The real problems with factual accuracy are at the small end actually. Calling something a village instead of a hamlet (or vice versa) isn't a big deal (a hamlet is a small village). However, calling something a hamlet when it is not a settlement at all is a more serious error and should be avoided.--Nilfanion (talk) 12:47, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
Please be careful with respect to minor locations. Your Wikipedia block does not apply on Commons, but if you repeat the same pattern of behaviour, you will end up getting blocked for the same reasons. In contrast, if you show an changed behaviour here, that could lead to an unblock on Wikipedia.
I am potentially concerned, as some of recent creations on Commons (eg Category:Groton Wood, Category:Edwardstone Woods) are the exact same topics you were involved with at the time of your Wikipedia block.
Remember that the bar for inclusion is lower on Commons, but all the label "Foo" on a map says is "Foo is a thing at/near this point". It does not give any indication what sort of thing Foo is.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:43, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
I am not going to repeat the behavior that got me blocked on Wikipedia but it wasn't about the topics Groton Wood and Edwardstone Woods, as far as I can see, they meet our inclusion guidelines, Edwardstone Woods contains 5 woods which could easily be populated and Groton Wood could have many pictures as it has several footpaths and thus could easily get many more images. If you still don't think they meet our guidelines, we can discuss this. File:Lane towards Groton Wood and Kersey Tye - geograph.org.uk - 1474171.jpg shows Groton Wood in front and thus is suitable for the category.
I would really like to get back on Wikipedia, one of the things that I in particular want to do is make sure that every civil parish has a separate article, originally I was only doing the ones that were on w:List of United Kingdom locations and weren't part of another settlement but now I intend to do them all. I think that it is extremely unfair that I have been given no chance to get back on Wikipedia, as the banning policy#Conduct towards banned editors states "Wikipedia's hope for banned editors is that they will leave Wikipedia or the affected area with their pride and dignity intact, whether permanently or for the duration of their ban" but Wikipedia is the last place in the world that I would leave with my pride and dignity intact, I have demonstrated in every way that I clearly have a very strong interest in Wikipedia. As you can see I joined Wikipedia in November 2009 but I had wanted to contribute for at least a year before that, I remember in Autumn 2008 (aged 14) that I was with someone from my school and we were watching rugby and the person had looked up what the population of St. Davids was, then I asked them to look up what the population of Round Maple was (presumably they were using Wikipedia) but I knew that this was a bit of a pointless request as it was all too well known to me that Round Maple didn't have a Wikipedia page. Finally in November 2009 in my I.T. lesion I had some spare time so my teacher helped me to create it, when I came back to it and found it formatted, I think that that was one of the best moments in my life. I have indeed struggled with Wikipedia, even though as noted I started over a year after I had wanted to and I find it very frustrating that now I know most of the things that I struggled with but I can't contribute. In my life previously I generally haven't struggled, I was allowed to do things at about the age of 8 that someone who I was speaking to wouldn't let their child do until they were 16. In many other situations my complete lack of pride and dignity has caused many problems, there have been situations where you I have not liked the organization but everyone else has and people have treated me like someone who generally wanted to be there, when I only went because I thought it was my social duty to do so and I got on well with the other people there. An organization that I had made it very clear that I didn't like asked me to write something about myself for their website and I refused to allow them to publish my name, they thought I was being unreasonable, my feeling, I participate in something that I don't want to and I get that in return. As I clearly am interested in Wikipedia, can I please have some help getting back. Crouch, Swale (talk) 11:48, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
On the specific points - I agree the two woodlands in question easily meet Commons criteria. My message was intended as a friendly reminder, as if you are editing about the same topics again, you risk falling into same traps.
As for Wikipedia, I will review the circumstances surrounding your ban when I have the chance. I strongly suggest for now, that you continue to demonstrate "good behaviour" on Commons. For instance, productively engaging in discussion about issues (like we have done) and following core Wikipedia policy such as w:WP:RS when appropriate (such as in Category descriptions). I cannot say what else you will need to do at this time. I am extremely busy at present, so will not have time to investigate more thoroughly at this time.--Nilfanion (talk) 12:54, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
Thankyou I will continue to do so. I will be careful in what I create and try to make sure that it meets our inclusion guidelines here. Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:56, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
The redirection you have made is wrong. It is a vandalism. I have corrected it, but you had cancelled it. Can you explain it, please? Wieralee (talk) 12:40, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
I redirected it to the dab page as there are 3 cats called Whitton in Suffolk (which I have now added to the dab page, apologies) they are the parish in Mid Suffolk, the area of Ipswich and the ward in Waveney. Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:41, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
I think you should make another disambiguation page there:
{{disambig}}
Category:Whitton in Sulfolk may refer to the following places:
There is probably no need to have separate dab pages, the main dab is probably sufficient, I will clarify the counties on the main dab. Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:52, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
Not a typo, more a minimal sortcode to speed processing, however slightly; but you've kinda subverted that by "correcting" it. Cheers. Rodhullandemu (talk) 19:14, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
The whole point of this category is it is a flat list containing every English district, in an alphabetical order. Removing districts because they are in a district in county cat defeats the object of a by name category.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:04, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
I thought the idea of that cat was for districts that can't be placed in any county level cats like Northumberland (because the district covers the same area as the county). Ones that can be put in county level shouldn't just be in that cat? Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:25, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
Just to add to this my point made below that these are NOT districts that you are currently changing these are Metropolitan boroughs and councils, therefore are being confused with actual districts of the places they fall within. I feel this is something that is moving in quite the wrong direction. Babydoll9799 (talk) 19:53, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
Reverts
Can I ask why you reverted my edits? Huyton With Roby does not exist, so it does not merit being on the page. Whilst "Aintree Village" does not exist as a district, it is Aintree. Have no Idea why you just reverted the changes / corrections I made but please don't do it again.Babydoll9799 (talk) 18:46, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
"Aintree Village" is a civil parish containing the village "Aintree", Huyton with Roby is a former parish containing those places, if you don't think that Huyton with Roby should exist, you should ask Skinsmoke. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:52, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
What the f. Nonsense. Aintree is a place and the village is within it. Hutyon with Roby is a former Urban District. This is completely irrelevent about "parishes". They all are within a borough either Sefton or Knowsley and therefore their previous existance or "parish" status does not have any bearing.Babydoll9799 (talk) 19:06, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
Also, please don't defer to another user if you are making the change. In addition, it is not my opinion "if you don't think that Huyton with Roby should exist", it does NOT exist, FACTBabydoll9799 (talk) 19:08, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
I know "Aintree Village" is confusing but that's the name of the parish, see Category:Easington Village for example, possibly it could be merged though. If you don't think "Huyton with Roby" should exist then you should ask Skinsmoke (talk·contribs) who created it, Skinsmoke will tell you why it was created and what place it has. In my opinion it should maybe be kept, yes it doesn't exist now but it did exist in the past. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:17, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
The past is something that needs to be boxes off but you cannot change pages just on a whim. Huyton With Roby is historical like a number of other historical urban districts in the region. Aintree Village does not exist as it is still Aintree.Babydoll9799 (talk) 19:23, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
Actually that is just Aintree, not Aintree Village. Just because a page says "Aintree Village" does not mean it exists as a separate entity. Please stop trying to justify something that is not so. The place is Aintree. Babydoll9799 (talk) 19:35, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
The civil parish may officially be called "Aintree Village", but it is synonymous with the village "Aintree" - and common name please. Category:Aintree should be categorised as a CP, and Category:Aintree Village should redirect there. The same will go for other "X Village" and "X Town" civil parishes - the two topics should only be split if the parish is significantly different from the settlement.--Nilfanion (talk) 19:48, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
I'd suggest a similar test to the splitting of cities between district and settlement. As parish boundaries are generally centuries old, the default position will be to combine in most (if not all) cases.--Nilfanion (talk) 20:02, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
A point that should be noted as I have said is Huyton with Roby was an Urban District that has ceased to exist. Having just thought about it, to reply to earlier point, it something that is referenced, here, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huyton_with_Roby_Urban_District, on Wikipedia. Surely this historical distict therefore has no relevance anyway when it comes to Wikimedia which is about images, because those images represent the place as it is now. Wikipedia is where you can read up on the past. As for Aintree, Aintree is the "place"; the village is what you might call the distict centre. They are not two separate entities. Babydoll9799 (talk) 20:51, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
districts of (county)
Can I ask what this is about? You are making many changes not just in Merseyside. This is for something that you are changed to districts of when they are not actually districts they are metropolitan boroughs of the county, I don't see why you are making this change. Would appreciate if you'd stop reverting what I am correcting. Babydoll9799 (talk) 19:41, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
You didn't answer me. You are changing on many places to "districts of". They are not districts they are boroughs that make up the county. The districts themselves are featured within the borough so why confuse the matter? This was previously noted as "Merseyside" which you are changing to "Districts of Merseyside". Why change? It is incorrect and misleading. Babydoll9799 (talk) 19:47, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
Someone talking sense. Quite agree with Nilfainion, although why they need to be changed i'm not sure? I would be more happy with "Met..Boro of rather than districts although I would have been happy with the status quo. Babydoll9799 (talk) 19:59, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi - please don't create more unhelpful District/Settlement splits like you did with Poole. The current situation on Commons already has too many splits. Any districts on the UKDISTRICTS list should not be created (without discussion). Long lasting Commons categories (eg Category:City of Birmingham) should be considered for merging.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:56, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
I agree that one is in the borderline compared to some, but please do not create any more splits for districts on that list - WP has a consensus that there is no point making a distinction for those. We already have splits for some of those here, and we should work out what to do with those before creating more.
I'm not saying Commons should follow WP's lead here, but until we decide where and how to differ, we should not deviate from the standards there. Look at Category:Manchester and look at how many of its sub-cats are "City of Manchester" instead of just "Manchester" (which is what they should be if we aren't making a distinction) and you can see changing these would be time-consuming.
With case of Poole, the problem is more Bournemouth than Canford Magna. The Bournemouth/Poole boundary goes through some buildings, and some Poole streets are only accessible from Bournemouth. This means saying Poole is different from the Borough, because the Borough contains distinct settlements is problematic - Poole itself is not a distinct settlement.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:11, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
Yes, I saw that there was already a discussion on Poole, there aren't any more that probably need to be split if Poole isn't.
Regarding Manchester and City of Manchester - yes, absolutely, they should all be merged/moved (to plain "Manchester").--Nilfanion (talk) 21:08, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
I asked because there are so many of those cats that it would be a huge mess if we do have to revert. Note that Manchester's LA boundaries have changed (see the Governance section) for example Ringway being added which isn't part of the settlement. Birmingham could maybe be merged but Sutton Coldfield is kind of separate and was added in 1974. Cheltenham's boundaries are much like the settlement (with the exception of some open land) but the boundaries are very recent (1991) while Reading is much larger than the district but has older boundaries. Chesterfield has both recent boundaries and are different to the town (Staveley and Brimington) were added in 1974. w:Wikipedia:WikiProject UK subdivisions/English districts#Principals imposes a much stricter requirement for splitting than w:WP:UKDISTRICTS does. On Wikipedia it appears that generally the boundaries have to be recent and different while here we have many with just recent. Note that there is a RM at w:Talk:City of St Albans. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:28, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
Please stop adding counter-factual information about English local authorities
You seem to be ignoring all attempts to stop you. For example Leicester is a City, not a district. Shropshire is a Unitary Authority, not a district. Several of us have spent many hours reversing your changes to the English Wikipedia and don't want to start here. S a g a C i t y (talk) 03:54, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
@Saga City: "District" in the sense of Category:Districts in England means "local government district", which includes UAs - that element of these edits are OK. The cats might need renaming but the principle is fine.
@Crouch, Swale: However, Leicester is not a city and district. It is a city and a unitary authority, it is a city and local government distict. Likewise there is no such thing as "Shropshire District", the area run by Shropshire County Council is formally called "Shropshire". IF that area needs to be distinguished from the ceremonial county, it should be done by parenthetical disambiguation.
Please do not create any more district-level categories, until discussions about the existing ones have been fully resolved.--Nilfanion (talk) 09:00, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
Saga City, I already discussed this with you and I thought you were happy with it. Unitary authorities are districts, its just a subcat of a district, just like an Oak is a subcat of a tree, for example it would still be correct to say "the Queen Elizabeth Oak is a tree in West Sussex" just as "thority due to the fact that UAs are somewhat separate to their counties and it maybe does add more useful context with Shropshire. Doesn'the Queen Elizabeth Oak is an Oak Tree in West Sussex". I have used this as this is the most basic way of describing things (as people may not know what a UA is, which can be expanded on, on Wikipedia) however it may be more appropriate to use unitary aut the word "district" already add enough context rather than saying "Leicester is a unitary authority in Leicestershire"? However there were more districts in Shropshire but that could be covered by using w:Category:Former non-metropolitan districts of Shropshire.
Yes it is called Shropshire just like Maldon is not "Maldon Distrct" or Darlington isn't "Borough of Darlington" or Carlisle isn't "City of Carlisle". In this context "District" is just the dab which w:WP:UKDISTRICTS uses, there is nothing else for UAs. Are you suggesting it should be something like "Shropshire (district)" or "Shropshire (unitary authority)?
The formal legal name of the district that contains Darlington is the "Borough of Darlington" - as used in legislation. The same is true of the city districts which are formally the "City of Leeds", the "City of Brighton and Hove" etc etc
When we say "X District" we mean "this district is named X District". When we say "X (district)" we mean "this district is named X". In other words, without the brackets, the word district is part of the name. That's not invalid for Maldon.
In contrast, the formal legal name of the area covered by Shropshire Council is the "county of Shropshire". There is no such thing as "the District of Shropshire" or "Shropshire District". How to distinguish the two forms of county (ceremonial and administrative) is not something WP has ever tackled adequately.--Nilfanion (talk) 19:25, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Isn't that still just the description, on maps and censuses they just appear under their standard names. Many administrative units have "full names" like "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" but is still just "United Kingdom" in most sources.
Again this I thought was primarily naming conventions, which use a "long" name to disambiguate from the place that they take their name from.
We clearly couldn't use "County of Shropshire" because of the actual county covering Telford and Wrekin. In this case I think that you are suggesting that natural disambiguation is not suitable here because of the district not using "Shropshire District" even as a long name, in this case should we just go back (as I think you suggested) to Shropshire (district). Crouch, Swale (talk) 15:21, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
The full, legal, name of the country is the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", but the short-form "United Kingdom" is usually used for obvious reasons. The same applies to for example, the Borough of Darlington, its not a description but the name. We don't use these long names in most contexts on wiki because we prefer the common name, but the full name does point to alternatives if the short form isn't an option.
The issue is District is part of the formal name of many districts - so is acceptable as natural disambiguation. When District is not part of the formal name, it is not acceptable.
In the case of Shropshire (and the other ones) I'm inclined to just revert and redirect back to the county. Splitting the area of the unitary authority from the ceremonial county is something that needs to be done with a lot of care (its not just getting the right title), certainly not what has happened here.--Nilfanion (talk) 17:44, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
Why does it need a lot of care?, yes it might take a while to move everything but they clearly do have separate boundaries. The district is the council area and the county is the district called "Shropshire" and Telford and Wrekin. I agree from what has been said and the naming conventions that "Shropshire District" and the others should be moved to "Shropshire (district)" or even "Shropshire (unitary authority). The discussion about it can happen here or on the category's talk page. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:52, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
The first problem is what is a county? There is a whole series of problems connected to that issue as you can tell if you read the relevant WP articles. "the county is the district called "Shropshire" and Telford and Wrekin" is not actually a correct statement.
A more minor issue is what is a "unitary authority"? The answer - the council, not the area covered by that council. It has also crept into use as a term for the area as well, but it is neither universally used nor formally endorsed.--Nilfanion (talk) 18:02, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
A county is the whole subdivision of England (a ceremonial county) e.g. Cumbria, Essex, Devon ect. including the parts that are administrated separately. The district with UA status called "Shropshire" just includes that UA while the (ceremonial) county includes Shropshire UA and Telford and Wrekin UA.
A unitary authority is a district that is administrated separately to the rest of the county, Leicester is administrated separately to the rest of Leicestershire but is still part of the ceremonial county of Leicestershire. The unitary authority covers the district, see File:New Shropshire Ceremonial Numbered.png in the same way as Leicester. I'm not convinced that it is not universally used or formally endorsed as the census does specify that both Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin are unitary authorities. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:20, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
The issue you are missing is a "county" is not the same thing as a "ceremonial county" - ceremonial counties are one type of county. Wiki-usage prefers them for a number of reasons, but ceremonial counties are not the basic building blocks of English geography. Thath means your language is effectively back-to-front. Leicestershire County Council is not the council of the county minus Leicester, it is the council of the county of Leicestershire. The ceremonial county consists of that area plus Leicester. The process is addition, not subtraction.--Nilfanion (talk) 18:41, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
Are you sure? Leicestershire is just a standard county isn't it?, Leicester has always been in the county of Leicestershire hasn't it? its just that it is administrated separately. Leicester has never been a county in its own right has it? Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:58, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Please read w:non-metropolitan county, the government has confused greatly county matters since the 70s. Leicester is not part of the (non-metropolitan) county of Leicestershire, and is a (non-metropolitan) county in its own right. This absurdity is avoided by the use of ceremonial counties - which are the administrative counties plus the relevant UAs. The ceremonial counties have almost zero functions, except to provide a "sensible" county area. That is why ceremonial counties are preferred on wiki for 99.99% of things. The problem is only with those that saw the majority of the ceremonial county merged into a single UA in 2009 (Cornwall, Co Durham, Shropshire, Wiltshire). In all 4 cases, the ceremonial county and the main UA have the same name.
Cornwall is the most extreme case. It is a complete waste of time to try and disentangle Cornwall from Cornwall. That means Cornwall should just have a single category, effectively treating it as if it were a single district county. It also avoids having to work out correct names for the two categories when the split has negligible value (or maybe even negative value). Any Isles of Scilly cats could be standard subcats within that.
The same works for the other 3 as well. Why split them? Really, what value is gained from it? This is why none of those 4 districts have articles on en.wp - they don't have a sufficient identity independent of the county.--Nilfanion (talk) 20:00, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
I'm still a little confused with it all, w:Metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties of England#2009 structural changes does suggest that some administrative counties were abolished and became just a ceremonial county. But indeed when were talking about a "county" we are talking about what normal (ceremonial) county it lies not what it is administrated by (which is often explained in the articles). There was interestingly an article on the county of Luton. I would now probably be leaning towards renaming them to "Shropshire (unitary authority") assuming we agree to keep them.
But it is still a (different) area to what the (ceremonial) county, and at least could have maps etc. for the area which would clearly fit in that cat.
I would also consider what we should do with Category:Greater London as well, this would be complicated as there appears to be no official boundaries for London and Greater London and may create a mess. Maybe we should also have cats for the former districts (that were merged into Cornwall UA) as subcats of the UA. The same could also be done with the others and also with Cheshire. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:51, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
In 2009, the administrative county of Bedfordshire was abolished - leaving Bedfordshire as a ceremonial entity only. But the entire ceremonial county is still covered by administrative counties - Luton, Central Beds and Bedford. The more you look at this stuff the more confusing it gets!
Greater London - the area covered by the GLA is the same as London for all practical meanings. The City of London is a slight exception (it is its own ceremonial county), but like the Isles of Scilly is to Cornwall, its such a minor thing its not worth making a distinction - the hassle and potential confusion outweighs any gains.
Indeed, but were still talking about where it actually is not who administrates it, yes Bedfordshire no longer functions as an administrative county but it those places are still in the actual (ceremonial) county of Bedfordshire.
When I was mentioning Greater London a was referring to the fact that we don't even have 1 category for Greater London like there is on Wikipedia. Indeed I don't know if it would be beneficial to split or if it would just create too much mess.
Ceremonial counties are not the actual counties - because there is no such thing as an actual county. If someone asks how many counties England has, the correct answer is to ask what sort of county. They are one form of county, but they are not the only sort of county, nor are they a superior form. The only sort of county that is assigned "superior" status by anyone are the historic counties, but that is a minority position that Wiki has consistently rejected. We use ceremonial counties for wiki purposes. Please avoid describing the ceremonial counties as the counties.--Nilfanion (talk) 17:58, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
To avoid confusion then, even on Commons maybe we should use "Leicester is a city and district with unitary authority status in the ceremonial county of Leicestershire". Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:09, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
There is no need to go to that extreme. But when you are discussing the very nature of counties, it is important you get use right terminology. If you use the wrong terminology, you may make the wrong conclusions, and that leads to the wrong actions.
This is something you are prone to do, making up a solution for something unusual. Reading the relevant WP article can often tell you the correct terms to use. For instance Category:Burrator is not a "parish council" - its council is a parish council. Burrator itself is a grouped parish / parish grouping. Likewise, Burrator can only be removed from the category tree if its categories content is split between the 3 CPs.--Nilfanion (talk) 09:10, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
Getting the right terminology is indeed very important so what do you think would be the best description for Leicester?
Yes I agree reading would help me but w:Burrator is incorrect, its still not a civil parish. I question if we even should have it, using parish councils as well as civil parishes seems a bit overkill as I thought we agreed at User talk:Skinsmoke. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:52, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
When it comes to text, the lead of the relevant WP article is fine 99% of the time (unless the WP is itself wrong). On Commons, "Leicester is in Leicestershire" may be problematic but "Leicester is in Leicestershire" is OK. The link is all the clarification needed.
The article I was referring to in this case was w:Parish councils in England - and judging from your reply, you have not grasped the correct situation with Burrator. "Burrator" is not ANY of the following things: "civil parish", "parish" or "parish council". Burrator is a "grouping of civil parishes" or a "grouped parish" (or any similar term). Burrator Parish Council is the council and is not Burrator, just as Exeter City Council is not Exeter. The council and the area it covers are different things.
As for the Commons category:Burrator, it exists and has content - so should not be deleted (at this time). That content should be split between the 3 parish cats, but its possible some content will be about the broader unit (eg a map). In that case, the category should stay.--Nilfanion (talk) 18:07, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
So the mention of a district or UA isn't needed, just the location will do? Although we are supposed to just summarize, surely putting what it is would still be helpful, maybe "Leicester is a city and district in the ceremonial county of Leicestershire"?
I do understand like w:Leeds is the settlement, w:City of Leeds is the district and w:Leeds City Council is the council. Will a map be appropriate as it isn't an area as you said, just a council that runs 3 areas. I wasn't literally suggesting delete, just merging it with West Devon. But I do agree that it does add some value. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:23, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
A brief description is fine - the important bit is to link the terms which may be confusing (there's no need to say "ceremonial county"- the link negates that requirement).
You are still getting the terms wrong "it isn't an area as you said, just a council that runs 3 areas"... It is an area, consisting of three smaller areas. It has a council, but is not a council itself. Please do not call ever call an area of land a "council" - if you avoid that phrasing you are heading in the right direction.--Nilfanion (talk) 18:32, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
OK so should it include that it is a city, a district/UA given that Leicestershire is linked or should it just say that it is in Leicestershire?
Is it not the equivalent of "City of Leeds" (the actual area) and "Leeds City Council" (what runs the area) other than the fact that it includes 3 areas instead of its self. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:44, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
Anything really is fine, just link the appropriate terms. And yes, Burrator and Burrator Parish Council are equivalent to the City of Leeds and Leeds City Council - one is an area of land, the other is an organisation. Neither the City of Leeds nor Burrator is a council, but both have councils.--Nilfanion (talk) 18:49, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
So the description was fine, I think adding unitary authority in brackets might help though.
Having encountered this issue within Merseyside with this user, can I ask where are you from? Why are you "meddling" in geography that you do not understand? They were fine as they were. Babydoll9799 (talk) 21:13, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Uhh.. it already was sub-divided. All you did it put an extra level of categories between the county and district cats - and unfortunately did so in a clumsy manner.--Nilfanion (talk) 17:58, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
If you want a suggestion on something to do that should avoid controversy - Unchecked Geograph images. Every image there with a sortcode starting "z" (so from the Old Mill pub) has not had its categories checked. Many will have no content categories at all, and many will have the wrong location identified by bot. And there's going to be thousands of files there.--Nilfanion (talk) 09:10, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
Saga City and Nilfanion Would "Shropshire (district)" be better as "Shropshire (unitary authority)" see w:Wikipedia:PRECISION in the same way that we add the status of the district like City of Leeds or Borough of Darlington should we use "(unitary authority)" or is "(district)" precise enough. My general idea was to use the least amount of detail possible when disambiguating things, thus prefer Colchester (district) over Colchester (borough) and Barnsley (borough) over Barnsley (metropolitan borough) however the latter can be the most recognizable as the district has a further status. In the case of Shropshire, presumably people and sources are more likely to consider it a unitary authority that just a district. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:05, 15 November 2016 (UTC) As pointed out above due to the fact that "Maldon District" and "Borough of Darlington" seem to be used in legislation but for Herefordshire it is "County of Herefordshire" and we shouldn't use "County of Herefordshire" because like "City of Carlisle" people will think it is the geographical (ceremonial) county (obviously this doesn't apply to Herefordshire as it has the same boundaries unlike Shropshire). If the same thing was done to Shropshire as has been done to Carlisle we could have "Shropshire, England and "County of Shropshire" which doesn't make sense like you pointed out here Note that Geonames calls it "Carlisle District". An important point I think with these is to follow w:Wikipedia:RECOGNIZABILITY and W:WP:DABCONCEPT and use "Carlisle" and "Carlisle (district)" and "Shropshire" and "Shropshire (unitary authoriry) obviously the issue with cities will have to happen on WP first (as I can see the problem with Leeds again, which hasn't caused problems when it doesn't have city status like Mansfield for example but the merge will probably fail per W:WP:SNOW anyway), we can still talk about USs. My concern it that most of our readers any even editors won't understand what they are (as evidence there are links pointing to "City of Salford" intended for the place which would probably happen if we did the same to Shropshire) In the case of Carlisle on WP it could have a direct link it the Pennsylvania city instead of the district although Salford would probably just have the district as there are no other major uses. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:27, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, lets see what Nilfanion thinks, I'm assuming Nilfanion will agree, in which case we can rename them. On W:WP:UKDISTRICTS#Naming conventions we could have something like "District with unitary authority status with the same name as their larger ceremonial counties use "(district)" like "Shropshire (district)" because "County of Shropshire" isn't recognizable". Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:58, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
There's two problems here. Firstly, a unitary authority is a council not an area of land. Shropshire Council is a UA, Shropshire is not. That's largely a question of semantics and is not a big deal (this misuse of the term is commonplace, and it is better than district). Secondly, what is the point in having a separate category for the two Shropshires? I do NOT see any practical benefits as almost all categorisation is done at the county-level or the locality-level (eg "Roads in <shire>", "Roads in <city>" not "Roads in <district>"). Most district categories end up being a simple list of the CPs. If that's all we want from a notional category on the district - we are better off just having a single category for the county. Just merge it back to the county and be done with it please.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:44, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
It is an area of land, see here like Bedford. How is Shropshire different to Bedford? If anything less complicated as it is smaller than the county. The point is that they have different boundaries (which are clear and distinct) unlike Bedford. I wasn't suggesting splitting the categories further (although others can do so if needed) but note for example this is done for some others for example Category:Churches in the borough of Doncaster and Category:Churches in Doncaster. In the case of Bedford for example the same could arguably be done as Category:Borough of Bedford is primarily for a list of CPs in Bedford as well. I am not entirely against merging but I think it would be better kept if you think it should be merged than why not those with settlements as well. Do you still think the proposed rename to Shropshire (unitary authority) would be better (assuming it is kept). Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:20, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
Again, this is semantics and doesn't really matter - but the area on that map is not a unitary authority. A unitary authority is a type of local government authority with the responsibilities of both district and county council. A UA is a local government organisation, not an area of land, just as the Greater London Authority is not Greater London. And please don't confuse Shropshire's situation with that that applies to (say) Carlisle. They are different, and may need different solutions.--Nilfanion (talk) 12:34, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
Isn't that the same with all the USs then (like Bedford, Milton Keynes, Peterborough etc). Like on Wikipedia there is Darlington, Borough of Darlington and Darlington Borough Council. This is the case because Darlington is within the ceremonial county of Durham but the borough is run by a US (which is why Wikipedia defines it as a "unitary authority area") which is why it isn't run by Durham County Council. Is that why you don't think referring to the area of land its self as a US is correct because the US is the council its self not the borough. If so what should we call it and what should we call Peterborough? maybe "Shropshire (unitary authority area)" to distinguish from the council. I think I understand now having had a closer look. Crouch, Swale (talk) 13:00, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
Please check my Talk page. I've compiled a list of all the changes I have found, and also located where you can find the bulletins listing changes. Skinsmoke (talk) 20:01, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
rejected category deletion
Hi. The reasoning To move Category:Wells, England here per w:WP:UKPLACE as there is also a ward in Worcestershire is not suitable as a reason. Firstly, enWP is enWP, it is not Commons. The decision needs to be based on what is appropriate for Commons. I have no particular issue with consulting the community about your proposed move, and I would support the action. For it to happen there is no need for a deletion of the category, just re-ordering its contents. — billinghurstsDrewth10:40, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
Billinghurst I was requesting that Category:Wells, Somerset be deleted so that Category:Wells, England can be moved there (so that the edit history is intact). Is there any reason why Wells, Somerset is not appropriate here, I don't think this is controversial enough for a move discussion but we can have one if you think it is. Crouch, Swale (talk) 10:50, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
Categories are not moved as per pages, it doesn't work! All the pages will still be linked to the original category. So reach your agreement that the move should occur, then when there is agreement they will be moved. Hmm, I probably needed to be more specific with the link, please see Commons:Rename a category — billinghurstsDrewth13:55, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
