Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography/Archive 40

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Acton Bridge copyright

Acton Bridge#History says This section is adapted (with permission) from Snapshots in Time, with a deadlink reference. The copyright issue with this was raised 9 years ago on the talk page to no response. Can anyone access this book and (a) determine if it is legitimately CC BY-SA 4.0 compatible and (b) if not, resummarise and rewrite the information in the book (if it's a reliable source) to avoid copyright violation? — Bilorv (talk) 13:10, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

There's a bit more information on the book at http://www.pardoe.net/abo/abwibook.htm but not enough to answer those questions. WaggersTALK 12:02, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
Okay. I've blanked this material as its compatibility is unclear and I'm also not confident how relevant and encyclopedic it is. — Bilorv (talk) 12:07, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

People categories and places

Requesting comment on a cross-discipline categorisation dispute at Talk:Crook o' Lune#Queen categories; may have wider application than this project (suggestions welcome), but I thought I'd ask here first. Dave.Dunford (talk) 23:07, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Have to say I agree with you, these are definitely trivia at best. Give there appears to be no reliable sources that say the events mentioned actually happened, its unverifiable. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 11:52, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
@Dimadick: The same user is again adding what seem to me like peculiar categories to another place article on my watchlist, adding Port Meadow, Oxford to Category:Lewis Carroll and Category:Alice Liddell. There are associations between the place and the people, sure, but they are far from defining (Port Meadow is famous for lots of other things) and furthermore, Port Meadow is not mentioned in either of the articles Lewis Carroll or Alice Liddell. I simply don't think this is how categories are supposed to be used – wikilinks from the Port Meadow article (which already exist) are sufficient. Is it just me? I've tried talking to the user but got nowhere. Any thoughts? Dave.Dunford (talk) 22:18, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
I think your definition of categories is absurd, and hinters our ability to locate relevant articles. Dimadick (talk) 22:20, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
I think your definition of categories is absurd. And I think yours is too, and I think you are the outlier, which is why I'm here requesting a second opinion. If a category such as Category:Places visited by Lewis Carroll existed, then Port Meadow would belong in it. But, by your method, what are you going to do about somewhere like London? Are you going to put the London article in every category of every person with an article who's ever lived in (or visited) London, or even whose ouevre is particularly connected with London – and if not, why not? I challenge you to define what makes an association between a person and a place sufficient for you to put that place in that person's category, and what is insufficient. Your use of categories is subjective and illogical. If you really, genuinely want a list of "things that are peripherally associated with Lewis Carroll" you can find it at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Lewis_Carroll Dave.Dunford (talk) 08:00, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
@Dimadick: I've been thinking about why I think your use of categories is illogical and inappropriate, and I've concluded that it comes down to my understanding that categories must have an aspect of "inclusion" and "direction", and your interpretation of them ignores that element. There is a clear hierarchy, a direction of inclusion, in valid category chains such as Category:Oxfordshire ⊆ Category:Oxford ⊆ Category:Areas of Oxford ⊆ Port Meadow, or Category:British male writers ⊆ Category:Lewis Carroll ⊆ Category:Works by Lewis Carroll ⊆ Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (where "⊆" means "is a superset of", or "contains"). Conversely, there is no such directed or inclusive relationship between Lewis Carroll and Port Meadow: there are lots of aspects of Lewis Carroll that are nothing to do with Port Meadow, and there are lots of things about Port Meadow that are unrelated to Lewis Carroll. You could just as well have placed Lewis Carroll in a (hypothetical) Category:Port Meadow. This may not be the right forum to debate your interpretation of categories, but I don't know where is. Dave.Dunford (talk) 11:57, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
@Dimadick: A further thought: the only logical way to reflect the association between Lewis Carroll and Port Meadow (or Elizabeth I and Crook o' Lune, for that matter) using categories, while preserving the hierarchical requirement, would be to create intermediary categories such as Category:Places visited by Lewis Carroll and Category:People associated with Port Meadow, and put Port Meadow in the former, and Lewis Carroll in the latter. This is rather analogous to a many-to-many relationship in data theory. But both categories would be deleted for being non-defining, if nothing else. These are loose relationships, and these are not a job for categories – which is effectively the point I've been trying to make all along. Dave.Dunford (talk) 13:09, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
– "which is effectively the point I've been trying to make all along" The job of categories is to help concentrate articles relevant to a topic.Dimadick (talk) 14:05, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
@Dimadick: That's a very loose, subjective and individual interpretation of the purpose of categories, and ignores all the nuances I've explained above. Categories, by definition, imply inclusion: a one-to-many relationship. Port Meadow is not a subcategory of Lewis Carroll, since you could just as easily reverse the categorisation. If you drew a Venn diagram to illustrate the relationship it would show, at best, an intersection. Dave.Dunford (talk) 14:34, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
@Dimadick and Dave.Dunford: As far as I know the previous "ping" won't have worked, because it needs to be added in an edit which includes a signature in the same edit. Adding this one instead. PamD 21:41, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
@Dave.Dunford: AFAIAA, Carroll nor Liddell, did not create Port Meadow? Merely rowed on it, with one sentence in the article. So don't seem to be a WP:DEFINING aspect of the subject, and are WP:OVERCAT for WP:NOTDEFINING. So agree these are overcats, noticed Sean Connery at Balmoral Hotel, looking for an outlandish example, seems this isn't recent.
In the end, templates (if needed) or the actual article can serve for navigation. DankJae 23:02, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
This discussion is reminiscent of a problem at Mnemonic verses of monarchs in England, discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Categories#What constitutes a "Cultural representation"?, where @Dimadick: had added "Category:Cultural representations of [every single monarch]": I maintain that a mention in such a verse is not a "cultural depiction".
On Alice: it's noticeable that although the article on Port Meadow, Oxford says "This is where the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) and the Reverend Robinson Duckworth rowed up the river on 4 July 1862 with three young girls — Lorina, Alice, and Edith Liddell. While journeying slowly from Folly Bridge to near Godstow, Dodgson began at their request to make up a story that later was expanded into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.", the article on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland says "The journey began at Folly Bridge, Oxford, and ended 5 miles (8 km) upstream at Godstow, Oxfordshire.", so Port Meadow is merely one of the places they passed through. The categorisation is not helpful to anyone.
It begins to look as if Dimadick is in a minority of one in their interpretation of categorisation policy. PamD 13:56, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Just to throw my +1 into the ring here, I'm with Dave.Dunford - categories aren't for tenuous/spurious links. This kind of association might fit better as Wikidata relationships but even then, "places visited by a person" doesn't seem to be a sufficiently notable property for inclusion (visited by and visitor of are for insects visiting species of plants, there's no equivalent property for humans visiting places). WaggersTALK 13:04, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the relationship between Port Meadow and Lewis Carroll is rather tenuous, but it's not really the weakness of the association that bothers me, on reflection, it's the hierarchy of the associations. In a straightforward categorical relationship between two concepts, everything in the subcategory is associated with the supercategory. Everything within Alice in Wonderland pertains to Lewis Carroll, but not the other way round: Lewis Carroll wrote many books, but Alice in Wonderland has only one author. That hierarchical relationship doesn't apply here: Lewis Carroll is associated with lots of places, and Port Meadow is (or could be) associated with lots of people. Dave.Dunford (talk) 15:08, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Help requested to resolve a dispute

Chocolateediter and I are engaged in an edit war at List of towns and cities in England by population, specifically over how the statistical area that the ONS calls "Milton Keynes" should be represented, and more generally whether the basic premise of the list is sound. We have both reached 3RR so we appear to be at an impasse. Is there a Solomon in the house? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 00:26, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

City population support

Just to check something. When reviewing the Liverpool page I could see that Liverpool 4th largest city in England (per List of towns and cities in England by population) which appears to be using BUA, so I did a head-count that it would be the 5th in the UK. However according to List of cities in the United Kingdom, if we ignore City of London/Westminster as we often do, it is the 9th largest in UK as it is vaulted by other cities because the list is measured by Local Authority area. Are we authoritatively saying that this is the specific size of the city? I ask because over on City of Leeds the wording is toe-ing the line of a technicality per making it technically the second largest city in England by population behind Birmingham, since London is not a single local government entity (as does Sheffield), while Birmingham is going for It is the second-largest city in Britain (never mind the "Second City" claim which includes a sterling source discussing the "Second City Derby" never mentioned within the article), Glagow confidently just states the third-most populous city in the United Kingdom while Bradford vaguely shakes a fist at the fourth-most populous metropolitan district and the sixth-most populous local authority district in England, Edinburgh meanwhile apparently can't count making it the second-most populous city in Scotland and the seventh-most populous in the United Kingdom (it's 8th). Can we agree a few things:

  • such technicalities are not warranted in leads
  • we should just use the List of cities in the United Kingdom methodology, and List of towns and cities in England by population should be changed to match it?
  • phrases like "by population" / "most populous" are not required where "largest" would suffice
  • city is clearer than diluting to met district / authority district (especially when one "City" is specifically, technically, "not a singly local government entity")
  • the List of cities in the United Kingdom probably needs a numbering system to help Edinburgh and readers in general (and I'll stop the ribbing now, honest) with two number 1 slots (or a wider definition of "London" in a numbered list)

Just in case of any confusion, the "Top 10" list should be:

  1. London
  2. Birmingham
  3. Leeds
  4. Glasgow
  5. Manchester
  6. Sheffield
  7. Bradford
  8. Edinburgh
  9. Liverpool
  10. Bristol

Thanks all. Koncorde (talk) 00:25, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

City status (at least in England and Wales) is held by an defined territory. Because in some cases this clashes with how ordinary language prefers to consider an urban area to be a city, we have to use our wording carefully. We can either do lists based on built-up areas, or we can do lists by areas that hold city status, but mixing and matching to our own bespoke policy makes for a mess and would need more explanation on too many pages, rather than sticking to the more objective "this place is Xth largest built-up area" / "Yth largest place holding city status". I agree, it sounds intuitively perverse to describe Leeds as the second largest city, but it is the second most populous territory to hold city status - perhaps it's a point to explain more carefully further down the article rather than prominently in the lead, but it is correct. Your "top 10" list looks like it's built-up areas from the 2021 census plus London first, but I would add a significant note of caution there - we have the new built-up area statistics from the 2021 census, but we're still waiting for the "built-up conglomerations" to be published. (The built-up conglomerations will be more directly comparable to the old built-up areas from the 2011 census - the built-up areas for 2021 are more like the discontinued built-up area subdivisions from the 2011 census.) I fully expect when the conglomerations data is published it will include London (whereas the published built-up areas so far don't) and we'll see a rather different ranking to the list based purely on built-up areas, at which point we can update articles accordingly. Stortford (talk) 17:06, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
I agree with Stortford that we need to word things carefully, generally I'd prefer settlement population over districts I terms of preference for which is the best I'd use (1) BUASD, (2) BUA, (3) parish (or unparished area) and (4) district, see User:Crouch, Swale/Populations. I'd mention all 4 figures in an article (though not necessarily all in the lead) even if there are separate articles for districts or BUAs. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:47, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
Don't disagree with either of you, I raise it because at the moment it seems a mixed bag of what is being used as the definitive source. For example the Leeds & Sheffield articles pipe "second / third largest city" to the List of English districts by population. This is obviously highly questionable as the list of districts is neither a list of cities, and conflates cities with districts, and has a lot of districts in there that are Unitary Authorities representing (largely) whole counties which would be confusing to any reader. Birmingham appears to be using this website whose population figures differ from those on any wiki list, so unclear what source is being used. Others use the List of cities in the United Kingdom, while places like Bradford decide every possible measure of size is required in the first paragraph.
Waiting for "built-up conglomerations" to come is fine, but are we agreed "BUC" will be the definitive version? How long do we wait while wikipedia is a mess of "technically" in the lead? Can we not just say "Leeds is the 3rd biggest city"? Koncorde (talk) 16:16, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
Only if you can find reliable source which say it is. If it's only true if you see things through the prism of a certain set of assumptions and modifications to what sources actually say then I'm afraid that falls foul of WP:SYNTH. Leeds is the second most populous built-up area on a list which expressly excludes London. However, you can't just choose to put London first and add one to all the other scores, because that isn't what the source says. If you look back to the 2011 built-up areas, which are the last official set that include London, the largest four were Greater London BUA (9.8m), Greater Manchester BUA (2.6m), West Midlands BUA (2.4m) and West Yorkshire BUA (1.8m). City Populations has tried pre-empting the 2021 built-up conglomerations with its own version that it's called agglomerations, which similarly has the three largest being London, Manchester and Birmingham, with Leeds/Bradford in fourth.
You also can't use the unqualified word 'city' and expect readers to automatically understand you're using it to mean urban areas, given that the official definition of city is something else. The Office for National Statistics carefully avoids using the terms 'city' and 'town' in its published datasets for urban areas and opts instead for 'built-up area' or 'built-up conglomeration' instead, so as to avoid ambiguity. We should not therefore introduce that very ambiguity by attaching different names to its data. Stortford (talk) 07:07, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
Yet our articles use a mix of unqualified, qualified, and the source is.... piped wikipedia articles using mixed datasets. Koncorde (talk) 20:58, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
Following on from the above I think that List of towns and cities in England by population article is full of WP:SYNTH. Its source explicitly excludes London but the article includes it and the source also doesnt refer to the areas as towns or cities. Eopsid (talk) 10:30, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
List of towns and cities in England by population:
I have removed London from the table and you can remove the ranking if you want. Probably by the time you read this the town or city fields will be renamed to BUA. For other uses of town and city, I’d keep since you only need to go to the places article to see if it is a town or city.
Recommendations:
I recommend these to read up on town and city status and how to refer to places for the broader discussion. Maybe these answers some questions.
My opinion:
Use BUA for town and city articles when comparing size since the corresponding district article uses the other figure which tends to include other towns or parishes in the district. At least we have the word borough otherwise we would have the same disambiguation problem for towns that we do for cities. Chocolateediter (talk) 15:45, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
I fear the general reader will find it hard to understand why London's not in Wikipedia's List of towns and cities in England by population, the more so as the ONS does publish a census figure for London, and why if London's not counted as a whole, the larger towns and cities in London aren't included instead. I follow the reasoning that we have chosen to use only one ONS publication as our source, but that seems to have created an article which should be called List of towns and cities in England outside London by population. NebY (talk) 16:34, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
Note that London is now a BUA. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:47, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
@Crouch, Swale, Not exactly sure where citypopulation.de gets that. It doesn't appear on ONS Custom Profiles while Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester BUAs etc do, and apparently London has 33 BUAs, although ONS state they release data only on the 32 boroughs + City, so that's what the 33 likely refers to. So ONS seem to state there isn't a London BUA, and doubt citypopulation.de is as reliable than the source it claims its data is from. DankJae 22:51, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
Ironically, the ONS provide inner, outer, city and greater London figures. I guess I’d be blamed for WP:Synth if Inner London figures were used (only City of London puts London below Birmingham out of the four). I assume the London Authority uses inner and outer so that is why they appear in the authority figure tables. Chocolateediter (talk) 23:44, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
We shouldn't mix different kinds of district/area in one list, sure; we don't need WP:SYNTH to tell us that. We could have two sections in List of towns and cities in England by population. One would be for London, which could be broken down by borough, inner/outer, or (as the ONS often does) both; the other would contain all the existing tables for anywhere but London. NebY (talk) 21:00, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
@DankJae: It appears that the definition of BUAs changed in 2022, see the 1st "news" entry of the top left of the UK page though we haven't got to 2022 data yet. And the ONS maps you've linked appear to show things that aren't BUAs and don't correspond to parishes. Crouch, Swale (talk) 07:19, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
@Crouch, Swale Confused, what I linked is for exactly the 2021 census. Searching Birmingham on the map gives "Birmingham Built-up area" as a option which produces a figure the same (but rounded) in the exact article. Nonetheless, I don't trust citypopulation.de's explanation of the situation more than the ONS itself, something from them is preferred. DankJae 08:47, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
@DankJae: OK I see, I was trying clicking on areas without searching and yes there is a Birmingham BUA but no London but indeed as I mentioned it appears it was only recently (according to City Population) that the definitions changed, see Kingswood, South Gloucestershire#Demography where although it makes reference to the 2021 census the data is from City Population which as I noted recently included the definition update. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:34, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Unitary councils

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The result of this discussion was consensus to combine tier 1 and 2, consensus to go on a case by case basis for tier 3 with a default to split. The issue with unitary districts can be discussed separately. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:01, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

After Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography/Archive 29#Unitary county councils: separate articles or not? there has been discussion at Talk:Somerset County Council#Merger proposal, Talk:North Yorkshire Council#Merger of North Yorkshire County Council and North Yorkshire Council and Talk:Wiltshire County Council#Merger discussion.

In terms of the differences in geographical and legal continuations I'll divide them into tiers.

  • Tier 1, Cornwall, Durham, Isle of Wight, Northumberland, North Yorkshire, Rutland, Shropshire, Somerset and Wiltshire, all of these kept the same area and the council was renamed rather than abolished and reformed, Rutland appears to tier 1 as while the order mentions about the new county it doesn't discuss the council, most of these also dropped "County" from their name when they became unitary
  • Tier 2, Buckinghamshire, which was abolished and reformed but kept the same area
  • Tier 3, (edit, Cumberland), Dorset, East Riding of Yorkshire and (edit, Herefordshire), these ended up with different boundaries and were legally different entities

Given these subsequent discussions and the possibility of merging tier 2 and 3 I'm looking at getting consensus on what should be done.

Please indicate you're !vote by stating if you support merging/keeping separate for example if you think Wiltshire Council and Wiltshire County Council should be separate articles, one for the council until 2009 and the other for the council from 2009 then write "Separate tier 1" (or "Separate all" since you are likely to want to keep the others). If you think tier 1 and 2 should be merged but tier 3 should be separate write "Combine tier 1 and t, separate tier 3". In terms of the arguments, for merging at least the 1st 2 tiers it can be argued that if the council(s) are legally the same or at least cover/covered the same area then per WP:NOTDIC we shouldn't create separate articles mainly because of a slight name change namely "Somerset County Council" becoming "Somerset Council", noting for example that Durham County Council has it seems never been split. It also gives the impression that for say Somerset the changes in 2023 were significant but not the changes in 1974 (exactly the same name but different legal entity and different boundaries) which is likely to suggest to readers that the 2023 changes were more important while having a single article better helps readers understand the differences. In terms of the arguments for keeping separate, for especially tier 3 it can be argued that if they have different boundaries and were different legal entities its more appropriate to have separate articles and put hatnotes. It can be argued that putting different but similarly names councils also violates WP:NOTDIC by treating different entities in 1 article. Also some of the articles may have enough content that its more appropriate to keep separate. @A.D.Hope, Eopsid, 10mmsocket, JMF, Mhockey, Moonraker, Number 57, Rcsprinter123, Stortford, ValenciaThunderbolt, and Wire723: Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:47, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  • Combine tier 1 and 2, neutral on tier 3, tier 1 and 2 are the same or almost the same so should probably be combined but I'm less sure on tier 3 are they may be different enough. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:25, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Separate articles in all cases except where the word count is low (e.g. Rutland County Council). Most readers are looking for the current council and the 19th & 20th century history is better in a separate article, instead of causing a distraction by appearing near the beginning of a combined article. The technical difference between a renamed body and a newly formed council has little weight. Wire723 (talk) 18:50, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
    • I concur with Wire723. BTW, the span of Buckinghamshire County Council originally included the Milton Keynes District Council (along with Aylesbury Vale DC etc), so the boundary is not the same as that of Buckinghamshire Council. Unless of course you mean its 2020 transition (nothing happened in 2009: MK left in 1997). The only thing that has stayed the same is the ceremonial county. It is this kind of complication that makes it wise to have separate articles. JMF
  • Combine tier 1 & 2, apart from nomenclature its all part of the history of a single sub-division. Tier 3 is sufficiemtly different to warrant sperate articles. Going for the purist route of haveing separate articles for every minor change could lead to a mine field, which is what the proposal is trying to avoid Murgatroyd49 (talk) 19:25, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
  • For the 3 ones it may be better to just consider each on a case by case basis and have no particular rule. If there is a consensus to split tier 1 I will reverse the merges from last year, if there is a consensus to merge tier 2 or 3 I will merge those, if there is no consensus I will leave things as they are and were from last year's discussion. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:47, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Comment. Before !voting, one way or the other, it seems a good idea to consider potential implications of these mergers. For example, for Wiltshire there's separate articles for Wiltshire Council elections post-2009 and Wiltshire County Council elections for prior years. Presumably, these two articles would also need to be merged. I haven't so far checked out others. Rupples (talk) 21:42, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
    The way the opening sentence of Wiltshire Council has been written could lead one to think Wiltshire Council has been a unitary authority since 1889! One of the problems of merging is unless clearly defined and written there's a tendency for topics to become confused. Rupples (talk) 22:26, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Combine tier 1 & 2 - I'm concerned that splitting articles every time there's a change of status or boundary fragments the narrative too much, and artificially exaggerates the extent of change and downplays the amount of continuity there was at each reform. We also need to consider how much material there would be for a page on the 'old' version of the council - I can see such articles being basically stubs or heavily overlapping the page for the modern council. I think the key points about the old version of such councils should still be mentioned on the modern council's page anyway, to provide useful context for understanding the current version.
I agree the wording needs to be clearer in places to avoid the impression of unitary authorities having been created in 1889. We do have to bear in mind that "unitary authority" isn't the legal name for these councils, but instead a widely-used shorthand for them. Strictly speaking they are all either county councils which also perform district-level functions, or district councils which also perform county-level functions. Whether or not they include the word "County" in their titles is a matter of branding rather than indicating a legal difference. To be clear:
  • County councils which now also perform district-level functions: Cornwall, County Durham, Isle of Wight, North Yorkshire, Northumberland, Shropshire, Somerset, Wiltshire
  • Councils with the same name as a ceremonial county but which are legally district councils which also perform county-level functions: Buckinghamshire, Dorset, East Riding of Yorkshire, Herefordshire, Rutland
It does seem to be at the whim of the civil servants who drafted the statutory instruments putting the changes into effect which model they followed, and the effect is the same either way. To my mind Buckinghamshire's situation was identical to Shropshire's - a county council which covered the ceremonial county minus one district which had already become unitary, but for some reason Shropshire is legally a county council and Buckinghamshire a district council.
I would keep Cumberland Council separate from the old Cumberland County Council as there are enough differences - notably Cumberland hasn't been reinstated as a ceremonial county and there was a 49 year gap. This follows what we've done in Wales where there are separate articles for Pembrokeshire County Council (the current body established in 1996) and Pembrokeshire County Council, 1889–1974. The time period gap also applies for East Riding of Yorkshire and Herefordshire, so keep them separate. I can see the argument either way on Dorset, so happy to leave that one as it is (split). Stortford (talk) 07:46, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
I agree that splitting articles every time there is a change of status or boundary is a bad idea, and for that reason I am opposed to new articles for UA areas which were (and still are) non-metropolitan counties. Buckinghamshire is an example of a non-metropolitan county (legally the "county of Buckinghamshire") which is now also a district and has a district council. But I don't think that the transition of a county council to a UA, however accomplished, can be characterised as a "change of status". I suspect that the reason why the transition was sometimes achieved by repurposing the old county council and sometimes by forming a new entity was more to do with legal efficiency than the whim of civil servants (i.e. which assets needed to be legally transferred). To my mind, the important factor is whether the UA councils are significantly different kinds of local authorities from their predecessor councils. I think they are. Mhockey (talk) 21:04, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
But in the cases of North Yorkshire and Somerset etc apart from the slight name change and gaining the district functions. Yes it may be thought of and sometimes called a new council it was both a geographical and legal continuation unlike Dorset. Having 2 articles on 2 similarly named councils having similar functions and covering exactly the same area doesn't seem helpful and I would have thought the differences would be more effectively covered in a single article. Had North Yorkshire council area had a boundary change when it became unitary then I could see the logic even though I'd be fine with 1 article but when they are exactly the same I don't think its a goo idea, given North Yorkshire Council is not only a geographical continuation but also a legal continuation. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:34, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
@Mhockey: But North Yorkshire County Council and North Yorkshire have similar functions as well as covering the same area and the same legal entity. I can see the logic in having separate articles at Municipal Borough of Wisbech and Wisbech Town Council (or Stowmarket Town Council starting at 1974 even though the urban district council has the same boundaries) even though the district/district council and parish/parish council cover/covered the same area because a district/district council is a quite a different entity to a parish/parish council, ones 3rd order and the other is 4th order. Or having separate articles at Dobwalls and Trewidland/Dobwalls where the former was renamed to the latter at the same time as boundary changes even though both are the same legal entity. Yes NYC may sometimes be called a new council (which should probably be discussed in the article like Northumberland County Council) but it isn't either geographically or legally, I would have though a single article would better serve people looking up the council. A unitary authority isn't really much of a different entity, all that happened was the council took on the district functions rather than becoming a completely different authority like a parish council. Crouch, Swale (talk) 22:25, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Separate articles, whether or not the unitary council is legally the same entity as the previous county council. This is a case where substance should take precedence over legal form. WP:NAMECHANGES gives some guidance. In North Yorkshire, North Yorkshire Council is almost always referred to as "the new council", and North Yorkshire County Council is now referred to as "the previous North Yorkshire County Council". See for example this from NYC and from MHCLG. The new council is quite different from the old council - much wider functions (and much larger income), different electoral divisions, different number of councillors, and the fact that it was easier legally to keep the same entity for a changed function does not change that. Everyone knew it was one new council taking over from the previous 8 councils, one of which was NYCC. The old council is history and should be treated in a separate article and not confused with the current council. Generally, in WP when a legal entity significantly changes its functions and characteristics, we have a new article. An extreme example is Arriva Northumbria, which is legally the same entity as Southern National, but no-one would suggest we merge the two articles.
I take a different view of the area administered by the council. Legally the UA area is the same "County of North Yorkshire" as the non-metropolitan county which preceded it, but there was no change in substance or legal form, just a change in governance. Yet we have created a separate article North Yorkshire (district), which I would merge back into North Yorkshire.--Mhockey (talk) 10:58, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Combine tiers 1 & 2. Decide tier 3 case-by-case with a default of separating them - with tier 3 they are different entities but often with much in common and little separating them, so separate articles can lead either to lots of repetition or to several very short articles that are almost permastubs. But they are technically about different subjects so different articles are arguably warranted - subject to WP:GNG of course. WaggersTALK 15:43, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
    Additional comment: councils are not inherently notable - I just need to make sure we're keeping that in mind. The places served by councils will nearly always be notable but the councils themselves need to satisfy WP:ORG if we are to have articles on them. In particular:
    • News coverage of councils being created/changed is often dismissed when considering WP:SIGCOV on the basis of WP:NOTNEWS so we ideally need more than that
    • Multiple passing mentions of councils - e.g. in reports about council decisions etc. - do not constitute significant coverage of the council itself
    As a result I would expect us to have very few articles on councils as opposed to the places they serve(d). WaggersTALK 16:15, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Combine tier 1 and tier 2. A single article suffices in many cases, as there's a degree of continuity between the councils established in 1889 or 1974 and the current councils.
Taking Shropshire as an example, the first county council was established in 1889, then abolished in 1974 and replaced by one with essentially the same boundaries. In 1998 Wrekin District Council became a unitary authority, reducing the area governed by Shropshire County Council, and in 2009 Shropshire County Council became a unitary authority. The above can be explained in a single article, and is arguably more easily explained in a single article than three – Shropshire County Council (1889–1974), Shropshire County Council (1974-2009), and Shropshire Council.
Where there isn't clear continuity we can decide on a case-by-case basis. A.D.Hope (talk) 14:40, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Combine tier 1 and 2 and case-by-case decisions for tier 3. In pretty much all the tier 1 and 2 cases, the new unitary councils are effectively a continuation of the former county council but absorbing the district functions. Re Waggers' comments about notability, I would be amazed if councils are not independently notable. In many cases they are the largest employer in the area, are one of the most important organisations in the area given their powers, and get nearly daily coverage in the local/regional press. Number 57 11:48, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
  • I would note that Cambridgeshire County Council isn't split between the 1965-1974 gap however Huntingdonshire County Council and Huntingdonshire District Council are separate. Northumberland Council was split years ago but due to the council in the end keeping "County" in the name the articles were merged. It seems at least ignoring the Welsh ones noted by Stortford that the only reason for creating separate articles for unitary authorities seems to be due to dropping "County" from the name which goes against WP:NOTDIC. Yes when it comes down to things like parishes etc we split if the names are different from settlements but if there is a name change we treat it as a continuation not a new topic like Marlingford and Colton. Crouch, Swale (talk) 22:57, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
    @Stortford: Regarding the Welsh county councils I'd point out that Carmarthenshire County Council, 1889–1974 is a short article that may more effectively be merged with Carmarthenshire County Council, Pembrokeshire County Council, 1889–1974 is a bit longer though but could probably easily be merged. Note that Denbighshire County Council and Flintshire County Council don't have separate articles. It look like Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire councils unlike Denbighshire and Flintshire cover the same area as the older councils and unlike Wiltshire County Council/Wiltshire Council and Herefordshire County Council/Herefordshire council also have exactly the same name not just similar names. The time gap is anyway far less than Cumberland and probably doesn't have much importance today anyway. If there was a significant amount of info it might be better to keep separate but there isn't. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:34, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
    • I wouldn't disagree with merging the Welsh ones with the same name but a time gap - the Flintshire and Denbighshire examples show that an article focussed on the modern body but with a paragraph or two on the old iteration for context is perfectly adequate. Stortford (talk) 21:05, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
  • Merge the articles, with a separate section for the old authority, and then redirect the original page to that section so it can easily be found. Unless the page is big enough to fork, then we should keep it separate.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 09:10, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
  • An interesting point may be if the area the council covers has a separate article or not. In terms of tier 1 only County Durham, North Yorkshire and Shropshire have separate articles however note that although when their councils became unitary authorities they kept the same boundaries they have different boundaries to the ceremonial counties. Tier 2 Buckinghamshire doesn't have a separate article and in terms of tier 3 Cumberland and Dorset have separate articles. In terms of other areas with similar names North Riding of Yorkshire (and North Riding County Council) is separate from North Yorkshire (and North Yorkshire Council) and West Riding of Yorkshire (and West Riding County Council) is separate from West Yorkshire (and West Yorkshire County Council). North Riding of Yorkshire/North Yorkshire have similar boundaries but West Riding of Yorkshire/West Yorkshire are quite different as effectively West Riding of Yorkshire was almost split into West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire while most of the North Riding of Yorkshire became North Yorkshire. I'd suggest however due to at least some difference in boundaries and names its appropriate to keep separate articles for the current/former Yorkshire counties and their councils. One could argue that if we have decided to split the county articles it makes sense to split the council articles due to that suggesting they are distinct. On the other hand it could be argued like UKDISTRICTS that if we split both old and new counties and councils there is more of a risk of duplication and that one of the other should be done similar to the fact most local authorities like Maldon District Council go to the district with the exception of those like Eastbourne Borough Council where there is no separate article on the district from the settlement. I'd argue that the 1st option likely applies that is to say we are more likely to split council articles if the county articles are split. Crouch, Swale (talk) 22:16, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Consensus

As this discussion has been going for over a month and a half it looks like we can now have a look at consensus. There is a consensus that tier 1 should be combined, thus upholding the previous discussion meaning these shouldn't be re split. Its reasonably clear that most agree that splitting when a council becomes a unitary is not helpful due to it essentially being a continuation. Only 1 user clearly supports splitting tier 1, one other (and another appeared to support this) has said about splitting except when the word count is low. We also need to be careful about how we describe the councils to make sure we don't suggest they unitary authorities were formed in 1889, we also need to be careful as was noted in the previous discussion sometimes about how we interpret sources regarding those that say "new councils" as they may mean 'council which is newly unitary' rather than 'a brand new council'. There is also a consensus to combine tier 2 namely that Buckinghamshire should be combined. There is a rough consensus that in most cases tier 3 should be split however they should be considered on a case by case basis. I will take no action with tier 3 and I have no intention at least at the moment on merging tier 3. Therefor users can use the normal procedures for merging namely either bold merges, informal discussions or formal discussions but as noted the weak consensus here is they should normally be split. The issue about if the area the councils covering that was mentioned by the separate tier 1 !voter and myself just above is a different discussion but something I may bring up at this project's talk page at some point.

In terms of the pre v post 1974 councils which was touched on here and at the previous discussion I think we should include it in the guidance that if the name was exactly the same there should only be 1 article even if the council was reformed with different boundaries.

This guidance would also likely apply in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

I therefore suggest adding something to WP:UKCOUNTIES a heading "Local authorities" similar to UKDISTRICTS saying something along the lines of When a council like Lancashire County Council was reformed in 1974 with the same name it should not be split into separate articles for pre 1974 and post 1974. This applies even if there were boundary changes. When a council becomes a unitary authority like Somerset Council but keeps the same boundaries it should be covered in a single article even if like Buckinghamshire the council was abolished and reformed with the same boundaries. If like Dorset County Council/Dorset Council (UK) there were boundary changes it should be considered on a case by case basis if separate articles should exist with the default to having separate articles. Factors that may also be taken into account if separate articles are needed or not as well as the difference in boundaries include the time gap between abolishment and formation, article content, if one council was a 2 tier and the other was a unitary and if the names of the councils are identical of merely similar..

Does this reflect consensus and do we also agree with adding the guidance about 1974? I think the only one that this might change is Cambridgeshire County Council which had a 9 year gap and different boundaries. @ValenciaThunderbolt, Wire723, JMF, Murgatroyd49, Rupples, Stortford, Mhockey, Waggers, A.D.Hope, Number 57, and Davidstewartharvey: Crouch, Swale (talk) 22:23, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Works for me. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 08:40, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
I have a niggling worry about including "article content" in the list of factors to consider. The existing contents of an article shouldn't usually be considered when deciding whether a subject is sufficiently notable to have an article of it's own. So I'd suggest switching "article content" for "significant coverage in reliable sources" or similar. We would hope that in most cases the two things are identical (if there's sufficient coverage, it'll be reflected in the article content) but that isn't always the case. Otherwise, all good! WaggersTALK 09:34, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
@Waggers: I was thinking about how much content the article(s) have but more importantly because articles should normally be judged by potential not just current state about how much appropriate content could be added and along the same lines if sources tend to treat them as the same or different councils. This seemed to be a point Wire723 was suggesting however given the factors about current and potential content are going to be the case in every topic on Wikipedia not just councils per Wikipedia:Article size I wander if we should just exclude this point as it does seem a bit of instruction creep to state something that applies to any topic on Wikipedia. So do you agree on just excluding this point/criteria? Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:29, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Yep, that works for me. WaggersTALK 09:26, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
I would say that redirect pages should be created to redirect the reader to the correct page, so articles are not written by editors whom cannot find the older named authority. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 15:52, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
@Davidstewartharvey: yes redirects should be created for future names and be left behind after renames. If Staffordshire County Council was going to become a unitary in 2026 named "Staffordshire Council" we would create Staffordshire Council as a redirect to Staffordshire County Council and then move Staffordshire County Council to Staffordshire Council once the rename happened leaving the redirect behind from the old title. If a geographically different council was going to be formed, say the new Staffordshire Council didn't cover Newcastle-under-Lyme district due to it being merged with Stoke-on-Trent then we could still redirect the future council to the present one pending a separate article just like Herefordshire County Council redirected to Herefordshire Council until a separate article was created on the old council. Something like "Redirects from future and former names should be created" would seem like a good idea. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:29, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Broadly yes - I wouldn't single out 1974 though as a large part of the point of this policy tweak is to catch the more recent changes to unitary authorities, plus it's a UK-wide policy so don't forget the equivalent reforms in Northern Ireland were in 1973 and in Scotland were in 1975. "Same name" might also need clarifying - I'd take that to mean same geographic name (e.g. North Yorkshire), but others might interpret it to mean "North Yorkshire Council" is different to "North Yorkshire County Council" because of the extra word, contrary to the consensus above. Stortford (talk) 20:48, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
@Stortford: The reason for including the 1974 point is that all councils were abolished and reformed (often with different boundaries) so to clarify that they like unitaries should not be split. This helps to clarify to users who think that Somerset County Council that existed from 1889 to 1974 and Somerset County Council that "existed" from 1974-2023 were not very different while Somerset Council that has "existed" since 2023 is very different and needs a separate article. Having the point about 1974 may help clarify to users who think this is the case. In terms of Northern Ireland and Scotland we could just put in brackets 1973 for Northern Ireland and 1975 for Scotland. That said it doesn't seem like users splitting pre 1970s and post 1970s councils has been a problem but it would be here if this does become a problem. Do you think it would be better to just remove this point? or maybe reword. I was interpreting "identical" to mean exactly the same name namely "Northumberland County Council" (pre 2009) has the same name as "Northumberland County Council" (post 2009) and "similar name" to mean "North Yorkshire County Council" (pre 2023) and "North Yorkshire Council" (post 2023) but not "North Riding County Council" (pre 1974) that it seems everyone agrees should stay separate even though the name of the county and council are essentially variants in a geographical sense. Luckily this doesn't seem to be a problem currently as there aren't any unitaries that have kept exactly the same name as the previous council but have different boundaries to it. Maybe we should just remove this point and look at re adding it in the future if this happens. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:29, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
  • This now has been added to UKCOUNTIES with the suggested modifications, I'll leave this open for a little while longer to see if people agree. Crouch, Swale (talk) 22:54, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
    • I would suggest that if we are treating the council of an administrative county, which was replaced by the council of a non-metropolitan county and then became the council of a unitary authority, as the same continuing council, it seems very odd to treat the area governed by that council as changing (e.g. from Dorset, Shropshire or North Yorkshire) when its council became a UA (to Dorset (district), Shropshire (district) or North Yorkshire (district)) - even though neither the geography nor the legal status of that area changed. --Mhockey (talk) 23:19, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
      • @Mhockey: Perhaps we need to look at having a similar rule for splitting unitary districts but I'd point out that while Shropshire and North Yorkshire districts cover the same area as the 2 tier county council areas they don't have the same area as the ceremonial county. No one is suggesting that Northumberland (district) should be created as its the same area as the ceremonial county as well as the 2 tier county council area. Even though I pushed to have separate articles years ago for unitary districts with a different area to the ceremonial counties I'm wandering if it might just be better to do what we have for Somerset and have 1 article for both the ceremonial county and unitary district with the same boundaries as the 2 tier county even though the boundaries are not the same as the ceremonial county, thoughts? Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:05, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
        I agree that it would be better to have a single article for cases like Somerset or North Yorkshire, where the legal county (now a UA district) covers a smaller area than the lieutenancy area (aka ceremonial county). We had that for years under the two-tier system and I don't remember any push for separate articles then, and I don't think the change in governance should change that. Mhockey (talk) 10:15, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Type=Town in infoboxes

I note there is an increasing tendency to replace the link to the wikipedia article Town in infoboxes with a link to List of towns in England. Surely this defeats the point of of the parameter? Murgatroyd49 (talk) 10:11, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

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