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User talk:Eric Corbett

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Malleus Fatuorum (talk | contribs) at 15:10, 2 July 2007 (→Sale and Trafford). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Hello Eric Corbett! Welcome to Misplaced Pages! Thank you for signing up. Here are some recommended guidelines to facilitate your involvement. Best of luck. Have fun! --ElectricEye (talk) 00:54, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
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Please remember to sign your name when having a discussion. You can do this by putting four Quentin X 16:39, 27 March 2007 (UTC) surrounded by brackets. (Quentin X 16:39, 27 March 2007 (UTC))

Sorry, I'm still a bit of a newbie to wikipedia, so sometimes I forget. ---- Eric 01:38, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Good work

Hi! I've noticed your efforts to articles in and around the Trafford area. You've made some excellent contributions.

You may be interested to learn that a Project about places in Greater Manchester exists. It is still in it's infancy, but users of Misplaced Pages from the area, or who have good local knowledge of it are always welcome to join.

It is hoped that the more editors who join, the more work we can do as a collective - identifying poor articles, vunerable articles or nominating articles for awards. It is also a place where a sharing of ideas can happen.

It is in it's infancy (around a month old), but once enough members join, regular updates will be posted to your talk page.

Want to join? Visit

Thanks very much for your encouragement. I live in Stretford myself, which is why I've taken an interest in the Trafford articles. I'll certainly be joining the Greater Manchester project, sounds like a great idea. ---- Eric 01:37, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Sale, Greater Manchester

Despite Epbrs 123's apparent indecisiveness, I believe that your input into the article is still valuable, and I would certainly appreciate your advice. You said the article wasn't far from GA status in your opinion and it shouldn't take too much to see it through. If you are still interested, regarding Sale's stauts as a town according to the wikipedia article on towns a town can refer to either a settlement which has traditionally been called a town or to one which has its own town council. One of the constituent parts of a town council is a Mayor which Sale has, but I'll have to do some more research one the subject. I think this would slot well into the geography and administration section. The discrepencies in Sale's population according to the 2001 census and the current ward data results from Trafford's rearrangement of ward boundaries in 2003. Nev1 10:52, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Turns out I was wrong about Sale having a mayor or council, Sale is run by Trafford council as part of a unitary authority. I think though that Sale still counts as a town as it has been historically a town. Also if what were previously towns lost their status when they became part of Trafford council places such as Altrincham, Stretford and Urmston would no longer be towns. Nev1 12:38, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply. My initial thoughts were that the Sale article could be a template for other articles about places in Trafford, like Stretford and Urmston, both of which, as you say were also towns. Perhaps it would be more correct to describe Sale (and Stretford ...) as having formerly, or historically been a town?
Frankly I've got no idea what it is that Epbrs 123 wants, and I find it too difficult to get straightforward answers from him/her, on the issue s(he) raised about the list of schools for instance. Much of what s(he) says I don't agree with anyway, so I don't think there's anything more I can contribute to the Sale article. So feel free to put Sale's climate data back into the article, I won't be raising any more objections :-) ---- Eric 18:48, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar

  • That's very thoughtful. I do tend to have a rather Zen view that less can be more, so I suppose it is an appropriate award in that sense at least. Thank you. ---- Eric 23:38, 11 May 2007 (UTC)


Your opinion of me is of very little interest. But unlike you, I'm not bothered about silly badges. I'm bothered about making readable and instructive articles. And I have no interest at all in bastardising those articles just so that badge collectors like you can notch up another GA/FA, whether you like that or not. ---- Eric 02:00, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Sale, Greater Manchester‎

Good work. Could you nominate the article for Featured Article status, please? I'm not allowed to nominate more than one article at the same time. Epbr123 01:12, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Having taken the time to think about this, I won't be nominating the Sale article for Featured Article status. Not because I don't think it's a good article — I think it's excellent — but because I don't think it's right for anyone to nominate articles they themselves have worked on. The nominators ought to be those who have come across the article and found it worthy of nominating. Of course that's just my opinion. ---- Eric 00:00, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Oldham categories at Cfd

The 'Oldham' cats have been taken to CfD, see Misplaced Pages:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_June_9#Oldham. Your contributions would be welcome. Mr Stephen 15:31, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Sale, Greater Manchester

    • Trust me. I'm an expert at getting articles to FA. You have a lot to learn about the process; certain FA reviewers are professional writers and wrote most of the "good article" guidelines on Misplaced Pages. Epbr123 01:33, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I've never trusted anyone who proclaims him or herself to be an expert, and I have absolutely no interest in "the process", only in the quality of the output. The article has, in my opinion, deteriorated substantially since it achieved GA status. Whether these particular FA reviewers are professional writers or not is irrelevant. I find it difficult to believe that anyone could seriously argue that the present Culture section is an improvement on what was there before, for instance. ---- Eric 17:01, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
    • The only change in the culture section I can see is a reduction in redundant words, but you're entitled to your opinion. I know the Sale article will never reach the same greatness as the Stretford article, but Sale will just have to make do with a main page feature. Thanks. Epbr123 17:15, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
    • You seem to find it very difficult to avoid making spurious personal comments.
    • Isn't there some wikipedia protocol that you ought to be following that deprecates the kind of arguments that you keep putting forward? That I'm too old to understand what a kilometre is, that I believe the Stretford article has some kind of "greatness", just for starters. Why is it so difficult for you just to address the issue, without abusing me for giving my opinion (unqualified though it may be in your eyes) that the changes being made to the article in the unseemly haste to capture another FA star are not actually improving the article? ---- Eric 20:27, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I have voted in accordance with my conscience. You might one day consider the possibility of doing the same thing yourself. "Although Barnsley Metropolitan Borough also borders Sheffield to the north, the town itself is a few miles further." That Sheffield article is FA status is it not?

But that's not my gripe. My gripe is that you don't address the substance of the criticisms, you simply do whatever you think is required to get the badge, regardless of the effect on the article. The same thing cropped up on the GA review. Comments were made about paragraphs having only one sentence in them. Your solution was to delete those paragraphs; my solution was to expand them. ---- Eric 22:43, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not offering you advice, I'm simply stating my opinion. Which is that as far as I'm concerned you're destroying a perfectly good article in your chase for FA stars. ---- Eric 22:56, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I've moved the discussion to this page as I'm sure Nev1 doesn't want squabbling on his page. Epbr123 12:01, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


  • I expect that Nev1 could have moved this material on his own if he'd wanted to couldn't he? Without your interference? I don't want squabbling on my page either. Can't you find somewhere else to squabble? Perhaps without your incessant and unhelpful personal remarks? ---- Eric 12:43, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
    • So it seems the disputed sentence in the lead wasn't even originally written by me. The next time you attack the article, have a quick look through the edit history first. Epbr123 18:01, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


  • I have no idea what you're talking about, and I have even less desire to have anything further to do with you, or any articles you choose to vandalise in your haste to collect your badges. Please stop your personal attacks and leave me alone. ---- Eric 19:28, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
    • I'll explain it more clearly. Remember you said I had ruined the Sale article in an attempt to get FA stars by adding to the lead about the canal turning Sale into a commuter town. That statement was actually added to the lead long ago by someone else. Understand?? Epbr123 19:50, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Sale and Trafford

I must say I really share your concerns as to the ownership of Sale, Greater Manchester and some of the quality (or lack of) edits being made to it. I've found serious contextual issues, though found my edits to be reverted instantaniously.

I think some community pressure should alleviate this problem. I see you do indeed have the article's best interests at heart. Jza84 11:54, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


    • I beg your pardon? I am on nobody's side. The only thing I've been concerned about is the quality of the article, which I have not seen being improved by many of the recent edits. I have stated my feelings on this matter often enough, which is that changes are being made not for the sake of the quality of the article but to try and manoeuvre around objections raised by some FA reviewers, without addressing the spirit of those objections.
    • The result has been that paragraphs end up looking like Joyceian streams of consciousness, with no obvious thread tying them together.
      • Here's my opinion. The copy-editting to the lead by a professional writers with more edits than any of us, was reverted. The only changes I have made are removing redundant and weasal words. Jza84 has complained about the headings you yourself added here. You have complained about a sentence added to the lead long ago by Nev1. Unless you give some specific examples of how I've ruined the article, I'm going to continue thinking you're acting out of jealousy. Epbr123 13:59, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes quite, this really isn't about sides, this is about getting the best out of articles, and allowing others to contribute freely. I'm sure we'd have differing opinions about content, but then we'd work together to work it out rather than make incivil remarks and constant reverts. I've received some degrading and demoralising messages from User:Epbr123. I think you've been very patient on the Trafford, and wanted to let you know you have my full support. Let me know if you would like to try to improve some aspects of these articles, as I'm more than willing to help. Jza84 13:55, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


  • I have to say that some of the personal comments I've seen from User:Epbr123 have quite astonished me. I've just had a look at some of the messages on your talk page, and frankly I found their tone to be even more unacceptable than the tone that User:Epbr123 has chosen to adopt with me. I think your description of "degrading and demoralising" is very accurate. I was particularly hurt when he took my Barnstar away. ;)
  • Thanks very much for your support. I have no doubt I'll be calling on your help many times in the future for improving Trafford articles. Even if we wouldn't always agree on some content or other I feel confident that we could discuss that issue civilly, with respect, and be able come to some resolution acceptable to us both. And I'm also sure that compromise might well end up being an improvement over what either of us had originally wanted to write. :)