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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lancsalot (talk | contribs) at 12:25, 14 June 2006 (→Shaw and Crompton). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Vandal

This user is a County Watch vandal. May be a Sockpuupet of User:Owain or one of the other recationaries.--87.75.131.249 11:25, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

The only vandal here is you - reverting useful information out of pages and accusing people of being sockpuppets. Please desist. Owain (talk) 11:51, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

OK I realise that the fake/administrative counties have struggled to establish an identity but do you really think your obsessive vandalism is going to help? Lancsalot 13:08, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Friends of Real Lancashire

I have left a long list of references and sourced material on the Article for Deletion page - would you be able to work the information into the article with citations in the next couple of days? It should then be in a good enough state to keep, otherwise the article may suffer a (in my opinion) undeserved deletion. I would do the job myself, but I am extremely busy in real-life at the moment, and you seem interested in the article given your recent edits! See you around, Aquilina 12:44, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Met Boroughs and Trad counties

Quite a bit of what is now Sandwell was in Worcestershire until 1966. And much of Dudley was in Shropshire until 1844. It all depends what years you date your tradition from I suppose... (I'm not touching the infoboxes myself as I am not getting into the whole trad counties debate.) Lozleader 14:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to add this info, my knowledge of the area is limited. The traditional county is a standard part of the infobox though so I don't think there's a debate about including this info. Lancsalot 15:56, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Have amended Sandwell accordingly. However I think Halesowen is considered to be part of Worcestershire rather than an exclave of Shropshire. Lancsalot 16:34, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Met counties

Re: - the central metropolitan councils were abolished then but the met counties still exists as the union of the councils of their constituent boroughs, which act as quasi-unitary authorities.

As for infobox labelling - traditional and ceremonial are not ideal. Traditional is not a well defined term; you only have to read the articles I've put together at Traditional counties of the British Isles and Traditional counties of England to see that. I'm going to propose changing these labels to Modern and pre-1974, or Modern and Ancient as compromises. More importantly, these have verifiable secondary use - the best online authority on these matters, the Vision of Britain website uses these, whereas the phrase traditional county is used almost exclusively by the Association of British Counties and Misplaced Pages. I have not seen it used in scholarly or official contexts. Aquilina 21:43, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I think we have to look at the substance rather than the letter of the law here. The met counties were created solely for admin purposes. The fact that they no longer have any admin role (apart from Lord-Lieutenancy) means that to all intents and purposes they no longer exist. They are also no longer shown on OS maps and where they did form part of the postal address eg. Merseyside this is no longer the case.

I think that the descriptors traditional and ceremonial are perfectly adequate and well understood. Traditional is the word used by the government in its comments on the matter. I'm not sure why you think the VoB website is the best authority on this - it's just a research project from one of the lesser universities and has no more official significance than the ABC website. The label pre-1974 in particular is totally inaccurate as the traditional counties still exist and are still widely used - the vast majority of people in towns such as Bolton would say they live in Lancashire not the defunct administrative county of Greater Manchester. Lancsalot 08:32, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

they no longer have any admin role: just not true. Bolton certainly isn't being administrated by Lancashire any more, is it? Each of the boroughs around Manchester/Birmingham/... has its own council; the collection of which forms the metropolitan county. They still retain several county-wide functions, such as emergency provision.

Remember - Misplaced Pages is an encyclopaedia of what is verifiable - and if our national statistics office still recognises met counties, e.g. , to all intents and purposes they exist in some sense. I have seen no equally reliable official source which says metropolitan counties are defunct.

"Traditional" is occasionally used by the government, but nowhere near as much as "historic(al)" in this context; a simple Google search of Hansard backs this up. Historic is also the prevalent use in scholarly research into the matter. VoB may come from, in your view, "a lesser university", but it is the most widely and fully-sourced (a rarity in this field) historical record we have - the level of detail goes way beyond anything the ABC have ever produced. It's not official, but it's remarkably thorough and precise. If you can find a better researched, more comprehensive source I will be extremely glad to see it.

Overall, I feel historical and modern have the best verifiable external usage.

I fully agree with you on your Bolton example - this is exactly why we still mention the ancient and historic counties in articles. But the geography of current administration should also be shown, and it should be shown according to the agreed Misplaced Pages convention:

Southwark is a village in the London Borough of Southwark in Greater London. It is in the traditional borders of Surrey (although I prefer historic)

If you want to try and change the consensus, that is your prerogative; but you must change the consensus before you change the articles. If you feel bold, propose a change at the talk page of the UK Geography wikiproject, but unless you have truly new evidence or arguments I can't see it succeeding. Aquilina 11:13, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with using the word "historic" but I don't see the problem with "traditional" either. As far as I'm concerned all my edits are in line with the agreed conventions. It is 84.9 who is causing problems trying to delete all reference to traditional counties for reasons best known to himself. I thought he was supposed to be banned. Lets not forget we are talking about counties that have existed for 1,000 years and are of huge historical and cultural significance. While the admin counties were dreamed up by a bunch of pen-pushers in the early 70s to decide how people's bins would be emptied. Lancsalot 13:10, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Traditional, historic, ancient, it all means the same thing. The so-called "ceremonial counties" are not defined in statute by that name anywhere either, but the name is used as a description. Similarly, although the 1889 administrative counties were abolished in 1974, that doesn't stop us calling their successors administrative counties either. Owain (talk) 13:19, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

If they mean the same thing, then it is best to use historic, given its more prevalent external use. This external use is all important when it comes to justifying its use against people who would rather not mention pre-1974 geography at all - the higher the verifiability factor and the higher the number of reliable sources, the easier it is to justify its inclusion to those who disagree. I'm just trying to reduce the number of edit wars.

All in all, it is best not to remove the current administrative geography county from the first line of any article - whether an infobox is present or not - as doing so will most likely provoke arguments. But feel free to add an mention to the historic county afterwards - and best using the exact phrasing of the example given above - it was agreed in the naming convention, so it's no-one should complain about it. Aquilina 13:55, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

UA templates

Hello. I note you have added the two "UA templates" to some places in the metropolitan counties. These are not really suitable for places in metropolitan counties as it implies the status of the county is only for lietenancy which isn't the case. It also says "Unitary Authority:" which is only de facto in these cases. However, the templates should of course be used for places affected by the 1990s reforms as in these cases not only were the local authorities changed but the county structure. Kind regards. Mrsteviec 23:03, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I think you are wrong here. All the met boroughs are now unitary authorities, the county councils having been abolished in 1986. To put Merseyside under "administration" for Southport is very misleading as it imples that the borough is still administered from Liverpool, which is clearly no longer the case. Lancsalot 08:03, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

There is a difference. The Local Government Act 1985 only abolished the authorities and not the administrative divisions whereas the 1990s UK local government reform changed the administrative divisions and the authorities. Mrsteviec 08:25, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

But as you say above they are "de facto" UAs. What use is an "administrative division" if it has no administrative purpose? It's far more realistic to use the UA infobox. Perhaps we can replace "unitary authority" with "metropolitan borough"? Lancsalot 08:39, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

That is a question for UK government I think. :) I'd considered creating another infobox for the met counties but it would result in instruction creep with too many boxes to choose from. The metropolitan counties continue, under current legislation, to be divided first by county and then by district. They are current UK subnational divisions. They may not serve much practical purpose, aside from joint boards, policing and fire etc. but they remain administrative divisions. Mrsteviec 09:20, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Shaw and Crompton

Thank you for experimenting with the page Shaw and Crompton on Misplaced Pages. Your test worked, and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. A link to the edit I have reverted can be found here: link. If you believe this edit should not have been reverted, please contact me. Jhamez84 10:45, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Regarding your edit, the opening paragraph you changed was sourced, and was inline with Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (places). I repeat User:Aquilina's comments from above:

All in all, it is best not to remove the current administrative geography county from the first line of any article - whether an infobox is present or not - as doing so will most likely provoke arguments. But feel free to add an mention to the historic county afterwards - and best using the exact phrasing of the example given above - it was agreed in the naming convention, so it's no-one should complain about it. Thanks, Jhamez84 10:51, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

With regard to Shaw and Crompton: My apologies regarding tense - a mistake on my part. I am currently facing problems from another user removing mentions of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham in place of Lancashire with no context simply because he does not like the borough council - I was wrong to presume you were in league with him and making the same change - however, the reference should not have been removed by yourself and still constitutes vandalism. It was provided in a sensible and well formatted way and is a verifiable source. Regards, Jhamez84 11:07, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

We don't need a reference to show that Oldham and its neighbouring towns are in Lancashire! I know you are trying to improve the article but 250k google hits for "oldham lancashire" (as opposed to just 50k for "oldham greater manchester") shows that this is a pretty widely accepted fact. Lancsalot 11:33, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

On the contrary, the reference is there to stop the removal of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham from the opening line, following a longstanding dispute on the borough status, not the county status..... You assume I am trying to remove mentions of Lancashire which I am not- I'm actually including it with a context and source - so please don't assume it. Citation is actually encouraged on Misplaced Pages, and removal of such references is vandalism.

And Google is not the be-all-and-end-all (it can tell me that David Hasslehoff is the Anti-Christ for example, but it doesn't mean it's true), on Misplaced Pages the convenstions are the be-all-and-end-all, and outside of wikipedia, it is the legal positions.

With regards to county status however, I could argue that England is in the traditional boarders of the Roman Empire, and keep reverting every England article to say that and argue that if I believe it and can provide a Google or obscure ancient source then it must be true. Well I'm not doing that because I have Misplaced Pages's best interests at heart, and am simply trying to improve and source the content rather than cause disputes. I trust this ends our line of communication, as I've outlined my objectives and reasons here and on the talk pages. Thank you for pointing out the tense issue, but you did have no right to remove the source and should not make assumptions that I'm hiding the beloved Lancashire county from the world.

I cannot add anything else, given that I've read the above messages to yourself, and exhausted my reasons for structuring the article in such a way. Regards, Jhamez84 11:51, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, but equally we don't need a reference to prove that Shaw is within Oldham borough. As far as I'm aware this isn't disputed, and neither is the administrative status of any other town. The geographical status of Shaw as a separate town is distinct from its administrative status as a part of Oldham borough. You seem to accept this but the same logic also applies to counties. Geographical and administrative arrangements should not be confused. Lancsalot 12:16, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Please stop reverting my contributions, you are adding erroneous content....For example, Lees, Greater Manchester is in not in Oldham - Lees is it's own town. So please do not add content to my talk page again, patronising or otherwise. I do not want to converse with you. Jhamez84 11:41, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll quote you on that; I'll revert your changes to the Shaw and Crompton page then, given your apparent imformed logic. Sit down. Jhamez84 11:54, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Please refrain from adding nonsense to Misplaced Pages, as you did to Helen Bradley. It is considered vandalism. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. A link to the edit I have reverted can be found here: link. If you believe this edit should not have been reverted, please contact me. Jhamez84 12:00, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

You're like a kid with a new toy. But I can't be bothered with an edit war over this. Please now stop trying to revive a "county" which was abolished 20 years ago. You are completely out of touch with reality as my point re. google proves. Lancsalot 12:25, 14 June 2006 (UTC)