Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography

WT:UKGEO

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Articles for deletion

04 Nov 2024 – Hykeham (talk · edit · hist) AfDed by Elemimele (t · c) was closed as keep by OwenX (t · c) on 11 Nov 2024; see discussion (6 participants)
21 Oct 2024 – Station, Boston (talk · edit · hist) AfDed by 10mmsocket (t · c) was closed as no consensus by Voorts (t · c) on 11 Nov 2024; see discussion (11 participants; relisted)

Categories for discussion

02 Nov 2024 – Category:Whitnash (talk · edit · hist) was CfDed by AusLondonder (t · c); see discussion
26 Oct 2024 – Category:Skelton-in-Cleveland (talk · edit · hist) was CfDed by AusLondonder (t · c); see discussion

Good article nominees

09 Nov 2024 – Draughton, North Yorkshire (talk · edit · hist) was GA nominated by Cremastra (t · c); start discussion

Did you know? articles

Wellesbourne, Brighton (2024-07-01) • Rosal, Sutherland (2024-05-25) • Newlyn Tidal Observatory (2023-11-20) • Godalming (2023-09-20) • Reigate (2023-09-10)

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Featured pictures

A591 road, Lake District - June 2009 Edit 1
Aerial View of Edinburgh, by Alfred Buckham, from about 1920
Canary Wharf from Limehouse London June 2016 HDR
City of London skyline from London City Hall - Oct 2008
Lancashire 1610 Speed Hondius - Restoration

In the News articles

Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City (2021-07-22) • 2009 Great Britain and Ireland floods (2009-11-21) • February 2009 British Isles snowfall (2009-02-06)

Main page featured articles

Coventry ring road (2023-07-23) • Combe Hill, East Sussex (2023-01-11) • Brownhills (2022-03-03) • Abberton Reservoir (2021-09-05) • Shaw and Crompton (2021-08-15)

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Main page featured lists

List of scheduled monuments in South Somerset (2023-12-22) • List of castles in Greater Manchester (2023-04-07) • List of Shetland islands (2022-05-20) • List of freshwater islands in Scotland (2020-04-24) • List of scheduled monuments in Taunton Deane (2018-10-26)

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This is a list of recognized content, updated weekly by JL-Bot (talk · contribs) (typically on Saturdays). There is no need to edit the list yourself. If an article is missing from the list, make sure it is tagged (e.g. {{WikiProject UK geography}}) or categorized correctly and wait for the next update. See WP:RECOG for configuration options.

Watch

Disagreement on Christchurch article re:settlement definition

There is a dispute at the article for Christchurch, Dorset over whether, how, and in how much detail, the article should cover Bournemouth Airport – a major employer which was in the now defunct borough of Christchurch, but some distance outside the built-up area in a neighbouring parish. This is essentially a difference of opinion on how to handle the ambiguity around defining settlements. If you think you can help resolve this, join the discussion at Talk:Christchurch,_Dorset#Bournemouth_airport. Thanks, Joe D (t) 10:38, 3 April 2022‎ (UTC)[reply]

Warning to watch pages

Important reminder to watch pages. I just came across one of the worst Wikipedia articles I have seen in my nearly 10 years on Wikipedia and it's been like this for months. With quotes like "In Ribblesdale, (In Renishaw Court) Teenagers usually smoke weed as reported by a resident on Facebook" and " Near Deltic Field, around August 2020, some unknown kids poured Petrol on the grass and attempted to light it on fire, which is extremely Dangerous, they succeeded in lighting the petrol on fire and to this day aren't caught. One of the residents have got pictures of the offenders." complete with a picture of alleged young offenders. AusLondonder (talk) 14:26, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There was a watchlist for UK Geography, the link for it (List of recently-edited UK geography articles) is still on the main wikiproject page, but the tool that generated the list has not worked for many years. Some projects still have working watchlists to monitor for changes/vandalism, for example WikiProject Yorkshire has been using an alternative method since 2019. EdwardUK (talk) 16:17, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Village lock-ups in the United Kingdom

I'm working on creating a List of village lock-ups in the United Kingdom in my sandbox, with the intention that when it's complete it will combine and replace the "Surviving lock-ups in England and Wales" and "Gallery" sections at Village lock-up. I'd welcome comments on the (incomplete) draft and my approach.

Is this a sensible approach?
Should I include a Location column?
I've included a Wikidata column. I don't recall seeing links to Wikidata in other Wikipedia link articles. Is this controversial? It's useful, particularly during construction, to keep track of existing Wikidata entities relating to lock-ups (I'm also attempting to update them and add images where available).

Comments welcome. Dave.Dunford (talk) 18:28, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It looks good, better than whats currently there definitely. I think a location column is a must. I guess you could use articles like this for listed buildings, Listed buildings in Elstow as a guide. It might be good to have when the lock up was constructed on there, which should be in the official list entry on historic england. Eopsid (talk) 17:37, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Eopsid: others have made similar suggestions at User talk:Dave.Dunford/List of village lock-ups in the United Kingdom and I've started adding co-ordinates where available. I'm not sure about including the date of construction as a separate column, though: these tend to be low-key vernacular constructions and dates are often vague or speculative. I'll include a date in the notes if the listing or other sources give a definitive year of construction. I've also decided against a separate Wikidata column and (for now) put the link to Wikidata below the end of any notes. Dave.Dunford (talk) 17:56, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think the construction date is still worth including even if its as vague as a whole century. Its included in articles like this Grade I listed buildings in Bedfordshire and the dates there vary from a year to as vague as just Norman. Eopsid (talk) 15:21, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Most lock-ups (though admittedly not all) will be roughly from the same period (18th/19th century) though. There aren't any Norman lock-ups. Dave.Dunford (talk) 09:00, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nice idea. My US$0.02:

Put the coordinates into a separate column (nice but not essential), and (essential) give each set of coords a name, e.g. {{coord|51.1234|-2.3456|type:landmark_region:GB-SOM|name=Trumpton lockup}}. That way you can then use the {{geoGroup}} template to give links to an auto-generated map of all of the lockups.
As others have mentioned, a sortable date column would be nice-to-have but not essential.
I personally don't like the table colouring in the listed building column, not least because the blue-linked text to the reference fails MOS:CONTRAST rules.

10mmsocket (talk) 09:27, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'll probably go with these suggestions (though I still have my doubts about the value of the date column). Dave.Dunford (talk) 09:36, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OK, suggestions implemented. I'm still not entirely convinced by the date column, which feels a bit ahistorical for several reasons:

generally the date is sourced from the National Heritage List for England (NHLE) entry, and my impression/experience is that the amount of in-depth research the inspectors were able to make on each building was limited, so they seem to me like vague guesses except where a property has a datestone or a third-party source has a date. Different inspectors make different calls.
NHLE is often deliberately vague – "19th century/Mid-19th century/Possibly early 19th century" etc. – and I sometimes feel I'm giving the dating an air of certainty and confidence that was never intended.
The next best source is the Prison History website, and that often refers to NHLE or to user-generated blogs. I worry about user-generated and single sources.
Sometimes sources are inconsistent.
there's also the difficulty of knowing which date to use when a lock-up is inserted into an older structure.

Convince me it's worth keeping? Thanks for the feedback so far. Dave.Dunford (talk) 10:53, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nice work. One more thing on coordinate precision - 4 digits is considered sufficient for landmarks, so round up and with five or six digits after the decimal point. 10mmsocket (talk) 13:08, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can I ask why the word 'village' is used? Only because the two I know of are in what are now very built up areas (Everton and Wavertree in Liverpool). Just worried the title might be a bit misleading, but I'm not an expert on these matters. Orange sticker (talk) 10:56, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fun fact - see New_Mills#Notable_residents if you weren't already aware. 10mmsocket (talk) 16:31, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Very aware –in fact, I took the picture next to that quote. It should probably go in. Dave.Dunford (talk) 17:56, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not really sure (not an expert either, and I've pondered the same thing), but it does seem to be a wider convention (there are similar conventions with "village pumps", "village pounds", "village greens" and the like). I suspect that lock-ups mostly were in villages (as Everton and Wavertree would have been when the lock-ups were built), whereas larger towns and cities had assizes, with courtrooms, police stations and proper prisons, I guess. The existing Village lock-up article (which is where the naming convention that I've followed came from) says "mostly where official prisons or criminal courts were beyond easy walking distance". Dave.Dunford (talk)

District split

I've added a criteria at User:Crouch, Swale/District split for if Britannica mentions the settlement as well as district population. Of those that have pre 1974 boundaries only Basildon, Fareham, Havant and Gosport have settlement population mentioned by Britannica. Interestingly Britannica actually has separate articles for Basildon settlement and district rather than merely mentioning the difference in population and I'm counting Basildon as having longstanding boundaries even though it gained land from Thurrock Urban District because the area gained was in the designated new town rather than an entire parish. Havant is also perhaps a special case as the pre 1974 district was named "Havant and Waterloo". Of these 4 all are split apart from Gosport. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:11, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What's a suburb?

An editor is creating many articles on local government wards, such as Station, Boston, which start "Xxx is a ward and suburb of [town]", although there is no evidence for existence of Xxx as anything other than a ward (eg not on OS maps, and no sources other than as a ward). Do other editors think this use of "suburb" is correct? (One article even described somewhere as an "inner-city suburb" which seemed a novel use of language). PamD 10:49, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Being brutal, if there's nothing to support the use in an article then I'd remove the phrase as straightforward original research. If it's just a ward/district I would question whether the article even meets the notability guidelines. Just because something exists doesn't mean it should have an article WP:NOTDIR etc. I'm very much a deletionist - less is more! 10mmsocket (talk) 12:43, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd tend to agree with you, 10mmsocket. A.D.Hope (talk) 13:43, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Short of an RfC on ward notability, which I think is way overdue, I think it's time to test the water - so I just did this Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Station, Boston. I am obviously *not* canvassing by mentioned that here... 10mmsocket (talk) 13:50, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As well as ward notability, there's a question of ward article titles: if a place is only a ward, not a "place", it should probably not have comma disambiguation but a title like Station (Boston ward). PamD 14:28, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@PamD: I don't think it needs to be moved as the title doesn't appear to be ambiguous and comma disambiguation is also used for parishes that only exist as parishes like Cranford, Northamptonshire. Boston railway station doesn't seem ambiguous with "Station" though many wards will be ambiguous locally. I'd say the naming conventions should be use just the name if unambiguous like Broughton and Appleby, use the county or settlement etc if ambiguous in general but not ambiguous locally like Station, Boston, use "(ward)" if local disambiguation is needed but there are no other wards with the same name like Petworth (ward) and use the district and ward if local disambiguation is needed and multiple wards exist like Highgate (Haringey ward). Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:02, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There are lots of places that don't have matching local government or electoral structures. Suburbs are rarely defined officially but certainly exist. The danger is in trying to over-define something. Often electoral wards within cities will cover multiple suburbs, which each have their own identity and often very loosely defined boundaries.

It's silly to try to nail jelly to a wall. But just because we can't nail it down, we shouldn't deny the existence of the jelly. We need to accept and embrace the wibbly wobbly, loosely defined, ambiguous nature of UK geography. Waggers TALK 14:44, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If no maps or other sources make reference to a settlement it should just be described as a ward. We would not say Shap Rural is a village or Nuneaton and Bedworth is a town. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:47, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Claiming that a ward - an electoral district whose boundaries are drawn and redrawn by the Boundary Commission to provide an appropriate number of councillors, sometimes renamed but often not even though substantially changed - constitutes a suburb is not only a misunderstanding of wards, it's unfounded WP:OR. NebY (talk) 19:03, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agree 100% with NebY. As there are multiple interpretations of the term suburb (UK and US both differ in much the same way they do on other geographic terminology usage) it's very shaky OR ground. I have to admit that I do use "areas and suburbs of Metropolitan Borough of St Helens" for the navbox but I am also happy to admit that may be wrong, but the intent was to capture the difference between the urban centre, and the hinterland villages / towns often used informally in local media / parlance but most reliable source / usage dates back decades (or longer). Koncorde (talk) 22:53, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's very much like villages and civil parishes. Sometimes there's a one-to-one relationship, in which case one article works. Sometimes a parish contains multiple villages or a ward contains multiple suburbs - in which case the existence of distinct articles is just a question of notability.

Of course, sometimes wards are not named after the suburbs they contain, and I think that's what the original question was about. "Station" is the name of the ward but there isn't (or might not be) a suburb of that name. Waggers TALK 11:17, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As "Station" appears to be the area in the very centre of Boston around its train station and urban core, "Suburb" seems wrong just from a matter of basic observation. Koncorde (talk) 20:52, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Suburb in British English usually means any subdivision of an urban area regardless of whether its central or on the outskirts. In American English suburb implies its not central. Eopsid (talk) 21:03, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree, Eopsid. It definitely means the bolted-on or absorbed settlements towards the edge of an urban area - see Suburb#United Kingdom and Ireland. As for this supposed locality in Boston, there's no way it could be categorised as such. Because they are geographically undefined, unlike wards, suburb is not generally a useful descriptor in the UK. Rcsprinter123 (spiel) 21:30, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wiktionary defines suburb as "Any subdivision of a conurbation, not necessarily on the periphery." and says this is a British (and Australian amongst other places) definition. Eopsid (talk) 22:17, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think Wiktionary is a WP:RS: here it is plain wrong, at least in terms of British English. Chambers Dictionary defines a suburb as "a district or comunity adjoining a town or city, especially one having relatively low-density housing and open space as characteristc features; (in pl) the outskirts of a town; outskirts generally." PamD 22:55, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Would agree, Suburb specifically speaks of "sub-urban" development, typically differentiated from the "city centre" or "inner-city" or equivalent. That the wiktionary definition states "part of a conurbation" seems innately a contradiction. I assumed the intent was to differentiate from planned development in the hinterland of the US (what might in the UK be considered Commuter developments) by suggesting the UK towns and cities have a "natural accretion" of more dispersed areas, but instead it seems it was intended to represent Australia / NZ perspective until this unsourced edit in 2023. However it's cut, I don't think Station (literally the heart of Boston) meets the standard of Conurbation described in the sources even if we accept unsourced assertion. Koncorde (talk) 23:35, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose it depends on whether a locality is commonly described as a suburb in convention or in sources. Suburbs usually are listed on maps so they shouln't be too hard to define. In many cases, suburbs were former villages which were swallowed up by a growing town or city, so they often have a long history, e.g. Binley, Coventry for example. G-13114 (talk) 21:37, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Having been the editor involved with making these articles. I would argue that if they are defined by older newspapers or books by their names such as Hartsholme, Newport, Lincoln and Staniland, Boston. They would be suburbs since they are mentioned in older papers from 50-100 years ago. Same with Chorlton-cum-Medlock or Speke. They existed before as settlements but then became suburbs and wards for Manchester and Liverpool. I would argue any books noting the settlements or wards as well as newspapers and websites lend weight to notability and WP:GEOLAND. I haven't exactly just gone on a mass exodus of making non-notable articles. These are heavily researched and written. If they aren't notable then delete merge or redirect them but if they are notable and pass checks such as Swallowbeck and Abbey, Lincoln. They should be fine and can be given a category of areas of said settlement Lincoln etc...DragonofBatley (talk) 04:13, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But isn't the original question to ask whether the term "suburb" has any status in UK geography? (as it does in Australian geography, for example). There is nothing to be gained and a lot to be lost by permitting this word to be used here. "... in the X urban area" does the job without being deliberately provocative. (Or at least it would if the ONS would extract the digit and republish them.) 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 08:26, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wards are electoral districts. The Boundary Commission determines and redetermines their sizes and boundaries to provide appropriate numbers of local councillors, and names and renames them to indicate local names and local sentiment without asserting that they are identical to or coterminous with settlements. Any article on such a ward can and should look to our guidance on constituencies Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Parliament constituencies/Style and our practice in the articles listed at Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. NebY (talk) 08:43, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So if i for instance created a ward article which was notable for say Kingston-upon-Hull called Minster or Victoria Dock. There isn't I dont think but lets speak hypothetically and there was references to it both books maps news etc. And it simply said a ward of Hull. Not a ward and suburb. Then is that avoiding confusion or not? Or if i said a ward and district and it was actually the latter? Most cities and towns have suburbs and wards for different areas or a suburb is a ward like Birchwood is for Lincoln and Staniland is for Boston. DragonofBatley (talk) 12:15, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. If it's a ward, just say it's a ward.

It might or might not also be a suburb, as discussed above, but you can't assume every ward is also a suburb.

A ward is never a district. In your example, the district is Kingston-upon-Hull itself - districts are historically the "borough-level" things that make up counties, and most unitary authorities are districts that were elevated to have county-level powers. So unless there's a district somewhere that only has a single electoral ward - and I don't think there is such a thing - a ward won't be a district. Waggers TALK 13:51, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your hypotheticals are based on confusing an electoral division with a settlement. They're not districts in the same sense at all. Compare our articles Cheadle, Greater Manchester and Cheadle (UK Parliament constituency). Look at the differences in the content of those articles and how they are not describing the same thing. NebY (talk) 14:06, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @NebY and @Waggers for your replies. I'll note this for future reference when making ward articles that are of course notable and not using suburbs unless of course they are classed as them. Is it also safe to say that inner-city district is a USA thing and not a UK term or is the latter only used sparingly for like inner areas of cities like London Manchester Leeds Birmingham etc...DragonofBatley (talk) 14:37, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FAR for Trafford Park

I have nominated Trafford Park for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Z1720 (talk) 15:15, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good article reassessment for Ben Nevis

Ben Nevis has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 14:52, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page).

Unreliable source? "Town and Village Guide"

The website https://www.townandvillageguide.com/ asserts that it is a "meticulously curated collection of destinations" but I have my doubts. The page on "Coldharbour, Lincolnshire" describes a small village near Louth (so not the Cold Harbour, Lincolnshire, a hamlet near Grantham, about which we have an article). It has "its beautiful church, St. Mary's Church. The church dates back to the 12th century and is a fine example of Norman architecture", and a pub called the Red Lion. But I can't find any trace of either the church or the pub, in any "Cold Harbour" or "Coldharbour" either near Grantham or near Louth. Or, indeed, of any village or hamlet of the name near Louth apart from one reference to an archaeological site which was previously known as Cold Harbour. I may be missing something, but it makes me wonder whether this website, which invites people to offer a contribution about their village, may be completely unreliable. Has anyone any experience of this website? (I couldn't find it at WP:RSN).

I've just found its page on Coldharbour in Kent, which has a surprisingly similar St Mary's church "which dates back to the 12th century. The church is a beautiful example of Norman architecture and is known for its stunning stained glass windows", and various other bits of identical text. (But no Red Lion). We don't seem to have an article on that Coldharbour at all. Odd? Any thoughts?

Or, perhaps, consider this as a warning and avoid that particular quite smart-looking website. PamD 14:47, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

With no contact information, no about-us, no publisher information it looks like a self published source WP:SPS and as such I would immediate discount it as unreliable. I checked on a couple of settlements that I know and the information given was terrible - the prose at the beginning was inaccurate and many of the listings were for businesses in other settlements.

It is currently used as a reference on 20 articles (link), so it should be easy to remove those within a few minutes - which I'm happy to do. 10mmsocket (talk) 15:10, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit conflict) I haven't come across it before, but I have given it a once-over just now. My view is that it is wholly inappropriate to be used as a source to support any Wikipedia content. It seems to be an attempt to aggregate up-to-date microlocal data (such as train times at the nearest station, postal collection times from each postbox etc, opening times of local "Vetinary [sic] surgeries (!) etc.) with some suspiciously AI-looking verbiage, some of which may well be based on text from Wikipedia. There are no details of authorship, editorial oversight (if any) or fact-checking, and it appears that user submissions are accepted. The West Sussex page lists such "towns" as Ardingly Reservoir (a reservoir...), Adur (the district) and Crockenhill, which is apparently on the outskirts of Horsham even though it in fact consists of a pub and a couple of houses on the edge of Chichester. A little further on in that section, this location is a new one on me, even though I've apparently lived close to it all my life: suffice to say it doesn't exist. Conclusion: it's AI-generated nonsense based on a scrape of very broadly defined location data, and should be removed on sight. Good spot PamD. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 15:13, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I just looked at the entry for a town I know a lot about, and it was filled with nonsense. It wouldn't surprise me if it was AI generated content. It's utter garbage as a source. G-13114 (talk) 15:27, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have flagged it here with the aim of getting it added to Headbomb's very useful blacklisting tool. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 15:28, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I know I'm late to this party, but I looked at the entry for Cheddar, aside from consistently calling it a town (it's a village) it was mostly OK until it described Cheddar Palace as a 19th century mansion house that is now a hotel, it's actually a 9th century Saxon palace that exists only as a buried archaeological site in the grounds of the school. While an error of a thousand years might be OK between friends, it's certainly not OK for sourcing Wikipedia articles. Thryduulf (talk) 17:12, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OK. It's history - for now. Worth keeping an eye on. 10mmsocket (talk) 15:29, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comes across as AI generated and sounds like something an estate agent would write. It seems to muddle up locations with similar names. Contains inaccuracies claiming there's a parish church of St Mary's in a village when there isn't and inaccurate distances and directions from nearby places. So definitely not a reliable source. Rupples (talk) 04:59, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at those in my local area. Several of them are entirely fictional, and definitely give off AI vibes. Toll Bar is a junction in a dense urban area (hardly surrounded by countryside) for hiking or anything (it's close to a few public parks), West Park meanwhile isn't even a thing beyond the rugby club of the same name, Parr is in the South East of the town and nothing else I can see is true either. Thatto Heath is opposite side of town. There were no mills or factories in the vicinity beyond a foundry, Sherdley Park is in Sutton and so on (not to mention all the recommended GP's and schools etc are in Liverpool). A similar issue exists on St Helens proper which mistakes it for the town of the same name on the Isle of Wight. Koncorde (talk) 20:10, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion also taking place at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Town & Village Guide (UK). SerialNumber54129 20:18, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"No religion" or "Irreligious"

Is "Irreligious" an appropriate term to use where the UK census has a statistic for "No religion"? I suggest that it is not, as it has an undertone of POV: the Oxford English Dictionary defines it primarily as "Not religious; hostile to or without regard for religion; ungodly; godless.", which goes beyond ticking a box saying "No religion". I think we should just use the census's own term: "No religion".

A group of recent articles have used the term "Irreligious": before changing them WP:BOLDly I thought I'd ask the opinion of other editors. See Station, Boston as an example. PamD 16:14, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The census terminology should definitely be used, so I would support your changes/reversions. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 16:19, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @DragonofBatley: in case they want to explain their choice of wording and argue for it. PamD 16:49, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

b.t.w When you see any tables in settlement articles that have coloured cell backgrounds for each religion, would you please give a thought to removing the colours a a) they serve no good purpsse whatsoever and more importantly b) some of the colour combinations chosen together with blue link text fail MOS:CONTRAST, which can be a serious issue for people with visual acuity problems. Thanks in advance. 10mmsocket (talk) 16:53, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To the best of my knowledge we do not have an article for No religion - which is a disambiguation page.— Rod ^talk 16:54, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think atheist would be closer than irreligious given that the (typically census) surveys that seek out this information ask if you have a religion, not "are you indifferent or hostile" to a religion. 10mmsocket (talk) 16:58, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As you say, irreligious has negative undertones of being anti-religion, whereas no religion is "exactly what is ays on the tin" 10mmsocket (talk) 16:56, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, irreligious has connotations. Best stick to the census term. Rupples (talk) 05:01, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with above. While irreligious is actually relatively neutral, it's easier to read it as being against religion rather than an absence of religion. If someone professed Atheism or similar, I would be happier to describe such as irreligious. Koncorde (talk) 20:14, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]