Talk:Bristol/Archive 2

Suspension bridge image

The Clifton suspension bridge is an icon of the city and deserves to be an image included in the main article. Lumos3 08:45, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree: its possibly THE iconic image of Bristol that people are most likely to recognise; not just my opinion, but I think I speak for money when I say that. A wideshot of the supsensio

Bristol - city

I have problem to understand (for translation to cs:wiki) what means or what is difference in this statements:

Top of page - It was chartered as a city in 1155 and county in 1373.

History - Bristol was made a city in 1542, with ...

JaT 05:16, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

mmm, a number of issues here. The phrase "made a city" is pretty clumsy (IMHO). In the UK becoming a city involves receiving a royal charter: so there's a contradiction. Furthermore, there's no clear reference to help verify any of the dates. I'm no expert on Bristol's local history, but with some help from http://weldgen.tripod.com/bristol-history/ I would suggest that Bristol received a charter in 1155 (but not necessarily to make it a city) and that the diocese of Bristol was chartered in 1542. According to the footnote to Bristol's entry in [City_status_in_the_United_Kingdom] Bristol's City Status confirmed by Letters Patent issued under the Great Seal dated 1974-06-25 -- so I guess from that one can infer that there was some ambiguity before then. I've made edits in an attempt to clarify this. --Philbarker 17:01, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Where to place this sentence

The following was added to the introduction by an anon user:

Bristol has recently been named the second best British city (first was Edinburgh) and the top English city for quality of life by business leaders [1]

I have moved it here because there's no real evidence of the notability of the poll. Certainly it doesn't belong in the introduction. What about the economy section or sub-page? Joe D (t) 19:34, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

"Quality of life" should perhaps go in the Culture section? Fig 19:40, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Parkour

Hi, I was just wondering if parkour could be mentioned in the culture section somewhere, we train every saturday on castle park (usually groups of up to 30) and it is one of the most popular places to train outside London. We have also been involved in media coverage on numerous occassions. :) If this is accepted I'll write something :) Mitsuko 15:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I've never seen it going on, and I'm often passing by there. Are you sure it isnt more of an advert than a footnote? Fig 22:58, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

As Bristol is the largest city in the south west every club, society and activity is represented, many second only to London; Parkour is one of hundreds of such activities. Why not expand Parkour to incorporate UK or international societies, and list Bristol in that way? --Steve _(Slf67) ^talk 03:08, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Photo at top of page

I've moved the photo of the suspension bridge above the map. It seems to be standard practice for cities to have a photo above the location map (cf. Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, etc), and in my opinion it makes for a nicer introduction to the article (it may even be policy somewhere?). I've fixed the width to try and make it fit with the infobox below.

I picked the suspension bridge as in my opinion it's the most iconic view of the city (rather than an aerial photo or similar) - does anyone think there is a better image to represent Bristol? MrBeast 22:44, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks alright, though that photo could do with being slightly sharper and with more contrast IMO. I don't think Rob does much Wikipedia these days, but unless I can find an alternative I'll ask if he has the original next time I seem him. Joe D (t) 23:14, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm surprised that there aren't more suspension bridge images on the commons. This one I took, but imo it's probably a bit zoomed out. - Estel ^(talk) 09:09, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a very good replica of the one we currently use, but I can offer any of these. I've uploaded the most popular of them (on the right). If the weather's good next week I'll try and get another. Joe D (t) 11:36, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

What a great set of photos. If you were to be taking pics there next week... could you get one of the Leigh Woods abutment on which the tower stands & maybe one which illustrates the size of the chains, Eyebars etc for the (new) engineering bit of the Clifton Suspension Bridge article?— Rod ^talk 12:27, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Where's the picture of the Suspension Bridge gone? Its possibly THE iconic image of Bristol that people are most likely to recognise; not just my opinion, but I think I speak for many when I say that. A wideshot of the supsension bridge ought to be put in place of the current photo. jmperry ^talk 12:27, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Bristol - city

Cabot Tower Photo

I have a new photograph of Cabot Tower I've taken. Could this possibly replace the one on Bristol and Cabot Tower articles? Wikimedia Commons, Cabot Tower (Bristol) (Xytram).jpg —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xytram (talk • contribs) 22:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Refs/citations - Demographics section

I've done some work on the references of this article. In one section in particular (Demographics) I've needed to add a few { { citationneeded } } and { { check } } tags. The former are where we had a Wikipedia article as a source (against policy unfortunately) and the latter are where the information quoted appears to my eyes to contradict the source. Hopefully this can be fixed by someone with knowledge of this subject. SP-KP 17:50, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Rhoticity

Specified that unique for large cities. There are other urban areas with rhoticity. Corby, having adopted in from Scotland. A few medium-sized towns like Blackburn, Oldham, Barnsley, etc. also have mostly rhotic accents. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.12.230.130 (talk) 12:10, 9 May 2007 (UTC).

Derren Brown

The following sentence in the article is problematic for me: "The city was birth place of Colin Pillinger, planetary scientist behind the Beagle 2 Mars lander project, and is home to Adam Hart-Davis, presenter of various science related television programmes, and the psychologists Susan Blackmore, Richard Gregory, and Derren Brown"

In his article, it says Derren Brown studied Law and German at the University of Bristol, not Psychology. Indeed, I believe he has no formal qualifications in psychology unlike Gregory and Blackmore (both PhDs). I think it is misleading to call him a psychologist as it lends an air of the mystical to psychology and generally confuses people further about an already fairly poorly understood discipline. He is first and foremost a magician and hypnotist. Perhaps it should read: "...science related television programmes, the psychologists Susan Blackmore and Richard Gregory, and magician Derren Brown" --Neuropsychology 09:53, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

We could just call him an "entertainer" and put him in the culture section with the actors and comedians? Joe D (t) 10:33, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Biggest cities

Bristol isn't the 6th biggest city in England and the 9th biggest in the UK, this is using different sets of data, it can't be smaller than Cardiff. If you use city proper populations, rather than district/council areas, then Bristol is the 8th biggest in the UK. Marky-Son 14:36, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

The status of city was given to the Bristol borough. "City proper" is too difficult to define. The old-fashioned built-up area definition runs into the trouble that Leeds and Bradford would be practically one place, Salford would be part of Manchester, etc. [This amusingly makes Carlisle into the largest city in the country in terms of area.]

Just for the record, city status is sometimes given to civil parishes. This would only happen in a case of a very small city, such as Ripon. It is thus technically possible to be a city inside of another city, but this does not exist anywhere. Epa101 10:52, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

P.S. However, this definition still comes out with Bristol being bigger than Cardiff, so the article can stay as it is.

Population figures

This article needs some work doing on its population figures, which aren't consistent internally, or with other articles on Wikipedia, or with the 2005 Office for National Statistics data. SP-KP 23:20, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Bristol population figures, published by Bristol city council and based on ONS data are given on this page. See the Population Briefing paper on the same page. Figures for mid 2005 were 398,300 - so the approx 400,000 quoted in the opening paragraph of the article is accurate, and that same figure is quoted in the demographics section. However I do agree that the "stretching" of Bristol to include contiguous areas is misleading. IMHO Bristol's population is the one quoted by the city council. If another 200,000 live in nearby areas that's fine, but they don't live in Bristol. --Cheesy Mike 23:43, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

The ONS give a different figure, 420,556, here - and this is for the area which they define as Bristol, which is different from the area Bristol City Council define as Bristol. If we are going to quote only a single figure, we need to decide which of these two bodies has the best definition. To help with that, can you set out the arguments for using BCC as our source? Alternatively, we could try to find a way of using both figures, which would be a more neutral (and therefore more Wikipedian) way of doing things. This ties in with the issue I raised a while back in the peer review that the article doesn't highlight that there are lots of different definitions of Bristol. SP-KP 17:34, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I've had a very rough first stab at trying to address the definitions problem, in a new section "Boundaries". SP-KP 18:37, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I've added some refs to the boundaries section which hopefully now give some good definitions for the various definitions of Bristol. If anyone else is aware of any other definitions, please add them. I think the next step should be to align the figures in the demographics section with these boundaries. Is everyone OK if I do that? SP-KP 09:20, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I've avoided entering this debate as I don't have a clear definition of Bristol to search for data on - however on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography talk page there is a comment under Cities, boroughs and districts which may be of use. The proposal is to standardise on the State of the Cities Database used in State of the English Cities report from the Department for Communities and Local Government, who are the Government department responsible for city-related policy, a city is defined as a Primary Urban Area (note, not the same as an urban area) (Volume One, 2.3.5). The link appears to provide lots of data for Bristol.— Rod ^talk 17:29, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

There are now new 2006 ONS estimates for the authority area of Bristol here [2], that give a population of 410,500. (ONS 2006 Population Estimates Unit Crown Copyright 2007) Fig 11:17, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

GA on hold

This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force in an effort to ensure all listed Good articles continue to meet the Good article criteria. In reviewing the article, I have found there are some issues that may need to be addressed.

• Please provide an appropriate license tag for Image:Bristol city coa.gif Done
• Please attend to statements with "citation needed" tags
• Please provide citations for the following statements, unless citations are provided in linked articles:
  • "In the 1960s Filton played a key role in the Anglo-French Concorde supersonic airliner project. Concorde components were manufactured in British and French factories and shipped to the two final assembly plants, in Toulouse and Filton. The French manufactured the centre fuselage and centre wing and the British the nose, rear fuselage, fin and wingtips, while the Rolls-Royce/Snecma 593 engine's manufacture was split between Rolls-Royce (Filton) and SNECMA (Paris). The British Concorde prototype made its maiden flight from Filton to RAF Fairford on 9 April 1969, five weeks after the French test flight. In 2003 British Airways and Air France decided to cease flying the aircraft and to retire them to locations (mostly museums) around the world. On 26 November 2003 Concorde 216 made the final Concorde flight, returning to Filton airfield to be kept there permanently as the centrepiece of a projected air museum. This museum will include the existing Bristol Aero Collection, which includes a Bristol Britannia aircraft."
  • "Cameron Balloons, the world's largest manufacturer of hot air balloons." Done
    • Undone. Sorry, but a claim supporting the assertion in the article taken from Cameron's own website doesn't constitute a valid reference. --Cheesy Mike 19:22, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
      • Of course, it would be a valid reference if the statement were "Cameron Balloons, which claims to be the world's largest manufacturer of hot air balloons." I'm indifferent to the inclusion of the claim in the article, but if others think that Cameron are a significant feature of Bristol, it might be worth including. Joe D (t) 13:04, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • "The Bristol Industrial Museum, featuring preserved dock machinery, closed in October 2006 for complete renovation and plans to reopen in 2009 as the Museum of Bristol." Done
  • "Stop frame animation films and commercials produced by Aardman Animations and television series focusing on the natural world have also brought fame and artistic credit to the city."
  • "In literature Bristol is noted as the birth place of the 18th century poet Thomas Chatterton, and the poets Robert Southey, who was born in Wine Street, Bristol in 1774, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge married the Bristol Fricker sisters; and William Wordsworth spent time in the city where Joseph Cottle first published Lyrical Ballads in 1798."
  • "The 18th and 19th century portrait painter Sir Thomas Lawrence and 19th century architect Francis Greenway, designer of many of Sydney's first buildings, came from the city, and more recently the graffiti artist Banksy. Some famous comedians are locals, including Justin Lee Collins, Lee Evans, and writer/comedian Stephen Merchant."
  • "Bristol University graduates include the satirist Chris Morris, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost of Spaced and Shaun of the Dead and Matt Lucas and David Walliams of Little Britain fame. Hollywood actor Cary Grant was born in the city, Patrick Stewart, Jane Lapotaire, Pete Postlethwaite, Jeremy Irons, Greta Scacchi, Miranda Richardson, Helen Baxendale, Daniel Day-Lewis and Gene Wilder are amongst the many actors who learnt their craft at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, opened by Sir Laurence Olivier in 1946 and Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith, The Matrix) studied at Queen Elizabeth's Hospital School."
  • "Speedway racing was staged, with breaks, at the Knowle Stadium from 1928 to 1960 when it was closed and the site redeveloped. The sport briefly returned to the City in the 1970s when the Bulldogs raced at Eastville Stadium. The Bulldogs of 1949 whitewashed Glasgow (White City) Tigers 70 - 14."
  • "However, on 1 April 1974, it became a local government district of the short-lived county of Avon. On 1 April 1996, it once again regained its independence and county status, when the county of Avon was abolished and Bristol became a Unitary Authority."
  • "The rivers Avon and Frome cut through this limestone to the underlying clays, creating Bristol's characteristic hilly landscape. The Avon flows from Bath in the east, through flood plains and areas which were marshy before the growth of the city. To the west the Avon has cut through the limestone to form the Avon Gorge, partly aided by glacial meltwater after the last ice age. The gorge aided in the protection of Bristol Harbour, and has been quarried for stone to build the city. The land surrounding the gorge has been protected from development, as The Downs and Leigh Woods."
  • "The city has a history of scientific achievement, including Sir Humphry Davy, the 19th century scientist who worked in Hotwells and discovered laughing gas. Bishopston has given the world two Nobel Prize winning physicists: Paul Dirac for crucial contributions to quantum mechanics in 1933, and Cecil Frank Powell, for a photographic method of studying nuclear processes and associated discoveries in 1950. The city was birth place of Colin Pillinger, planetary scientist behind the Beagle 2 Mars lander project, and is home to Adam Hart-Davis, presenter of various science related television programmes, the famed graffati artist Banksy, and the psychologists Susan Blackmore and Richard Gregory."

I will check back in no less than seven days. If progress is being made and issues are addressed, the article will remain listed as a Good article. Otherwise, it may be delisted (such a decision may be challenged through WP:GA/R). If improved after it has been delisted, it may be nominated at WP:GAC. Feel free to drop a message on my talk page if you have any questions. Regards, Epbr123 21:22, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• Noted on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Bristol — Gasheadsteve ^{Talk to me} 07:03, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

As there is still quite a few problems left to fix, I'm afraid I've had to delist the article. Epbr123 18:22, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Park and ride

I removed the link to http://www.parkandride.net/bristol/index.shtml Bristol Park and Ride because it's a link to a commercial site that's been placed with the sole intent of driving traffic there - see the user's other contributions. If the information is relevant it can easily be placed within the article, which in any case is about the city as a whole not Bristol Park and Ride. andy 06:22, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Park and ride is not commercial, its ran by Bristol City Council for the sole purpose of encouraging traffic not to drive into the city centre. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.188.208.251 (talk) 10:43, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Transport update and being picky

I would go ahead and make a few picky changes but as obviously a lot of work has gone into this article I thought I'd check first. There are a few photos which are very nice but bare little or no relation to the section there in (such as Cabot Tower and Broadmead). These should either be moved or deleted.

The phrase "Bristol has a tradition of local political activism" seems rather empty. Surely everywhere that has representation has local political activism??? It would be best to comment on the notable MPs and refer to important local events without this.

The transport section referring to the light rail system surely needs updating following the funding outcome on the tram option and the new local transport plan with the pursuit of the bus rapid transit routes?Jon1984 (talk) 15:30, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Coat of arms

Could someone upload an image of the coat of arms of this city to Commons? Thanks. --Pabletex (talk) 18:25, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Twin Cities

I just removed Segovia as a twin city of Bristol as this is inaccurate. For confirmation, see the City Council's own website.Taffy U|T|E 08:57, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Too many pictures

I think there are far too many photos in this article. Many of them are unnecessary and irrelevant and make the page look messy. If no one has any objections I will remove some of them? ChimpanzeeUK - User | Talk | Contribs 11:23, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Twinning

It says elsewhere that Bristol is twinned with Qingdao, China since 8 May 2006... is this true? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.3.18.180 (talk) 15:04, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Link on history of Bristol "Is too specific for a broad article"

How is this possible; a site which deals with the history of the city is too specific? Has the site been read? By such generalisations practically every link shown could be removed for similar reasons. Other editors, please take a look and decide for yourselves; http://fishponds.org.uk/index.html. Minorhistorian (talk) 23:33, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I may have jumped the gun when I removed that link. The main reasons I did so were that although it does feature information about Bristol in general, it seemed focussed on Fishponds and that the site does not appear to have been maintained since March 2007. But it's Wikipedia, "be bold" and put it back in if you disagree! ChimpanzeeUK - User | Talk | Contribs 08:00, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi from NZ. Understood; I mainly added the link because I was doing some research for another Wikipedia article, Supermarine Spitfire operational history, in which the bombing of Bristol on 28 August 2008 by a high altitude Luftwaffe bomber was discussed and cited, using information from the Fishponds site. If the site has not been maintained since July 2007, (http://fishponds.org.uk/linkpage.html) it's probably better not including it as a main link, in case it disappears. However, for those who are interested in local history it may well be worth contacting the people who run the site; it may be possible to arrange for someone to take over and maintain it as an operating website...Cheers! Minorhistorian (talk) 12:28, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok, no problem. FYI, there are a few more Bristol history sites on the DMOZ here: http://www.dmoz.org/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/England/Bristol/Society_and_Culture/History/ if you need them for more research. The Fishponds site is also listed there. ChimpanzeeUK - User | Talk | Contribs 13:43, 15 July 2008 (UTC)