Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography

WT:UKGEO

This is the talk page for discussing WikiProject UK geography and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

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What's new

Articles for deletion

27 Dec 2024 – Woodside, Telford (talk · edit · hist) was AfDed by DragonofBatley (t · c); see discussion (4 participants)

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)

Reached maximum of 5 out of 308

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)

Reached maximum of 5 out of 71

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)

Reached maximum of 5 out of 7

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.

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This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

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Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:48, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

Project announcements box

The project announcements box doesn't seem to be updated very often, possibly because article alerts is performing this function automatically. Is this still needed on the project page, talk page etc?— Rod ^talk 20:02, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think article alerts has rendered it obselete. Is there a way to get the article alerts transcluded in a similar way, so that it can act as the notification box. Jolly Ω Janner 20:10, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean by "in a similar way"? adding {{ArticleAlertbotSubscription|banner=WPUKgeo}} produces the list which is on the project page & can be added elsewhere. I believe there are tweaks which can be made to the parameters to change the display see Wikipedia:Article alerts.— Rod ^talk 20:30, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah I've just seen it in user on WPUK geography's page and it seems to do its job. I think we should remove the notification box. Seems pointless now. Jolly Ω Janner 20:52, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maintaining lists of FA, FL, GA etc

A bot has recently been set up to maintain the lists of "Recognised content" for projects eg FAs, FLs, GAs, FPs etc, which can be a pain to maintain by hand. I've set this up for Wikipedia:WikiProject Somerset, see User:JL-Bot/Project content for the instructions etc. Would this be useful for this project?— Rod ^talk 16:35, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is a quite a nice coincidence as I was thinking of finding such a bot a couple of hours ago for WPDevon. I think it would be good to have it for WPUK geo, although without the DYK, GAN and FAC. There would be way too many DYK hooks and the GAC and FAC are already covered by article alerts. Just one question; how does the bot generate the captions for the featured pictures? Just another thought is that for WPDevon and possibly WPSomerset, that quality and valued images from Commons might be good to show off too? Jolly Ω Janner 17:45, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what is does for pics as I haven't used this function yet. I also don't know how it works with images which are in commons rather than wikipedia. When you set it up you can configure what you want included (or not).— Rod ^talk 17:50, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Any idea how long it takes the bot to update? I tried it out at WPDevon. Jolly Ω Janner 22:43, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think its daily. I set it up for Somerset at 19.53 yesterday & the bot did its work at 04.00 this morning.— Rod ^talk 22:53, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It has now been updated, but doesn't show any images, because they're all on Commons. I've notified the issue on the bot's talk page. Jolly Ω Janner 00:19, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK I've now set this up for this project & hopefully the bot will add the content in the next 24 hrs.— Rod ^talk 19:48, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Geographic Location box

An editor has added a "Geographic Location box" to lots of county articles (including Somerset) showing what neighbouring counties etc are. I personally don't feel this is needed, attractive or adds anything to the article & put a comment on the editors talk page. The response was that "they're a very useful way of getting information about a group of communities, going from one to another. If you take the Somerset page as an example, the map in the Infobox doesn't give the names of the neighbours. You and I know what they are but visitors from other countries may well not know them. The other map in the article has districts within Somerset, not neighbouring counties. The neighbouring counties are listed early in the Somerset article but (1) this is unusual - few other county articles do this - and (2) I feel the information is more easily absorbed from a map."

Do other editors feel they are a useful addition to the county articles?— Rod ^talk 13:14, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To comment further on Rodw's question, he wondered whether I had considered discussing this first at WP:UKGEO. No, I was going on the wiki principle of trying out a change and letting others keep it or not as they wish. I've been doing this gradually, precisely so I can take account of any objections or suggestions for improvement. Apart from Rodw's comment, the only suggestions & revisions I've had so far have been for improvements, e.g. including sea areas, including NE/ SE/ SW/ NW neighbours as well as N/ E/ S/ W, including Pas-de-Calais neighbouring Kent, etc. I'll watch this discussion before adding further GL boxes.

Rodw has also asked what level of geographical unit I've been doing this for, noting that Bristol is a city, unitary authority, (ceremonial) county (and has been one for 600 years, which I didn't know!). Answer: 'ceremonial' counties, going by Ceremonial counties of England. OldSpot61 (talk) 13:31, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is difficult to visualise from the Location box style depiction of the adjacent locations and find it not very useful. Though I must say that the previous version of the template with the compass in the middle was a lot better and clearer than the one we have now. The textural descriptions are not much better unless it is a very simple case. My preference would be to show the adjoining locations on some form of map but that may be too much work. There are numerous location articles with just grids on them which could do with a better method of showing the relation to other places so may be we need to come up with some thing which is clear and does not involve too much work. Keith D (talk) 23:14, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I'm in favour of their addition. The directions are pretty difficult to decipher when bound by such large entities. And would it be useful for Rutland? Would we be doing this for unitary authorities? Putting WP:UCC aside, which county boundaries do we use? Do we roll this out to Scotland and Wales? --Jza84 | Talk 00:24, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Geographic Location template was proposed for deletion earlier this week. The unanimous conclusion was Strong/Speedy Keep. A lot of people (including me) don't like the design but until someone designs something better, it was agreed it should be kept. An outline map (as suggested by Keith D) would be great but could be very difficult to implement in practice (it would need something more sophisticated than a table).

I feel the template is most useful to people who aren't familiar with the area in question (i.e. not county articlee editors!) so those who think it deleted should look at it from the point of view of e.g. a non-UK reader, who doesn't know what the counties are. Take a look at Idaho and Allier for contrasting examples. The former uses the template so you can move quickly to its neighbouring states and provinces; the latter doesn't and it's hard to know what its neighbours are.

For Scotland, I think the template would be useful for the modern Council Areas and the historic counties, both of which are still used. OldSpot61 (talk) 09:33, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly how are the criteria for given directions worked out? Would, say, a situation where we hit county X if we move due north over a county boundary of county Y be the criteria? Or do we we specify in general terms directions taken from a "centre-point" of the county in whose article we want to put this box? Or what? If you sit down and consider it carefully, it is sometimes not clear, and until this clarified, it may not add easily grasped information. 78.86.94.17 (talk) 11:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]