Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 September 13

propose merging: after those above are done.

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Barking & Dagenham to :Category:London Borough of Barking and Dagenham

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Barnet to :Category:London Borough of Barnet

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Bexley to :Category:London Borough of Bexley

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Brent to :Category:London Borough of Brent

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Bromley to :Category:London Borough of Bromley

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Camden to :Category:London Borough of Camden

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Croydon to :Category:London Borough of Croydon

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Ealing to :Category:London Borough of Ealing

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Enfield to :Category:London Borough of Enfield

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Greenwich to :Category:London Borough of Greenwich

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Hackney to :Category:London Borough of Hackney

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Hammersmith & Fulham to :Category:London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Haringey to :Category:London Borough of Haringey

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Harrow to :Category:London Borough of Harrow

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Havering to :Category:London Borough of Havering

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Hillingdon to :Category:London Borough of Hillingdon

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Hounslow to :Category:London Borough of Hounslow

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Islington to :Category:London Borough of Islington

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Kensington & Chelsea to :Category:Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (note: this is the royal borough)

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Kingston upon Thames to :Category:Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames Note: royal borough

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Lambeth to :Category:London Borough of Lambeth

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Lewisham to :Category:London Borough of Lewisham

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Merton to :Category:London Borough of Merton

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Newham to :Category:London Borough of Newham

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Redbridge to :Category:London Borough of Redbridge there is more than one Redbridge in England but only one bor !

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Richmond upon Thames to :Category:London Borough of Richmond upon Thames

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Southwark to :Category:London Borough of Southwark

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Sutton to :Category:London Borough of Sutton

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Tower Hamlets to :Category:London Borough of Tower Hamlets

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Waltham Forest to :Category:London Borough of Waltham Forest

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Wandsworth to :Category:London Borough of Wandsworth

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Westminster to :Category:City of Westminster Note: this is a city bor.

:Category:Neighbourhoods of the City of London to :Category:City of London Note: this is a city bor.

Nominator's rationale: (1)The word 'neighbourhood' is not used in this way for UK districts in The London Region. People know and understand this cat as boroughs -if the abbreviated form is used, then it is taken to be a reference to the town instead. (2) It is leads to miss understanding. (4) It amounts to a duplicate cat of borough. (4) Most Wikimedia Commons images of the London region are not getting a location cat because of this confusion leads to the belief that a place category does not yet exist. (5) Not really suitable for the sub-divisions called wards (boundaries do not coincide). (6) Employing an uncountable substantive noun such a 'neighbourhood' is and invitation new users to proliferate even more. It is a recipe for making a spaghetti of categories.

More:

:Category:Neighbourhoods in the United Kingdom Should be a 'redirect' to :Category:Districts of the United Kingdom

Rational: (1) Duplication of purpose. (2) Uses a term that is not used this way in the UK (3) Is coursing pages to be miss-categorised – i.e., Neighbourhood Management Pathfinder Programme and Neighbourhood Renewal Fund.

Rename all of:

:Category:Neighbourhoods in the United Kingdom to :Category:Districts in the United Kingdom

:Category:Neighbourhoods of London to :Category:Districts of London

:Category:Neighbourhoods in England to :Category:Districts in England

:Category:Neighbourhoods in Northern Ireland to :Category:Districts in Northern Ireland

:Category:Neighbourhoods in Scotland to :Category:Districts in Scotland

:Category:Neighbourhoods of Walsall to :Category:Metropolitan Borough of Walsall

Rationale: I think you should be getting the idea by now!

--Aspro (talk) 15:30, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

• Support the general idea of all above and await other views. (Neighbourhood is not used in this sense in the UK.) Occuli (talk) 20:08, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

:* The category name should match the corresponding article; eg :Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, :London Borough of Islington. Occuli (talk) 23:50, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

• Support. Well put. — Hex (❝?!❞) 15:42, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
• Support, but suggest instead using ":Category:Wandsworth Borough," etc., to be concise. --Eliyak T·C 17:38, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
• Comment - concise but wrong - the nominator gives the correct formsHeartofaDog (talk) 01:18, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
• Support - and thumbs up for tackling this lot head on.HeartofaDog (talk) 01:18, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
• Support renames of boroughs, but not sure about the rest. Why rename :Category:Neighbourhoods of London to :Category:Districts of London? The former will just be redundant, & don't you mean merge anyway? But it should just be Delete. Also should not we be using "Greater London"? Johnbod (talk) 01:31, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

:*Comment: I think if there was a need for a GLA subdivision, then it would warrant its own cats of :Category:Greater London Authority, :Category:Outer Greater London Authority and :Category:Inner Greater London Authority because it is 'one' organization administrating over 'two' arbitrary divided up areas and tasked with somewhat different responsibilities from the other councils that are within its boundaries. So, it is not really a subdivision of 'place' in peoples minds. However, I haven't attempted to quantify the usefulness of creating these. It may just add confusion -what articles would be suitable for going in to it? Also, it would maybe worth noting that Inner GLA may create confusion in peoples minds with Central London which of course means something else entirely. Also, due to the GLA's purpose and nature, it may (almost certainly will) change its boundaries and structure from time to time and with a greater frequency to the district boundary changes. So, at the moment I don't see a need for considering the GLA.--Aspro (talk) 09:18, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

• Support name change for clarity, as proposed. Against collapsing classes.
• Comment - clarity as to name of entity that sub-class is a member of - i.e the foo-ian taxonomy should reflect the full official name for clarity. In setting up [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_London/Categories this taxonomy] it was only intended that there should be some clarity about the formerly crowded 'all-London' classes. I don't think there was any discussion at the time about the use of the short-name for the Borough - and recognition that it would create confusion with the district entities - although there have been so many confusions between Hackney/LBH, Islington/LBI, etc at the article level, it should probably have been seen. Similarly, there is no entity 'London', it should be 'Greater London'. I'd consider using the accepted abbreviation for 'London Borough' ('LB'), but realise this could cause confusion amongst international readers. Any name changes will need to be applied throughout the taxonomy.
• The taxonomy was introduced to try to simplify the cat tagging at the article level; so (for instance) - theatres in Westminster would be a member of buildings and structures in westminster, entertainment venues in London - etc. This provides multiple routes through the taxonomy - and sorts them by borough.
• I'm scratching my head as to why 'neighbourhoods' was chosen - some of the thinking was that using 'district' went against :WP:UKCITIES. Again, creating the distinction between this entity and the borough was that then within (say) districts of London, they would appear sorted by borough, rather than being a humongous list of places in London. Certainly, the reason the taxonomy was created was that there was a drive to reduce the size of very large categories. Merging the categories just recreates the very large and disorganised categories that existed before. There are technical reasons why large flat categories are not a good idea, there is a big system overhead in maintaining them. Certainly consideration should be given to clarity of naming.
• One of the problems in London is that areas acquire a name derived from (a) the historic settlement; (b) constructed geographic features, such as parks and docks; and (c) propinquity to a tube station (hence, say, Stratford crosses a river and goes a mile up a hill). Council ward boundaries, for instance, often divide districts - eg Whitechapel - and are reorganised, at least, every ten years to balance the electoral sizes. I think that may be why 'neighbourhood' was chosen, as it is an essentially informal sub-division. Elsewhere in the UK 'District' has a specific legal entity meaning.
• I think that's all for now - I hope it explains some of the reasoning for introducing the sub-categories; and hope it helps the discussion. Other note: City of Westminster is legally a London Borough; the City of London is sui generis (preceding all other legal entities in the country). For some purposes, it forms a part of Greater London, for others it goes its own way, as a separate ceremonial county. Ultimately, these are real places and the model we choose will always have holes in it. cheers Kbthompson (talk) 09:25, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

:::Thanks for letting me know about this discussion. I've provided a link to this discussion, as a courtesy, at :WP:London - when where they going to be told? Has this proposal been announced at :WP:England? Kbthompson (talk) 09:33, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

:::Ah, :Category:Neighbourhoods by country - there is no :Category:Districts by country - so, any renaming schemata should be brought up at an international level. Otherwise, we'll be here in a years time to discuss renaming it back. Kbthompson (talk) 10:15, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

::::Thanks for letting me know that these two projects existed Kb -(and for letting them know too).

::::*As for the Category:Neighbourhoods by country issue: This present job was large enough I thought, so I was thinking I'd rather let our American cousins find out, in their own good time, that 'district' translates internationally much, much better than neighbourhood. However, if you think we had better nip things whilst still in the bud, then perhaps that should be the next task; but hell, it is all ready resembling a hydra.

::::*Wikipedia is read by many people for whom England is a foreign country and for whom English is perhaps not their mother tongue (perhaps for the reason there are many more articles here on en:WP than on their own version). The use of abbreviated form of a place name assumes that the reader has a certain understanding of the taxonomy already.

::::*Maybe it is because I am very used, to having many foreigners ask me for directions, from address scribbled on bits of crumpled paper, that I am very aware of this. Address that have been hand written using abbreviations cause more problems because the person being directed finds it harder to work some things out for himself. Even the little things matter, for example: if one is more used to północ, południe, wschód and zachód, then the little the red SW5 abbreviation on the street plates doesn't indicate that you have got off the bus on the wrong side of the river. But if one has a rudimentary grasp of the language, then a quick explanation with a bit of hand waving in the direction of all the cardinal points from a local who knows it means South West London and one can soon get it.

::::*I notice that WP:England tends to uses the Burnley (borough) form of differentiation. It is understandable how this convention came about, we can just put it down to the speedy and economic way the brain organizes sub-sets of objects – (and it is better than the London form). However, now that the bulk of the articles have been created, is it not time to finish getting the nomenclature bit of the job done right. Why not use a long-establish existing system, rather than develop a new one for WP and call this boro: :Category:East Lancashire borough of Burnley. Their isn't any room left for doubt when it is in this form. --Aspro (talk) 14:14, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

• Ambivalent. I support it because I support the rationale, but I'm wondering if :Category:Croydon (London borough) is a better option. I guess it just grates to see the "Royalness" of some boroughs enshrined on Wikipedia, which I accept is my problem. On the neighbourhoods to districts issue I'm even more ambivalent. I'm not sure district is that ingrained in the British lexicon either. The pragmatic "place" is often more widely used, because, although indistinct, it is often always right and understood rather than district, which isn't. Sometimes the places our councils have decided are districts aren't even place-names residents recognise. Greater London is again another division that makes sense to politicians rather than people. Ah, it is a complicated issue. Does someone want to remind me again if London is still a county as well as a city? Hiding T 15:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

::[EC] I'd definitely go for borough short-name -> borough long-name; and I think that goes a long way to resolving the confusion that seems to be being created. Expanding that to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_London/Categories sub-level categories] means renaming each of the 20 categories for 33 boroughs (20x33 categories). WP London Transport probably needs to be involved, as they have input on rail, bus and street level categorisation (notified).

::OK. See the article :Districts of England and :Category:Districts of England - which accords to the definition in the article; strictly a 'district' has a mayor - so, not a level below London Borough. Specifically looking at the 'neighbourhoods' issue, the 'districts' class generally have mayors - so, there's not an identity between the two classes. {{t1|London districts}} was a trimmed form of a former huge list; it now largely corresponds to the former metropolitan boroughs, so, about 3-4 per borough - although inevitably there have been some addns. I don't think merging 'neighbourhoods' to the top level 'borough' category creates too many entries, but then there will be a lack of clarity about what the boro' cat refers to - people will dump people, buildings, everything in it. And - they'll be no higher level grouping for places that people can easily identify, but that have no formal status (that's the function that neighbourhoods performs at the international end of the hierarchy).

::My conclusion - from this - is that it is necessary to retain the nomenclature 'neighbourhood' (or, some alternative that doesn't conflict with districts - that are legal entities). There is some point to retaining them separate from the 'London borough' grab-bag, as then we've populated our low-level entities in the higher level hierarchy (through to International level) - I wouldn't lose sleep over losing that distinction because the significant ones are all listed in templates under their respective boro's, but it would be non-standard in respect of the overall project. HTH Kbthompson (talk) 15:53, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

::: For places that people can easily identify, but that have no formal status. There is a phrase Communities and neighbourhoods that I think would serve this purpose, if it was turned into a cat e.g. :Category:Communities and neighbourhoods in the United Kingdom. If a note was also added to the category pages which explicitly gives the definition and limits of the cat, then this would discourage miss use. Being 'a phrase' it already posses and suggests the quality of inexactness that communities and neighbourhoods have about their physical boundaries. Also, the UK government uses it as a working term -maybe they do in the US and Canada. I think that this might have been what our American cousins were thinking about when the 'neighbourhood' cat was first created but it just ran away before anybody could get it under control. Maybe we should get views from across the Atlantic to see just exactly what the official place nomenclature is -regardless of if the average John Doe uses it for everyday conversations in the vernacular where exact the meaning can be understood from context.

:::Category:Streets in London Well done Kb, that's a one I have overlooked. Are the any more like this? Shall I add them to the lists above or shall we make it explicit on each of these street cats, that it refers to the borough or whatever? --Aspro (talk) 18:07, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

:::(point for Kbthompson) Not all places which have a mayor are districts. I just want to clarify that point. And usage of the term districts on Wikipedia, especially as applies to London, indicates it is being used more to indicate places that districts. See for example {{tl|LB Sutton}}. None of those "districts" have a mayor. And what are you referring to when you state that "the significant ones are all listed in templates under their respective boro's". Neighbourhood isn't too bad a phrase, either. We did have the Neighbourhood Watch after all. But I think this is a decision that needs more careful and nuanced thinking as to how it affects all the things we likely categorise in borough categories, as you rightly state. Hiding T 11:00, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

::[reply to Hiding] There are at least two cities within :Greater London - neither is just London ... although, only one is a 'legal' city - the other is legally a London Borough, as are the Royal Boroughs. Greater London is the administrative name for the authority above the London Boroughs. The London Boroughs and the City of London are each 'Districts of England' in the legal entity sense. I thought the term 'place', or 'area' were considered no-nos under the :WP:MoS - but I can't find it. (borough), sadly is not within the :fooian naming conventions. Kbthompson (talk) 16:17, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

:::Um, the City of London is both a city and a county but not a borough. I'm not sure what you mean by it not being just London. London is possibly all things to all people; in song it is a town, f'rinstance. I think we are having a conversation where crucial context is being missed. My widest point is this: If you want to categorise by political divisions, then feel free to do so with the very strong caveat that in dear old blighty political divisions are a mess. There is no logical structure, there is no agreement, and there are strongly entrenched points of view about what is what and where is where. The political divisions are not ones that mean much to people. Greater London is just a name, same as anything else. I think the authority which is a political level up from the London boroughs is many and diverse depending on context. The GLA is sort of one of them, although it operates as a steering committee more than anything else; it's power is mostly in policy setting rather than implentation and it exists hand in hand with the boroughs. The UK Parliament is of another level entirely. Transport, policing, the fire brigade and development of London are areas the GLA steers, it has no say on health which is devolved separately and through a different set of divisions which do not share boundaries similar with the ones discussed here. For example, St. Helier Hospital is administered by the Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust, a body which covers both South West London and Surrey. We tend to make naming conventions up as we go along, (just like most policy) so that (borough) isn't listed is no bar, there appears to be precedent already. Hiding T 11:00, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

::Again, all the sub-categories are listed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_London/Categories here]. So, yes nearly 700 categories (some not populated) would need to be renamed - for consistency - below the London Borough cats. It'd have to be a hyperactive bot request. A quick look at WPL tagged articles shows (FA->unassessed) 14 + 4 + 22 + 223 + 21 + 1,690 + 1,690 + 52 + 596 - so, at least 4,000 articles. Essentially, every article to do with London - and not all the WPLT ones are tagged with WPL. It's not a category you're suggesting renaming, it's a group of entire taxonomies. Kbthompson (talk) 23:19, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

:::It just shows that the WP Manual of Style page needs to have this omission put right after were through. My copy of the Oxford Manual of Style, warns about depending on local knowledge to identify a 'place', because there are often places with the same name else where. It also has guidance for how to refer to places in Japan, China and Korea. Also within it, is advice about whether to use the Anglicized version of foreign place names. Over on Wikimedia Commons, because it is multi-lingual, they are also favouring the official local spelling of place names, to ovoid two or more occurrences of the same geographical place, although though there are inevitably some problems with this solution.

:::When it comes to bots, I have no practical understanding of what effort is involved in getting a bot to do this. I think we will have to defer to those who posses the right technical knowledge for their comment. Good job WP is not composed with little pieces of movable lead type -this would soon have all the compositors out on strike. Err, having said that -it might anyway. --Aspro (talk) 06:36, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

::::What's your point about the commons and the Oxford manual of style related to? Let's not forget this is the English Wikipedia. Hiding T 11:00, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

::Just don't blame me when wikipedia runs out of 'O' and 'N's .... I'd like to see more comments from projects - none of them seem very active these days. Kbthompson (talk) 08:06, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

:::They can always improvise by placing lower case 'E's (there are always loads of them in the tray) face down in the stick until some more N and O sorts arrive – that will keep the proofreaders occupied too -and away from the young office girls :-) --Aspro (talk) 09:07, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me, we've moved on since the initial proposal, and I want to make sure we're all on the same page with regard to the changes:

;London (4,000+ articles)

• Category:borough short name -> Category:borough long name
• All sub-cats [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_London/Categories here] to reflect the over-cat name.
• Specific Category:neighbourhoods of borough -> Category:neighbourhoods and communities of borough long name

;UK wide (god knows how many articles!)

• :Category:Neighbourhoods in the United Kingdom -> :Category:Neighbourhoods and communities in the United Kingdom
• :Category:Neighbourhoods in England -> :Category:Neighbourhoods and communities in England
• :Category:Neighbourhoods in Northern Ireland -> :Category:Neighbourhoods and communities in Northern Ireland
• :Category:Neighbourhoods in Scotland -> :Category:Neighbourhoods and communities in Scotland
• :Category:Neighbourhoods of London -> :Category:Neighbourhoods and communities of London

:*No! this is getting garbled.
(1) The phrase that the government seems to use, always has the word 'communities' coming before 'neighbourhoods.' For examples see the Communities and local government website:[http://www.communities.gov.uk/communities/ http://www.communities.gov.uk/communities/]

:* (2) And anyway, these constructs are not what people think of when they use a place name. If an article is called by the place name, then that is often the town name or place name on the map which is also the very often the postal name – but that is not how people define their neighbourhood which is more a social/cultral thing. I only suggested we 'could' have a 'community and neighbourhood' phrased cat also, so that if anybody was doing an article on say a UK Polish, or UK Asian or UK Bengali etc., or a particular neighbourhood based organization like Local History Society or Neighbourhood-Watch etc., then they had a catch-all category already set up and therefore there would not be a proliferation of little categories with only ever just one or two pages in it. We need to go back to the term districts. Ie. :Category:Neighbourhoods in the United Kingdom to :Category:Districts in the United Kingdom. From Googleing around: 'district' already seems far more internationally accepted anyway.--Aspro (talk) 10:30, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

:At that website it talks of communities and neighbourhoods - the distinction being that communities are self-described groups of people; whereas neighbourhoods are geographically defined - e.g. "Neighbourhood Renewal". Kbthompson (talk) 11:58, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

;Implementation

1. The London articles can be done category, by category - either by a friendly bot, or semi-automated using HOTCAT, and/or AWB.
2. The UK top categories can be handled by a simple redirect - moving down the category tree - in conjunction with local wikiprojects until the new nomenclature has been deployed (and accepted). - mark the redirect pages as 'declining' and point to replacement cat.

• Comment I think that this is such a large change that we really need more support to move beyond London. I think most of the London changes are relatively uncontroversial, in that it makes clear the location for linking to wikicommons. It's just housekeeping. The UK wide ones are more problematic. I think there needs to be more support for the idea than the handful who have expressed their opinions. For instance - WPScotland, WPWales, and WPNI have never been told of this discussion. Kbthompson (talk) 09:14, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
• :Someone is really going to have to clear up for me why we have to fit in with wikicommons, given we are a single language encyclopedia and they are a multi-lingual one. And in that I am referring to English as a single language with variations of spelling. My feeling is that this needs to be a centralised discussion, it is far too large to hope that people just wander by here or the project pages. A Cent pointer may be a good idea. Hiding T 11:04, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

:::Oh dear, I thought I made clear that :Districts of England defines a legal entity - an English administrative division - which is the source of :Category:Districts of England. 'Communities', 'Neighbourhoods' cannot be conflated with 'districts' - that latter category has a specific meaning.

:::Yes, please do add a 'cent pointer'. Applying an unambiguous nomenclature will assist wikicommons and other projects in organising their contributions in synchronisation with this one. I don't think there's a problem with going ahead with that 'disambiguation' for London Boroughs. I am concerned that the other matters are looking too complex to be sorted out within this discussion. Perhaps it needs to go to something like :WP:UKGEO - and the UK sub-projects for discussion. Neighbourhoods -> Communities might be a goer. (The UK gov has a stick up its *** changing people to customers, etc). Kbthompson (talk) 11:45, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

::::I'm clear that :Districts of England defines a legal entity, but I'm also pointing out it is being used on Wikipedia in other roles too. Are you proposing {{tl|LB Sutton}} and all like it be tweaked so that the word districts is replaced with communities? The other option is ward, as in council wards, but a lot of people don't tend to recognise there council ward as a distinctive place, if you are with me. They aren't always named after places that are marked on a map or crop up in conversation. Does that better clarify? Hiding T 12:03, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

::No, that wasn't aimed at you - but the previous comment. In common parlance it is OK to call places within LB Sutton districts - but legally, only LB Sutton is a district - and that's what that cat is for. Council wards change every 8-10 years to balance electors and their boundaries often charge down the middle of the local high street - so, useless for both 'enduringness' and a geographic determination that accords with how people think about where they live. The scope of this part of the discussion is limited to finding a name for a cat that offers an all-embracing and unambiguous word, or expression, that can be applied to places as diverse as Soho, and the smallest crofting community on the Outer Hebrides. :WP:UKCITIES says (for instance) Avoid describing named areas that are verifiably part of a wider settlement as "districts" or "suburbs", unless citation supports this. Whilst these two terms have common usages, they also indicate a specific and technical geographic term to which an area may not actually conform. General consensus (above) seems to be we need to get away from neighbourhoods, and the likely candidate (for the cat name) is communities and neighbourhoods in the London Borough of Sutton (for instance). That seems to fit with the way the UK gov thinks of it, but not with International wiki convention when you get to the :Category:Neighbourhoods by country level. To my mind that seems unwieldy - and we might as well explain in the category page that it means Neighbourhoods and communities. Would that be acceptable? cheers Kbthompson (talk) 13:17, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

:::I think we're talking at cross purposes. My main question is what we do about the use of the word "district" on {{tl|LB Sutton}} and all similar templates? Change it to "communities"? I understand all the points you are making; I am merely trying to point out the need for a greater consistency than just within categories. This is too big for just categories; if you only do it in categories you then have "category consensus" versus "navbox consensus", both of which are equally valid but can't both exist if we are looking to standardise. I appreciate navboxes are outside the scope of the discussion in theory, but the end result of this discussion affects them, so they should be considered. What's your opinion on the navbox usage of the word "districts". Hiding T 13:47, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

:A reply to above - this thread is becoming hopelessly tangled. The scope of this discussion is solely about categories. That particular navbox debate should take place at WPLondon. - and yes, guilty as charged, I did set most of them up and used 'district' when doing so! In my defence, it was over a year ago, and I've since spent more time reading the small print. Kbthompson (talk) 14:09, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

::::I guess I'm going to oppose then. There is no limit to what we are able to talk about, no-one owns any debate and if we are not prepared to do joined up thinking or let the left hand know what the right hand is doing, I'm not prepared to sign off on it. Dot the i's and cross the t's. And I apologise, I hadn't looked at the edit history so I was unaware you created them. Hiding T 19:57, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

:::::In reply to Hiding

:::::I perhaps did not explain it well enough for a non WC user. English:WP doesn't have to fit into Wikicommons, instead WC tends to adopts en:WP category formats (and where applicable come up with some of its own). I mention WC in this debate because: it only goes to highlight further: that WP has focused on the bad practice of using a nomenclature that requires the reader to have local knowledge to make sense of exactly what is being referred to. We (the London editors) are familiar with the vernacular use of these names both (here and on WC) and so easily differentiate which place is being referred to by context in which it is being used, therefore we don't notice how bad this practice is.--Aspro (talk) 13:00, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

::::::Oh, I use WC, I just don't debate on WC, so I don't pick up on their customs. I'm not sure it is bad practise to base nomenclature on local practise, and I'm not sure that's what happened here, but I'll bow to your points. I think there's a conflict on en over whether we are the global wikipedia or the english wikipedia, and I thought this might be a part of that. It isn't so I'll avoid coloring it as such. Apologies. The only problem I would note is that English is a language that depends heavily on contextual markers to understand meaning. Hiding T 13:47, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

:::::::I have to take a brake until tomorrow -drat (and my head is now spinning from looking at it from all angles). Due to the fact we don't want to have to do it again any time soon, I am happy to wait for more fresh eyes to pick at it and to comment -just so we know we have got it as best as we can get it. --Aspro (talk) 16:58, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I tried to summarise where we had got to in the debate before - and codded it up. When you come back, maybe we can consider the following:

1. There seems to be complete agreement that London categories need to be disambiguated to the full official borough name.
2. There seem to be four possible proposals in respect of 'neighbourhoods':-

• Merge to districts - although districts are a distinct legal entity
• Change the name to 'communities and neighbourhoods in ...' - likely to produce unwieldy cat names
• Collapse the bottom level category into the local authority category - essentially losing a category that is used internationally; but the LA category is 'by definition' the :districts in England - so, is it lost?
• Leave it as 'neighbourhoods'

I think the only one I'm definitely against is merging current 'neighbourhoods' into 'districts', as this dilutes the meaning of the latter category. If we collapse the localities into the local authority category, it is essentially a variation of your original proposal - so, I apologise if it took such a long time for me to come round to your way of thinking! Kbthompson (talk) 08:52, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

• Can I point to similar discussions at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2008_September_14#Lakeshore_cities_and_towns and below, where there is talk of using settlements and some opposition to communities. Again, this might be an instance where we need to do some joined up thinking and settle the issue across all categories where this is applicable. Again I suggest cfd is not the venue, since a consensus will have to be reached a centralised discussion is better. Thrash the issue out once, find a rough consensus, write it up and act accordingly. Doing it piecemeal is just not going to work in the long term. Hiding T 10:16, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
• I think the low level category discussion can be resolved here, as the disambiguation of London Borough ... cats is reasonable and straightforward. I agree that the more complex and over-reaching discussions could be brought to the Village pump. Kbthompson (talk) 12:12, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
• I want to be clear I have no real objection to what is done with the London borough categories. Hiding T 13:34, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
• An initiative, Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Need for sweeping change to settlements-related categories, has been presented at the Village Pump. __meco (talk) 12:35, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

• Suggestion:

This doesn't have to be this complicated. For 30 years I have had to work with many different taxonomies concurrently.

(1)The problem here, is keeping in mind that we are two nations separated by a common language, and so we need a continuation of meaning, as the nomenclature changes across boarders, and it looks like we obviously need to make it clear, on those particular cat pages where this happens that the nomenclature has changed and why.

(2)The trick is to identify the chief characteristics of each class and keep each class quite separate.

Then this problem were having with neighbourhoods becomes apparent. I have done this at the start. I have also explained 'why' on each part of each proposal. Currently, by using the North American nomenclature 'neighbourhoods of Xxxxxx' for the London area it has created a duplicate category to 'London borough of xxxx' that serves no other purpose than to confuse. It is this that started the debate because I discovered nobody over here in Europe could understand what 'Neighbourhoods of Xxxxx' was supposed to refer to, as on WP this sort of classification are fully dealt with by the other cats. Ie. see the cats on Chinatown, London. These describe the type of neighbourhood. BUT on this article they don't state what borough it is in. Maybe this is why nobody has check and discovered that the two descriptive cats don't proper link up yet with all the parent cats above it, perhaps they perhaps think it goes up via 'Neighbourhoods of Westminster'. It needs another two parent cats to be created higher up to bring the bring the European and North American Chinatowns together. For someone who does not live in London and has never spent much time in the US it must seem mindbogglingly difficult to make sense of the current category system until the changes above are made.--Aspro (talk) 14:42, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

----

:The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.