Talk:Greater Manchester/Archive 3

Expansion of this article
I wonder if, perhaps, this article is getting a bit above its station. Its main focus should be on the administrative area and the administration of it. There is now a great deal of duplicated material here and I feel that much of it is irrelevant in the proper context of the article. People will generally want to read about Manchester or one of the nearby towns; few will want to read about a council area, but the way the article is expanding might suggest that Greater Manchester is the primary topic and the article people should come to if they want to find out about Manchester. I suggest we consider trimming back this article significantly. The Roman Candle (talk) 11:24, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Dorset doesn't concentrate on administration. Somerset doesn't concentrate on administration.  This article didn't concentrate on administration when it was promoted to GA, the peer review didn't suggest it, and it looked much like this when it was promoted to  FA. It's fine.Mr Stephen (talk) 17:24, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Greater Manchester is a geographical area, it is mostly administered by its constituent councils. I think it is fine as an overview of the metropolitan county. J3Mrs (talk) 17:31, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * This is far more than an overview. It's a bloated article, with content that is, for the most part, duplicated elsewhere, and it can be difficult to load due to its size - it is larger than the recommended article size. The comparisons with Dorset and Somerset are not that good. Far better to compare with Merseyside and West Midlands. These articles, together with the others about metropolitan counties, are of about the right length. Somerset and Dorset are places that people are far more likely to identify with than metropolitan counties, which are sort of "here today, gome tomorrow" entities, so you might expect more mateiral in articles about proper counties. I do think this article needs trimming, if only to make it less of a primary topic about the subject of Manchester and its surroundings. The Roman Candle (talk) 11:17, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
 * You cannot be serious, this is a featured article, what would be the point of rubbishing itto the level of the West Midlands article? A metropolitan county is no less worthy of a comprehensive article than any other sort of county.J3Mrs (talk) 11:29, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, serious indeed, but I understand that you might not be happy with my suggestion, being a major contributor to the article. It was FA in 2008, and it's grown again since then. When will it stop expanding? It can't continue, just because a number of enthusiasts keep adding material. And I'm not suggesting rubbishing it, I'm simply saying it's too big. Like it or not "Greater Manchester" is just an administrative area. People don't identify with GREATER Manchester. It's nothing more or less than a council area such as East Cheshire. In fact it's less, because it isn't even a council area. The Roman Candle (talk) 11:42, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Wrong, I am not a major contributor, and who are you to say who does or does not identify with the metropolitan county Greater Manchester? I reiterate, a metropolitan county is no less worthy of a comprehensive article than any other sort of county whatever your personal view.J3Mrs (talk) 11:54, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Not only is Greater Manchester a "council area" by way of it's combined authority, it is more - a police area, statutory city region, lieutenancy area, ceremonial county, metropolitan county, shared transport region, NUTs region.... etc etc (I'm not listing other uses, of which there are plenty). There are about 50 reputable, living pan-Greater Mancunian organisations operational in the county, covering many aspects of life, natural history, sport, cuisine (etc) and I have about 100+ books about Greater Manchester; this featured article is a pretty succinct, valid and fine version of that wealth of material. It's a page Wikipedia can be proud of. There's no better county-level page out there really. --Jza84 | Talk  19:52, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
 * J3Mrs, sorry, I'm mixing you up with Mr Stephen was has contributed quite a bit to the article. Okay, cards on table: I'm no fan of metropolitan counties. To me, they represent just another example of an entity born of the total balls up we now have in local govenment administrative geography, where there's no uniformity across the country and where successive govrnments have meddled repeatedly with the structures. Anyway, that's my POV, rant over, back to the article. This is what I mean: compare this with this. Yes, complete duplication, word for word, in related articles, involving a significant amount of text. And this is just one example that afflicts the current article. It is wholly wrong! We shouldn't have this sort thing. It smacks of bad organisation across a series of articles. The content rightly belongs in the geography article, not the main article. In this case (Flora and fauna subsection) I propose removing most of the material from the main article and leaving a summary. Any other thoughts or ideas? The Roman Candle (talk) 17:03, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Your dislike for metropolitan counties was pretty obvious, but I thank you for your honesty anyway. It isn't a valid reason to, well, invalidate the article, because it has been writting within the various guidelines of the Wikipedia project - particularly the element about building a comprehensive encyclopedia based on reliable sources....(!)
 * To answer your concerns (of which I think has some small scale validity all the same): 1) Yes the article became an FA in 2008, but much has changed since then. The run-up to- and creation of the Combined Authority is a major one; as is the creation of Transport for Greater Manchester, the continued expansion of Metrolink, and developments in various associated services. The 2011 census will bring more changes, as will the forthcoming Police Commissioner for Greater Manchester; and then there are various updates that have needed doing but been overlooked (MEN Arena becomes the Manchester Arena is an example. Urbis housing the National Football Museum is another). For that, there will be changes and growth in the article.
 * 2) There is duplication on other articles. I had actually started on that before you raised your concern, by copying over some material (for instance, on Geography of Greater Manchester), but then expanding upon it (it now has elements about geology and extreme points for instance) - more needs to be done. This will leave the couple of paragraphs of info (and let's be fair - it is only really that much for each section) as the summary and basis for larger articles in there. Again though, removal of valid material on the basis you don't like the county isn't going to win many friends, and equally, there is a whole lot of information about Greater Manchester out there yet - the Transport Plan for Greater Manchester is hundreds of pages long, and there is an entire book on Butterflies in Greater Manchester too as an example!
 * 3) I actually think the Manchester page looks a little unloved and lacking a lot of depth - that's a task you can help with if you have reliable sources that can help contruct a fuller article :) --Jza84 | Talk  18:56, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, I take your point about expanding the Geography ... article, and I note your contribution today. My main concern was (almost) word for word duplication in articles, so if that can be overcome then all well and good. I still think the article is on the large side, but fair enough, let's see if others have a view. If effort is put into expanding the related articles rather than the main, then that would be preferable. Unfortunately my library, although extensive, does not have much material (pretty much nothing, actually) about Greater Manchester as an entity, and Cheshire rather than GM is my specialist area, so I can't contribute to the extent you have done. Anyway, good work on your part. The Roman Candle (talk) 19:12, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Transport
The Transport section is a little outdated, with references to facts and figures from a mid-2000s perspective. I'm looking particularly at passenger totals and the number of heavy rail stations (which must surely be outdated since the Oldham Loop Line closed in 2009). Anybody willing and able to brush this up? --Jza84 | Talk  21:10, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Population
Hi can someone explain a report published by the City Growth commission in February 2014 stating Greater Manchester Metro area had a resident census population of 2,894,240 in 2011 calculated by using ONS defined built-up areas found here: http://www.citygrowthcommission.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Metro-Growth-February-2014.pdf and why we don't include those figures?--Navops47 (talk) 10:43, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Built Up Areas (BUA's) measure all contiguous development where there is no break in human occupation of more than a two hundred meters, as such they often extend beyond local authority borders. City Growth Commission (in the appendix) say they have also combined separate neighboring BUA with a high degree of interdependence e.g. Cardiff and Newport, Southampton and Portsmouth and I presume in Greater Manchester's case Greater Manchester BUA (2.55m) and Wigan BUA (175k) and a few other minor settlements within the county borders. WatcherZero (talk) 13:37, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks there is to be a directly elected Mayor of Greater Manchester by 2017 who will govern the city region as shown in the UK government white paper here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/devolution-to-the-greater-manchester-combined-authority-and-transition-to-a-directly-elected-mayor and will have the same powers as the Mayor of London how do we then view the city region after this election?