Talk:List of ancient woods in England

Scope and Content
I am interested in putting in some work on this list, which could become quite a valuable resource. However, it might be helpful to get some feedback on what sorts of woodland sites should be included, and whether it should aim to add extra information. As a starter, my suggestion would be that it is aiming to show sites that meet all the following criteria:-
 * extant areas of standing woodland (however debased) (rather than areas that have been woodland in the past)
 * Sites that have been continuous woodland since 1600
 * Woodland that has a recognisable identity, ie the name indicates a defined area of woodland.
 * The most substantial woodland sites in each county, rather than trying to list every copse and wooded corner. Should there be a size criteria (eg 10 ha), (or the largest 10 per county), for example, just to keep the list size within bounds. (individual counties could have their own article if a more thorough list was wanted)

It would then help to make the list both more coherent and useful if a few additional facts about each wood was included. I suggest:-
 * name (ideally wikilinked to an article about it)
 * official designations (NNR, SSSI, etc)
 * size - ha & acres
 * Grid ref (using the gbmappingsmall template to link to maps)
 * reference to an external citation

Should these simply be listed, or should each county be formatted as a table?

The Nature Conservancy Council did a major survey in the 1990s, and the results appear to be both published and accessible, though I have not managed to work out how as yet - or if it would be appropriate and legal to extract the information. The dataset is described at so if anyone can either extract the relevant information, or at least give some guidance on using it, that would be great.

RobinLeicester (talk) 00:10, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Stray pointer
A stray pointer, presumably from a map, has made the space at bottom of the page under the Wikimedia and MediaWiki logos abnormally long. I'm not sure how to fix it. Harrison49 (talk) 10:25, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Somerset & kml
I've just come across this list and can add some for Somerset. I note OS Grid refs using the gbmappingsmall template are included for locations - would it be worth changing these to Template:Coord before to many are added so that tools such as Template:kml can do more with linking the locations to google & bing maps etc?&mdash; Rod talk 21:13, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks Rod, nice to see someone contributing. Do you know if that is a definitive Somerset list, or will there be more to be found? I am very happy to be told more about the kml benefits. I used a grid ref so that looking it up on a paper OS map would be easier. They are also what the SSSI citations use, and is used on SSSI info boxes. On the other hand the coords are used by location map+, so are already converted, and could be added in too, if that didn't overload the tables (cf Charnwood Forest). I would be pleased to be guided - or for you to try it out. RobinLeicester (talk) 23:32, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I would suggest putting a note on WP:UKGEO asking others to contribute for counties they have knowledge/sources about to get others to take on particular counties. I believe the Somerset list to be comprehensive for those designated as SSSIs or NNRs (all of which have articles see List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset and Category:Nature reserves in Somerset) but there may be others which qualify for inclusion which don't have articles (yet). NB I think the inclusion criteria & definition of Ancient Woodland could be expanded in the Lead. I will expand the list for Somerset using your table headings & include coord templates. For the functionality of kml see the little box top right of List of castles in Somerset or List of churches preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust in Southwest England which enables you to plot all the sites on the list more easily. OS Grid Refs are not recognised by the rest of the world & I have previously had discussions which persuaded me to use them - but I can't remember where.&mdash; Rod talk 09:03, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The kml feature is very impressive and would definitely be good to make provision for. My rational for some of the other issues is that a list should be aiming to gather the core information together, rather than require the user to follow more links to find it. so...
 * On the location maps the result arose from a discussion at my talk page, User talk:RobinLeicester and makes a useful graphic alongside the list, as well as potentially a lot of interactivity (once more links go somewhere). They do feel a bit unwieldy, but once done it should be a fairly stable list as new ancient woods don't come along very often!.
 * My concern with numbered citations was that the references will simply become another unwieldy 500 item list at the end that makes it harder for people to get to the actual citations, whereas the SSSI and other official sites seem to me to fit items 1 and 3 of WP:ELYES.
 * On the Grid refs, they are used by all the published sources for the woods in question, which feels like it should be relevant. And even the rest of the world might find the grid ref useful if looking at an OS map.
 * But that is just my thoughts. The other points below are very helpful. The hard question is which content might a reader/user need? RobinLeicester (talk) 00:40, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * As you have said here and elsewhere many of these issues are matters of "taste" and I have no objection to the maps apart from the issue of maintaining them - although new ancient woodlands don't grow quickly, many more may have articles on wp in the future. The only issue I would push over is moving the external links to the references section at the end of the article. It is quite easy to click on the numbered reference which takes you straight to the correct reference in the list at the end (even if there are 500), and they should include details of publisher etc. You point out WP:ELYES however my reading of this is what can be included in an "external links" section below references at the end. If you look a couple of points above at WP:ELPOINTS you will see this doesn't apply to Inline citations which is what you are providing for each entry in the table. If you ever want to get this to WP:FL external links within the table will not be allowed.&mdash; Rod talk 08:26, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Helpful clarifications. Thanks. I will start converting some of the other counties as soon as time allows, to include scope, coord, acres and inline citations. I developed them on a spreadsheet, so can hopefully semi-automate the conversion. RobinLeicester (talk) 00:30, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Tables and formatting

 * While doing the Somerset list I've spotted a few other issues which may be worthy of consideration:
 * For accessibility purposes not only do columns need a scope note, but rows as well
 * The area should have a conversion. Hectares are used, but acres may also be useful for some readers (square Km may be an alternative)
 * The citation website links are external links within the body of the text which I believe the WP:MOS says should be in references or notes. If proper references are used (including publisher, accessdate etc) then a separate column may be needed for "designation" eg SSSI, NNR etc (what about LNR?)
 * I've used coord rather than OS Grid refs which still link to map resources for the individual sites, but allow kml to be used (I've put this in the Somerset section for now, but this could be moved to the top if other counties are done the same way to enable use of a scalable map which allows zooming to a particular area (without the restrictions of county borders). If this is accepted the individual maps would not be needed - these are time consuming to create and maintain if more sites are added - this would also enable removing the number column (and possibly the inclusion of more pictures).
 * What do others think?&mdash; Rod talk 11:21, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

What's a scope note? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 22:26, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
 * They help people using screen reading software (often text to speech) to know how to present the material in a table to the (often partially sighted) reader. See Manual of Style/Accessibility for explanation and examples.&mdash; Rod talk 22:44, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

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