Talk:Northern Counties

Primary topic
There are literally dozens of businesses and organizations named after the Northern Counties of England. Since these eponymous organizations are secondary, and the Northern Counties themselves that they are named after are primary, per WP:PT, the primary link should be a direct to the primary topic, not a link to a disambiguation page.

We already have a Northern Counties (disambiguation) page for people who in advertently go to the primary page but who are actually looking for a longer title named after the primary subject. There are no instances of "Northern Counties" organizations in England which are not named after the primary topic: the Northern Counties of England. There are no instances in which "Northen Counties" in England actually means something else without having additional words (Committee, Football League, Motor Company, etc., etc.) as part of the organization's title.

Additionally, "Northern Counties" is a historic term which has been in use for centuries, and is and will continue to be used in Wikipedia history articles on England, and biography articles on English persons. It is and will continue to be also used in athletics articles (especially historic ones) which list competitions between districts/cities and the Northern Counties.

The fact that this article is still a stub should not alter matters. Softlavender (talk) 17:39, 28 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The fact is, this is not just stub, but a totally unreferenced non-article (and by the by, why did you not create any corollary stubs for the other compass points?). Even if you could find any way of properly defining what must be a million and one different variations in its usage (I am quite sure for example the Amateur Boxing Association did not define their current usage from ancient English meanings dating from from the 1600s), you still have to explain why the English use of the term deserves this location over any other English speaking country which uses the term country, of which there are several. The fact is, without reference to a specific usage, even in England it is just a synonym for Northern England, or the Northern Counties of England (and by the by, neither article even has the term), and any English meaning of the phrase Northern Counties should simply redirect to one of those articles, and perhaps be done using Northern Counties (England), not just Northern Counties. An uncited list of English 'northern counties' with zero context has no place being the primary content for the simple phrase Nothern Counties. MickMacNee (talk) 17:57, 28 November 2009 (UTC)


 * And per WP:BRD, I suggest you stop edit warring to have your bold version enforced. The D part means 'discuss', and with my objection here, the onus is now on you to prove you have consensus, before attempting to make this change again, once reverted once. I suggest you ask someone at the DISAM project. MickMacNee (talk) 18:03, 28 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I'll address your points, and would like it if you would address mine, above, as a couple of my points have not been addressed. As to why I did not "create" any stubs for the other compass points, they are not in use to the great extent that Northern Counties is. That said, Western Counties already has a link; Eastern Counties already has a link which redirects to a secondary topic and therefore has inappropriate articles which link to it (like a rugby league which now links to a bus line). I didn't create the Northern Counties link; it already existed but was redirected to the Northern Counties Motor and Engineering Company, which lead to a lot of inappropriate linking when the primary term was used and intended.


 * The fact that a stub is unreferenced (not uncommon for a stub, and this was tagged as a stub from the outset) does not make it a non-article. The fact that a stub is minimal does not make it a non-article. If you disagreed with the content of the article or found it lacking, I would have preferred that you add to it, tag it, discuss it on the Talk page, etc., rather than delete. In essence, what you've done is delete an article and all links to it, and changed it to a disambiguation page, without discussion and without going through Wikipedia channels. If you're citing WP:BRD, all I did was write an article stub and also create a disambiguation page. You have boldly reverted/deleted, and have done so two additional times.


 * In terms of other uses of the initial-capitalized phrase "Northern Counties" in and of itself, those are covered in the disambiguation page that I created, and the disambiguation page is clearly linked at the top. Since 90% of the uses in Wikipedia of the capitalized "Northern Counties" refers to the English counties (as opposed to Ireland), the English counties are the appropriate main link to the term. However you define it, and by the way there are not a million and one definitons, but only a handful -- the six historic Northern Counties, the four historic Northern Counties, and the modern counties in northern England -- the term is worth an article even because of the fact that its definition has changed and the usage including the now no-longer extant counties is worth explaining, especially since both historical and current articles reference it. If your point is that any particular association named after the Northern Counties may have a different grouping, that is explained in the specific article on that particular association. I agree if the link was referring to a modern boxing association it could link to Northern England; however the fact that the term now mainly refers to Northern England will also be explained in the Northern Counties article when complete, so either link would work when the article is complete. Softlavender (talk) 19:15, 28 November 2009 (UTC)


 * You action to turn a bus manufacturer article, at that title for at least as long as I can remember, into an unreferenced non-article about a vague use of a phrase, is whichever way you cut it, the initial bold action for the purposes of BRD. If you don't even recognise that standard WP practice, we aren't going to get anywhere. If you like, we can roll back all the way to the start, before you moved the bus manf. article, and renamed the hundred or so links to it you have now changed to your new title (and by the by, did you actually do any research on that title? Are you 100% certain that was the actual name of the company throughout its history? Because, it has been commonly known simply as Northern Counties in the real world forever, undergoing several changes in ownership.) When looked at like that, your argument that the (literally two) links that wrongly pointed to it as a geographic term that I unlinked, makes the case for primary topic, is utterly and totally weak. You still have provided absolutely no citations that it has a meaning worthy of writing an article on the term (i.e., basic notability), or why it should only refer to the English term (i.e. basic systemic bias), let alone why it should not redirect to its synonyms, which already have articles, and can easily accomodate any encyclopoedic 'use of the term Northern Counties in England through the ages' type content you could ever find about its usage, without unneccessarily creating unneeded articles (i.e. content forking). Regarding BRD again, I am not in the habit of trying to expand articles I already know will never be articles, and you can see by the lack of complaints on the old article's talk page, that nobody has ever been bothered by the situation (and the article has happily existed as a bus manf. since 2005), so no, on seeing you change I am not going to expand the stub, I am going to exercise the R in BRD and partially revert to a proper dab page, per policy (and again, whether you disagree or not, per standard practice, any future reverts are only made in response to your innappropriate edit warring to impose the change without porper discussion, which is a big no no here, and not likely to enhance your case). If that's put you out, I apologise, but frankly, your change is at present (partialy) opposed, and if you want to take it further, it is not me you need to convince. You need to demonstrate consensus, so please, instead of arguing the case with me, do as I suggested and as the dispute resolution policy dictates, and seek outside input. MickMacNee (talk) 20:30, 28 November 2009 (UTC)


 * As far as I am concerned, (having been enticed here from Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_England), Northern Counties on its own is the name of a bus body builders. However, I am quite prepared to accept that Northern Counties on its own might mean a sporting organization, to someone involved in that sport, or any other body that uses the title.  So a DAB page seems appropriate, and I can't see what the fuss is about. Sussexonian (talk) 15:33, 29 November 2009 (UTC)