Talk:Portesham

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Shouldn't the hardy stuff be at Blackdown if that's where the monument is? quercus robur 00:21, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)
 * Blackdown is not a village but the hill above Portesham. The Hardy stuff should be at Thomas Masterman Hardy and Hardy Monument.  Joe D (t) 22:02, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The Hardy connection is a notable thing about the village and merits a mention in this article, particularly as many guides do not mention Blackdown Hill, merely saying that Hardy was a Portesham man or that the monument is on a hill near, or overlooking, the village. I have also removed the Blackdown link from the previous post as it refers to a place in Warwickshire, some distance from the article village in Dorset. Britmax 13:53, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Description of village size
An anonymous editor (or, perhaps, editors) has repeatedly changed the introductory description of Portesham from being a "village" to a "small village". The table below, compiled from data provided by Dorset County Council here, lists all the parishes within the West Dorset administrative district and ranks them according to the size of their populations. It illustrates why I believe the description of "small village" should be reverted, which I have done. Out of 138 parishes, Portesham is the 27th largest. If all parishes which are described as towns are removed, Portesham is the 21st largest out of 132. If Bradpole, Bothenhampton and Allington are also removed due to their being part of the built-up area of Bridport, Portesham parish has the 18th largest population out of 129 stand-alone villages and hamlets, placing it in the top 14%. Seeing as the description "small" only has value when used comparatively, it doesn't make sense to use it here. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 05:46, 10 July 2013 (UTC)


 * An excellent, thorough and clear analysis. I'm not really sure how it can be made any clearer that this village is not small !! Unless maybe Winterborne Herringston is a city. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:57, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Record of edits

 * I had previously considered these IP edits to be the actions of a local resident who wasn't looking at the wider picture, hence my construction of the above table and my numerous attempts on the different IP talk pages to direct the editor to this page. A closer look at the article history however reveals something more disruptive. The first insertion of "small" was made by a registered editor on 25 July 2012 (here). An inspection of that editor's own talk page is illuminating, as is the edit they made here. Back to the history of this article, on 16 April 2013 an IP editor who geolocates to Calne in Wiltshire at first changed the 2001 Census population figure from 708 to 4 (see here), then almost immediately completely removed the whole sentence about the village's population (here). Subsequently a number of different IPs, geolocating to several towns in Wiltshire or Hampshire, have repeatedly inserted "small" and sometimes also removed the sourced sentence about the parish of Portesham being quite large:
 * 5 May 2013: Diff IP geolocates to Winchester, Hampshire.
 * 11 June 2013: Diff IP geolocates to Marlborough, Wiltshire.
 * 13 June 2013: Diff and Diff IP geolocates to Winchester, Hampshire.
 * 14 June 2013 Diff Same IP as for 13 June
 * 20 June 2013 Diff IP geolocates to Marlborough, Wiltshire.
 * 22 June 2013 Diff IP geolocates to Salisbury, Wiltshire. This edit also changed "West Dorset administrative district" to "South Dorset administrative district", which doesn't actually exist.
 * 24 June 2013 Diff IP geolocates to Calne, Wiltshire.
 * 6 July 2013 Diff IP geolocates to Salisbury, Wiltshire.
 * 7 July 2013 Diff IP geolocates to Calne, Wiltshire.
 * 14 July 2013 Diff IP geolocates to Calne, Wiltshire.
 * 16 July 2013 Diff Same IP as for 14 July.
 * 17 July 2013 Diff IP geolocates to Calne, Wiltshire.
 * 20 July 2013 Diff Same IP as for 17 July.
 * 23 July 2013 Diff Same IP as for 17 July.
 * 2 August 2013 Diff IP geolocates to Calne, Wiltshire.
 * 11 August 2013 Diff IP geolocates to Calne, Wiltshire.
 * 14 August 2013 Diff Same IP as for 11 August.
 * 15 August 2013 Diff Same IP as for 11 August.
 * 15 August 2013 Diff Same IP as for 11 August.
 * 22 August 2013 Diff IP geolocates to Calne, Wiltshire. Also delighted us with this edit.
 * 22 February 2014 Diff IP geolocates to Calne, Wiltshire. Also seems to have made these recent contributions


 * Seeing as several of those IP edits geolocate to Calne, which is where those early vandalising edits geolocate to, I'm inclined now to view these edits as vandalism, particularly as the edit on 16 July was made after I'd posted a note on that IP's talk page, suggesting they discuss the issue here, which so far they have failed to do. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 07:57, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
 * So looks like a simple range block will not work here? Maybe article protection is needed. And also looks like we have Wiltshire/Dorset gypsy who's also a keen wiki-vandal! Martinevans123 (talk) 08:32, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
 * 17 July 2013: Diff IP geolocates to Calne, Wiltshire. This edit was made on the BT network, not sure about all the others. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:33, 17 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Hm. Well, the thing is that I feel that it would be a shame to semi-protect an article over something that the IP is doing in good faith (albeit annoyingly persistently). Y'all have a well-established case for your version, but this is, in a sense, a content issue, and admins aren't really supposed to use protection, blocking, etc. to decide content issues. That said, I'm not totally averse to protecting in this instance; it's a low-traffic article, and the signal-to-noise ratio is very low on IP edits, judging by the article history, so collateral damage should be at a minimum. How about this: we put up a big edit notice on the page for a week or two, inviting the IP to come to the talk page to discuss it. (You can look at [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Writ_Keeper&action=edit the edit notice on my user page] for the kind of thing I have in mind.) If we still get multiple edits like this, we can move on to temporary semi-protection (while keeping the edit notice). How does that sound? Writ Keeper &#9863;&#9812; 20:48, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
 * That sounds very reasonable to me. Without ever seeming any kind of edit summary or talk thread in defence of these edits, it seems to border on vandalism to me. If anything good has come of this it is the very useful table above constructed by PCW. He has put a lot of effort not defending this "small" article. I'd be very interested to see any kind of argument and/or sources from the IP. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:23, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
 * It seems worth a try, even if it will make the article look a bit odd for a while. (Maybe the IP has tried to post here but hasn't worked out how to do it; maybe they're waiting for the introduction of "Flow" before they indulge in these baffling Wikipedia shenanigans, which we call talk pages....) PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 07:53, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Update: the IP added "small" again this morning, having one minute earlier made this edit to an article about a nearby settlement. This can only be seen as disruptive vandalism, and I now favour some kind of page protection. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 08:19, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Seems he or she has no sources or arguments to offer and yes, it's just mindless vandalism. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:24, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, in which case reverting them is acceptable, albeit a little bit tedious. If the editor persists, perhaps making another request for page protection is the way to go? Either that or just report them as a vandal and/or disruptive editor? (although of course they use various different IP addresses, which complicates that approach) PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 23:09, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm unfamiliar with the murky back-streets of the great metropolis, so I fear unilateral vigilante action is out of the question, even from the safety of my Bournemouth taxi. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:35, 22 February 2014 (UTC)