Talk:Watling Street

Celtic?
Do we have any citations regarding Celtic use? Watling St is pretty straight and most cetltic things were anything but -also is there any evidence of settlement at either Canterbury or St ALbans pre Roman? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.74.108.30 (talk) 9 March 2007

Image in the infobox
I reverted an edit that moved an image of the Street as a green lane (near Crick) from "History" to the info box because [imo] it does not give a reasonable impression of Watling Street as it is today. The image of the Street in Canterbury is actually a lot more typical but I doubt that too many people would support the idea of that image being featured in the infobox. If we are to have an image, it seems to me that we should first week consensus of what it should be. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:20, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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Single point coordinates for a linear feature and WP:LINEAR
The lead to WP:LINEAR says this: "There are a number of ways in which coordinates relating to linear features can be added to Wikipedia. As yet, there is no single method which has achieved consensus.

The best method may depend on the type of feature, its length, and the number of significant points of interest along it (though such points need not be sufficiently notable as to warrant their own article)."

and later: "Editors may give:

1. One pair of coordinates, for the mid point

2. One pair of coordinates, for the most significant point (e.g. the estuary or mouth of a river)

3. Two pairs of coordinates, one for each end

4. Three pairs of coordinates, combining the above

5. Multiple coordinates, for points of interest

6. No coordinates"

The status of the article before today was #6. made a bold edit, changing the status to #3 (though how somewhere in Canterbury counts as "the most significant point" is highly debatable, even if it was the Roman capital). I reverted that edit to status quo ante but reinstated. So I edited again to status #1 (and arguably #3, since this is one of the postulated sites for the Battle of Watling Street but I won't be surprised if it is reverted.

So we have a dispute about what to do and need to reach consensus. (I acknowledge that I should have done this formal WP:BRD process first).

IMO,
 * Option #1 is good but would take some effort to determine the precise mid-point;
 * #2 is the least satisfactory, since it rests on editor opinion
 * #3 would be good but there are three start points on the south coast.
 * #4 reintroduces the problems of #2
 * #5 is probably the best, especially if it includes the significant settlements like Lactodurum

Comments? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:56, 24 November 2020 (UTC)


 * The article actually started off at a seventh option last week, which I think had been the case for a while: it had primary coordinates at a point on the road somewhere north of Birmingham, which Abductive removed as "inappropriate", clarifying on their talk page that it was because this point was arbitrary, which is a fair point. I think option #1 here is fine if someone just eyeballs it. --Lord Belbury (talk) 12:12, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you, that makes more sense. The point I chose (in Northamptonshire) was fairly but not entirely arbitrary. It 'feels' about halfway from the Dover to Wroxeter though it might be a little too far to the north. It is also somewhere in between settlements, to avoid confusion with any other feature. (My final reason for the choice turns out to be wrong: the most-cited site of the Battle of Watling Street is south of Towcester, not north – but my "middle of nowhere to avoid confusion" would rule that out anyway.)
 * So is someone volunteering to work out where the half-way point is? I'm not that fussed about precision, there or thereabouts is good enough for me. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 15:53, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I could look into it too. But it is not a continuous road, and its path is uncertain. A route map would be pretty difficult. I originally removed all coords. Abductive  (reasoning) 16:41, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * My preference would be for no COORD at all, least of all one that appears in the top line of the article. A detailed map would involve quite a lot of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH to extrapolate from the few sources we have. We could add a table of major Romano-British settlements on the route with their coordinates but IMO that is as far as we should go. Guessing that this is the emerging consensus, I will now remove the coord that I added, returning to the status quo as it was last night. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:12, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Bend in river
Although a car goes slower round a bend, I don't think a river does. The volume of water past a point in a river is approximately constant, or it would back up and form a lake. DMichael6 (talk) 16:40, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Mediolanum (Whitchurch)
is this place to be linked? -- 2001:4DD5:4643:0:8039:1C4F:D3FD:4586 (talk) 00:53, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
 * As it is north of Wroxeter, it probably doesn't qualify as Watling Street. However the table showing the route of the Antonine Iter II had Mediolanum as 'unknown' without explanation (which may just show how long ago it was written). I have just added it: if there is an issue then it can be explained here. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:18, 6 July 2021 (UTC)