Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2020 October 9

= October 9 =

Question about a specific Wikipedia user
Does anyone here know why exactly User:Katie Ryan A disappeared from Wikipedia six years ago? Futurist110 (talk) 00:28, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Looks to me that it could well have been because some stranger was asking her incredibly personal questions in a public forum. --jpgordon&#x1d122;&#x1d106; &#x1D110;&#x1d107; 15:50, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Yep, that might have been it. I was just wondering if there might have been another reason for this. Honestly, I did ask for her permission before asking her these questions, but yeah, I really did get too personal there. It's especially clear in hindsight six years later. :( Futurist110 (talk) 19:30, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
 * You could try emailing Miss Bono, who might known, although Miss Bono might not respond very quickly. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:34, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I have now commented on User:Miss Bono's talk page. I initially wanted to e-mail here, but it said on her e-mail page that I would get a quicker response by leaving a message on her talk page, so that's what I did instead. Futurist110 (talk) 20:04, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Note Miss Bono has not edited since January. 2A00:23C6:2403:E900:A9B0:FBB2:63AF:F685 (talk) 11:18, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Early maps
I'm looking at Ordnance Survey town plans dating from the 1880s, well before aerial photography. They contain lots of details of everyone's back gardens, including pathways, individual trees, water features, greenhouses etc - far more detail than on the largest scale plans available today. Would the surveyors really have demanded access to everyone's back gardens in order to survey them?--Shantavira|feed me 19:01, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
 * They may not have had to demand anything. People in small communities were a lot more open and trusting in those days. Check out small town newspapers of that era and clear into the 1920s or later, and you'll see all kinds of gossip and information about who's in town and who isn't. Nowadays that would be considered invasive and generally unsafe. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:27, 9 October 2020 (UTC)


 * [Edit Conflict] Bear in mind that it was the Ordnance Survey, an offshoot of the British Army, and a Government agency whose work underpinned legal matters such as the Land Registry, the assessments of certain taxes, and the planning of services such as water supply and sewage removal. Without knowing for certain, I'd imagine it had a legal right to such access and powers to enforce it in the unlikely event of anyone objecting. (Anyone got references on this?)
 * I'm not sure of the relevance of Bugs' remarks about "small town" attitudes: the surveys covered (and cover) the entire country including every major town and city from London downwards. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.121.162.83 (talk) 19:41, 9 October 2020 (UTC)


 * The "legal right" mentioned above was (and still is) the Ordnance Survey Act 1841 which says in summary: "Surveyor, &c. empowered to enter lands to fix boundaries. Where it is necessary to fix any mark in any garden &c. the occupier may employ a person to fix it. Satisfaction to be made for damages. [Right of] Appeal to quarter sessions".
 * About ten years ago, an OS surveyor arrived at my workplace, wanting to know about features which appeared on their satellite imagery and I showed him around while he tapped furiously into his laptop.
 * BTW, modern very large scale urban OS maps are available to local authorities and other public bodies . Alansplodge (talk) 13:11, 10 October 2020 (UTC)