Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Northern Ireland/Archive 1

NI Project

 * The following discussion took place on Stu's talk page:

Stu, I've been thinking seriously about creating a Wikiproject for Northern Ireland and Northern Irish-related articles. This has a huge scope, but if we make a start to it then perhaps we can break it down into smaller sub-projects (geography, biographies, etc). I'm going to create this using two projects I am involved with as templates: the Formula One project and the Beatles project. I'd really appreciate your help. I think in the long term it will help us to direct our efforts to improving these articles. In the short term of course, there will be work involved in creating the damn thing in the first place! lol Let me know your thoughts anyway (and who else we might be able to call upon to enlist, such as theKeith for example). --Mal 21:27, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

OK I've created the Wikiproject, and I'm taking a break from it for the time being. Feel free to make any changes/additions you feel are appropriate. WikiProject Northern Irish articles --Mal 23:15, 25 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Wow! That looks complicated! Good work though. I've never really bothered with Wikiprojects, so I'll have to look at your Beatles and Formula 1 ones and see how they work. Stu   ’Bout ye!  15:11, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Well most of it is from copying other peoples' work. The whole redlinks thing was my idea though. I've started the article classification, which so far lists all the articles listed in the Category:Northern Ireland page. What we can do is go through all the categories, list them for classification, then list them for redlinks. It will take a long time probably.. but if we whittle away at it we should make good progress. AND it will help us improve the articles. We might even find articles we never knew existed that interest some of us.

I'm thinking of starting a separate page for the inevitable political discussions that are bound to crop up with Northern Irish articles - so that we can deal with those issues separately from the project ... or in tandem if you like. In other words, people who don't want to get embroiled in the political crap should be able to avoid it if they want to. Sound good to you?

Once you get used to what's available in the project pages, it should make editing of them a lot easier (not to mention structured). We should also help other editors by creating and including helpful things like templates relating to NI, categories and a policy on structure. Obviously all NI articles should be sub-articles in relation to the UK. But they should also be related or linked to relevant Ireland articles and cats where apropriate. Most articles probably have that kind of addition anyway.

Anyway - discussion like this should probably go on the project's discussion page, so I'll copy it there. --Mal 18:17, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Userbox
How about establishing a userbox for this project, such as the one at the Croatia project? Cordless Larry 17:11, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
 * You mean something like - !   Keithology   Talk!  17:18, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
 * That's exactly what I mean. Thanks. Cordless Larry 17:20, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Irish dance and other all-Ireland subjects
Hi! I noticed that User:Setanta747 tagged Irish dance and Irish stepdance as part of the WPNI. Is it the intent of the project to include Irish culture articles which are not specific to Northern Ireland? Argyriou 02:35, 8 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Hullo. You raise an interesting point and I'll answer as best I can.


 * It is the intent of the project to include all articles that relate to Northern Ireland. I believe that Irish dance is an important aspect of culture in Northern Ireland, it is also amongst the current subcategories of Category:Northern Ireland, and so therefore it has been tagged.


 * There are two variables in the project tag: one marks the assessment of the quality of of the article itself, and the other marks how important to the project that particular article is.


 * Irish dance falls within the scope of the Northern Ireland project, and there will be many overlaps (as there are with most projects) with all-Ireland subjects, as well as with (for example) subjects relating to the UK, the British Isles, music, the United States, biography and the military history project. Note that this project is not declaring ownership of the article(s) you are pointing out. I believe that if there are overlaps, then that is a Good Thing, as it might encourage more subsets of people (from multiple projects) to concentrate work on any given article. --Mal 21:55, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Project Template
The flag used in this box has no legal standing, as it was the flag in use by the Stormont government that was disbanded in the early 1970's, and should not be used in regards to the state of N. Ireland today.--padraig3uk 15:29, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Template:WPNI
Recently this template has been put on the Talk:Ogham page. Discussion there has not been pleasant. Mal has been belligerent and unyielding about the relevance of the template on the Ogham page and about the unwelcome size and design of the Template:WPNI. In good faith, I made edits to the template which you can see here. He accused me of vandlism and threatened to block me. This is inappropriate. I would like to request the members of this WikiProject to discuss the matter of the design of the Template:WPNI. Thank you. -- Evertype· ✆ 08:54, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I second this. Either respect the concern regarding template clutter, or respect the "daughter" status wrt Wikiproject Ireland and tag only articles pertinent to NI but not to all of Ireland (or respect both of these points, of course). thanks, dab (&#5839;) 11:00, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

westside is the best, na eastside is da best, na west is da best, na east isda best. restepc. peace out a-town. 89`s for life homie.

TfD nomination of Template:Northern Ireland topics
Template:Northern Ireland topics has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 13:59, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory
Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 17:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Bloody Sunday disambiguation
Greetings from WikiProject_Disambiguation. I just disambiguated all the links for Bloody Sunday on Wikipedia. Please remember to disambiguate your links. Use Bloody Sunday (1972) which expands to Bloody Sunday. Also, sumbuddy on this project should periodically check Special:Whatlinkshere/Bloody_Sunday and keep them clean. -- Randall Bart 04:03, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

List of United Kingdom locations
This list is sadly lacking Northern Ireland locations. Is anyone aware of a free list of northern irish locations? GameKeeper 09:23, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards
Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 21:13, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

To-Do...
Hundreds of articles still need assessed. I don't know how many other people are helping with this, but I seem to have not only created this project, the Belfast project, the noticeboard, the portal and all the pages associated with each of those, but I seem to have tagged nearly all of the articles in both projects, I'm the only one who rotates any of the featured articles, bios and pictures, and I seem to have been virtually the only editor who has assessed any of the articles.

The reason I set all this up was to make it easier to keep track of what needed to be done so that other editors could use the projects as a guide or, if they'd finished working on one article and found themselves stuck with something to do, could refer to the projects to see which articles interest them.

I know there aren't that many editors from Northern Ireland on Wikipedia, or even that many interested in editing Northern Irish articles, but I know a few of you exist. I also know, from my short stint of experience in helping out the good people at The Beatles Project that a small number of editors were able to make a huge difference. So, if any of you could be arsed, I'd sure love some feedback here.

Are the projects useful? Do you use them? Have you got any suggestions to make using the projects/assessment templates easier etc? Prior to reading this, were you aware of either the Belfast WikiProject, the Northern Ireland WikiProject, the NIW Noticeboard, or the NI Portal? Which subpages do you refer to, if any? How did you find out about it?

Here's where we are with regard to the NI WikiProject: WikiProject Northern Ireland/Log.

The collection of articles that are tagged as being part of the NI project includes three Good Articles: Linfield F.C., Irish phonology and Northern Ireland. It also includes and 51 B-Class articles. But no A-class or Featured Articles, as yet.

Whether I get any help or not, I'm planning on attempting to get the three GAs up to A or FA standard, and the B-Class articles up to GA, but it would sure be a lot easier if there were other people out there who wanted to see these articles improved on the 'pedia.

There are also still 1,301 articles unassessed and a whole host of articles not even tagged yet - there could be a couple more FAs in there, or A-class or GAs.

Help!

--Mal 23:55, 20 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I'am from Northern Ireland, and would be very interested in being apart of this project, but in the past few months I have noticed that in the case of Northern Ireland related articles that a group of editors seem to work together to promote a certain viewpoint, this is in my view very bad for Wikipedia.--padraig3uk 22:00, 21 March 2007 (UTC)


 * This is certainly nothing I am aware of. Of the few Northern Irish Wikipedians I am aware of, I've had virtually zero personal contact with any of them in the last several months. They include editors such as Dom, Stu and Keith. Most of the ones I know seem quite balanced in their editing. I haven't noticed any conspiracy, although many people from Northern Ireland seem to agree on a number of issues that have established consensus. Perhaps you could list the members of this group for us, and maybe we can list the group for comment in the Wikipedia namespace.


 * Alternatively though, I have noticed a couple of groups of small numbers of editors that have been engaged in a rather active POV campaign recently - especially since the beginning of the year. This campaign would appear to follow the POV of Republican ideology specifically. I agree that it is bad for Wikipedia, and I believe I have made this clear in a recent request for comment in the Wikipedia namespace. -- Mal 07:04, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Mal, I too am interested in working on N.I related topics, or more specifically geographical stuff relating to County Antrim. At the moment I'm more than happy shuffling around in obscure corners and staying as far away as possible from the frequent debates that padraig3uk alludes to. That's not to say that the work you've put in has not been of tremendous value, it has, more power to your elbow. Look at any of the talk pages for some of the larger articles however, i.e, Talk:Newtownards and you'll see the sort of swivel eyed stuff that must deter a lot of potential editors. The Boy that time forgot 21:33, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Battle of the Somme FAR
Battle of the Somme has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 00:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Warcrimes
This article seems to gloss over his actions during the war, the ethnis cleansing refered to involved the cold blooded murder of civilians which, I understand, even Aitken's family do not stand by. Rpersse 00:43, 17 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Who? Which article? -- Mal 12:34, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Category:IRA killings

 * I have recreated this Category:IRA killings using a more precise definition:

Killings claimed by, or alleged to be perpetrated by, Irish armed groups using the name Irish Republican Army (or a subset of that name).

{Includes Irish Republican Army (Army of the Irish Republic) (1919–1922) together with Organisations known by the name in later years eg: Irish Republican Army (1922–1969) · Official IRA (1969–present) · Provisional IRA (1969–present) · Continuity IRA (1986–present) · Real IRA (1997–present)}

An earlier category of this name was deleted despite this discussion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_April_9#Category:IRA_killings W. Frank 23:56, 12 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The very name of this proposed category means or claims these people where killed by the IRA, or one of its subsets as you state, that to me is meaningless, does this catgory include people whose deaths where blamed on the IRA or republicans, but that they have denied involvement in, so what is the critia for inclusion in the acturle critia for this category ?.--padraig3uk 02:06, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes. WP can not adjudicate on "the Truth". It just aims to include in a balanced fashion all mainstream referenced points of view without original research. If the article itself for categorisation claims that there were Killings claimed by, or alleged to be perpetrated by, Irish armed groups using the name Irish Republican Army (or a subset of that name) then categorisation is appropriate. Obviously if there is no consensus to include a claim or allegation that at least one person died or that a claim or allegation that this death or deaths were occasioned by Irish armed groups using the name Irish Republican Army (or a subset of that name) in the article in question, then categorisation as such would usually be misleading. W. Frank 04:39, 13 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I've recommended to two admins it be deleted, given there's a lengthy discussion on the category talk page you've ignored. The category has no consensus for use.  One Night In Hackney 303 12:20, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikiproject hierarchy
note WikiProject_Ireland: WikiProject_Ireland is the logical parent project of this one, it is not about the Republic, but about the island as a whole. Please avoid tagging articles as within the scope of WikiProject Northern Ireland when they bear no special relevance to Northern Ireland. Such topics should be categorized under WikiProject Ireland instead. This concerns mainly articles on historical topics (Ogham, Old Irish literature and the like). It is useless template cruft to have an article tagged by a project and its sub-project. thanks, dab (𒁳) 13:01, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * As I believe you have been informed before Dbackmann, tagging articles with WikiProject templates does not denote ownership of said article. Indeed, if more projects are involved with any given article, there is logically a higher chance that said article will attract more people interested in that subject.


 * Further, I note that the Ireland WikiProject was created precisely for the reason of creating just this type of problem.


 * I humbly suggest you ignore what articles the members of the NI Project decides to tag (that is - the tags, not the articles) and get on with your own work. In this way time will not be wasted in discussing ownership and reverting tags, and more time can be spent on improving the quality of the articles themselves. -- Mal 02:28, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * nothing to do with ownership. Wikiprojects have a logical hierarchical structure, and we don't want talkpages buried in template clutter just because some people like to piddle on trees. dab (𒁳) 07:44, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Watch your tone with me please. I seem to remember you being disrespectful to me before, and you're at it again now.

You mentioned "talk page clutter" before to me, and I resolved that by added yet more functionality (small) to the template. As you feel that is such a big issue, I will add the small flag to the template on the Old Irish literature page also. I do hope that satiates your desire to remove piddle from trees. -- Mal 08:44, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Dashes/hyphens or whatever
I have tried to use "endash;" instead of a hyphen (-) but it wont work for me! Do I simply use:"endash;" instead of "-"? This is needed in this article.Osborne 14:54, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I think you're talking about ndash; aren't you? There's  ndash;: –,  mdash;:&mdash;, and  nbsp;: which is a "no (line) break space". Hope that helps. :) Which article was it you were talking about? -- Mal 02:52, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I was thinking of "Ulster Museum" (and others) the "List of some collectors." I have used, sometimes, the Insert at the bottom of the Edit page, i.e. – —    °≈≠≤≥±−×÷←→     09:08, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Mark McClelland article in Wikiproject Northern Ireland
Hi,

The above article on an ex-Snow Patrol member is tagged as being part of the Wikiproject NI categories. It strikes me that a lot of the article is way out of line and not in keeping with the policies for talking about living people in Wikipedia.

I've left a comment on the article's talk page along the same lines saying that i'm going to just remove the negative comments unless anyone has any objections in the next day or so. If anyone in the NI project watches this article they may want to make a more positive change then simply removing the comments? Anyone interested?

Rmkf1982 | Talk 18:16, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Articles on constituencies
There is a discussion at Talk:Northern Ireland Assembly election, 2007 on splitting articles on Assembly election constituencies from those on UK Parliament constituencies, which may be of interest to some participants here. Warofdreams talk 03:09, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

New infoboxes
A new infobox has been developed for use on UK places articles. If you have any concerns or appraisals, please make them at Template talk:Infobox UK place. Regards, Jhamez84 02:01, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I have already made it plain that I do not support the dropping of the historic county field, but my objections have been ignored. If this is supposed to replace the existing templates it absolutely needs to provide the same information as the previous ones or a lot of editors are going to be very annoyed. Owain (talk) 14:00, 17 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Consensus can change. It has. consensus has been assessed three times in response to your complaints, and in each case, the new consensus was not to your liking.  DDStretch    (talk)  14:11, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Infobox flag straw poll
Hello fellow editors. A straw poll has opened today (27th March 2007) regarding the use of flags on the United Kingdom place infoboxes. There are several potential options to use, and would like as many contrubutors to vote on which we should decide upon. The straw poll is found here. If joining the debate, please keep a cool head and remain civil. We look forward to seeing you there. Jhamez84 11:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Bilateral relations discussion
I would like to invite you all to participate in a discussion at this thread regarding bilateral relations between two countries. All articles related to foreign relations between countries are now under the scope of WikiProject Foreign relations, a newly created project. We hope that the discussion will result in a more clean and organized way of explaining such relationships. Thank you. Ed  ¿Cómo estás? 18:45, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Misuse of flag templates

 * I have put forward a proposal here regarding the inappropriate use of Northern Ireland flag templates in WP.--padraig3uk 08:23, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Derry City F.C.
If anyone is interested; I have nominated the Derry City F.C. article for featured article status. Danny InvincibleTalk 16:30, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I would love to here from The Davidson family in County Armagh. I am a 27 year old male who wishes to to learn more about our history in Armagh with a connection to Saint John New Brunswick Canada. I can be reached via email at portcityperson@hotmail.com   Thank you all.

Alternative Ulster
Hey, I'd like to ask for an assessment of this article. I will continue to work on it. Ryannus 14:09, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Troubles in town x articles.
I find it interesting that there are number of articles that list those who were killed during the Troubles in a single town (eg. The Troubles in Templepatrick, The Troubles in Dunloy, and so on). I question why these are necessary, since what little content most of them seem to have could easily be merged into a larger article and the articles could be subsequently redirected. Is there a reason why these articles exist, or are they the products of someone who was too bored to do anything else? Astrovega 22:55, 11 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The articles, I believe, are a result of a short debate in which some people objected to a section in each town article dedicated specifically to Troubles-related deaths and incidents. In the event, it was decided that this was the best compromise for peoples' objections. -- Mal 23:28, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Is there a discussion anywhere on what should be on those pages? I recently added the first death of the troubles to The Troubles in Dungiven, and someone removed it on the grounds that only incidents resulting in two or more deaths should be included. While I understand this is a reasonable way of culling down what in some cases might be very long lists, it seems a bit ridiculous to have that as the only and overriding reason for inclusion or exclusion. It would also be good for each page to include a sort of general essay about, well, the Troubles in that place, ie, was it generally peaceful, very violent, what kind of things tended to spark violence, etc. It should really be acknowledged that the Troubles weren't limited to people getting killed but also houses burnt down, rioting etc, which may have affected people's lives more than a few deaths, especially if the deaths weren't of local people. --Helenalex (talk) 23:20, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Northern Ireland settlement infobox map
Hello all WikiProject:Northern Ireland participants! As a believer in inclusion, I'd like to ask you for your thoughts on altering the map within Northern Irish settlement infoboxes to one I've drawn up myself - naturally I think it's an improvement, but would like feedback from those who feel most involved with it. My suggestion is outlined at the bottom of this talk page. Hope to hear from you, Jhamez84 00:52, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

List of songs about the Troubles
I have recently started a List of songs about the Troubles in my userspace, to collect information about how the conflict as a whole and individual events and episodes, have been interpreted in music. The list at the moment includes only four pop songs, but is also meant to include Protestant and Catholic, Unionist and Republican, songs. I found this cd, but I'm not sure the songs on there are notable and/or representative. I would like to ask the members of this WikiProject to help me expand this list about what might be a sensitive subject. A ecis Brievenbus 13:55, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

proposal to move Republic of Ireland to Ireland
I have made a proposal to move the Republic of Ireland to Ireland See:
 * Talk:Republic_of_Ireland.--padraig3uk 17:48, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Created Glenola Collegiate School Page

 * ) -MichiganCharms 17:51, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

New article - assistance requested
Please see Segregation in Northern Ireland. It's quite a controversial topic and (of course) central to the Troubles, so assistance in expanding it and maintaining neutrality would be appreciated. -- ChrisO 19:49, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
 * (Update). Unfortunately a user with an extensive history of edit warring is trying repeatedly to move the article to the ridiculously POV title "Allegations of Northern Irish apartheid". I'd be grateful for input on Talk:Segregation in Northern Ireland. -- ChrisO 21:51, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Army images
I'm trying to spruce up Operation Banner and was wondering if anyone knew of some good images I could use, or had some to upload? Cordless Larry 22:57, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Vintagekits
Please support this Northern Irish editors plea to be unblocked: ... Gaimhreadhan (kiwiexile at DMOZ)talk  • 22:16, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Poll on Flag options in Northern Ireland infobox
There is a straw poll under way on having flag in the infobox of the Northern Ireland article.

There are four Options available choose either


 * Yes / No / Don't care for each Option.--padraig 00:01, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Peer review requested
Hi. Ruth Kelly is up for peer review here. Your comments are welcome. SP-KP 18:32, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Categorising prisoners from The Troubles
Further to the numerous discussions, largely on Wikipedia talk:Irish Wikipedians' notice board, a proposal has been made attempt to neutrally categorise individuals imprisoned during The Troubles. Your comments are welcomed at:


 * Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion
 * Categories for discussion/Log/2007 August 14

Thanks. Rockpock e  t  00:44, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Ulster dissenting tradition
I've been trying to improve the John Hewitt article and it occurred to me that some of it won't make sense to 99 per cent of Wikipedia users - specifically the statement that "He was attracted to the Ulster dissenting tradition". Any suggestions for how I can explain this succinctly? Cordless Larry 12:54, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Perhaps link to people and ideologies that embodied the dissenting tradition? ie 'the Ulster dissenting tradition, as expressed by such figures as...' --Helenalex 15:50, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Politics of Northern Ireland proposal
I have created a proposal at WikiProject Council/Proposals. Please have a look and comment; if you are interested in participating, please add your name! Warofdreams talk 20:06, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Ulster Banner straw poll
Hello there,

A straw poll has opened at this section of the United Kingdom talk page regarding the use of the Ulster Banner for that article's circumstances only. To capture a representative result as possible, you are invited to pass your opinion there. If joining the poll, please keep a cool head, and remain civil. Hope to see you there, Jza84 22:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I've nom Flag of NI for move at Images_and_media_for_deletion/2007_October_17, have your sayGnevin 21:22, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * This is now located here Talk:Ulster BannerGnevin 20:53, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Manual of Style (biographies): British, or English, (Northern) Irish, Scottish, Welsh?
Hi, there's currently a proposal by me for "Manual of Style (biographies)" to be clarified with usage notes regarding the use of "British" or "English", "(Northern) Irish", "Scottish" and "Welsh" to be used to describe the nationality of persons in biographical articles. Do provide your views at the "talk page" so that broad consensus on the matter can be reached. Cheers, Jacklee 16:59, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Gaeilge task foce
Coming out from a few conversations, a Gaeilge task force has been established to coordinate the translation of Irish place names and other Irish-language related work. Anyone who wants to get invovled is invited to add their names to the list of participants or drop a line on the task force talk page.

Even those without Irish are invited - an outside view is always important, and I'm certain that there is plenty of work that can be done without the need for the Auld'Gaeilge! --sony-youth pléigh 16:35, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Ireland-related topics template
As part of the featured portal candidacy for Portal:Ireland a suggestion was made to make a "topics" template of major ("must read" backgrounders, etc.) Ireland-related articles. I've hacked the following together, but it's obviously lacking. Can people add/remove as they feel is important according to their interest. Changes appear immediately on the portal. Thanks. --sony-youth pléigh 15:35, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Aughanduff
Hi - found in last few days. Nice new article on small NI "village". It should be on main page in next 2-3 days. Do have a copy edit and maybe an assessment? Not my article btw - I'm just the DYKnow proposer Victuallers 20:36, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Typo?
"While at the time of Treaty and the subsequent Irish Civil War the majority of the "old" IRA held this position, by the 1930s most republicans had accepted the Free State and were willing to work within it - recognising the Irish Army as the state's armed force. However, a minority of republicans argued that the army of the Republic was still the pre-1969 Irish Republican Army, itself the lineal descendant of the defeated faction in the Irish Civil War of 1922-23."

Shouldn't it be pre-1919? Jonmp 13:24, 8 November 2007 (UTC)


 * It's mixing times in history, talking about the 1930's but referring to the IRA split in 1969 (into the Provisional IRA and the Official IRA). A rewrite:
 * "While at the time of Treaty and the subsequent Irish Civil War the majority of the "old" IRA held this position, by the 1930s most republicans had accepted the Free State and were willing to work within it - recognising the Irish Army as the state's armed force. However, a minority of republicans argued that the army of the Republic was still the Irish Republican Army, the lineal descendant of the defeated faction in the Irish Civil War of 1922-23."
 * --sony-youth pléigh 17:12, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

There appears to be a flag missing from the template. -- Setanta 11:57, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Sesame Tree
WP doesn't appear to have an article on this subject, but the muppet wiki does, how do you go about pinching it (The content is GNU DL)? Fasach Nua 09:06, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
 * GDFL - same license as WP. Copying it over. Good spot, Fasach! --sony-youth pléigh 20:53, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I think there are some tracability issues, I dont think you can do a straight "cut and paste", but there must be a guide somwhere, this thing must turn up quite a bit Fasach Nua 21:00, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmmm ... well, I've done it ... :/ --sony-youth pléigh 21:23, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Ive tagged the talk pages as to the origin, so there is a trace to the original, and if someone knows how to transfer the history properly .... Fasach Nua 21:30, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Roads in the United Kingdom
I have created the above article today. It lacks some detail on the history of roads in Northern Ireland at the moment and I would appreciate any pointers or help. Regan123 (talk) 18:49, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It is a very good article, however I would suspect two different articles might be better, one for NI and the other for Britian. Roads were/are a devolved matter, so would have a different history, although NI tends to shadow Britian on such issues. They are two seperate road networks (by virtue of the Irish sea), contain conflicting road numbering systems and are governed by different (although extremely similar) legislation. Fasach Nua (talk) 22:01, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I think we need a separate article at one point, but getting enough on Northern Ireland itself might be a challenge at the moment. I had thought that we could keep the UK article as a summary article pointing to other ones.  I have now created List of A roads in Northern Ireland which could do with someone populating it if possible. Regan123 (talk) 19:53, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Roads in Ireland is covering this already but the article is very Republic-of-Ireland-heavy and would strike me as something that would be better done with separate NI and RoI articles. Transport is an Area for Co-operation for the North/South Ministerial Council, but is not covered by a North/South Implementation Body, and roads were always one of the most striking effects of partition. --sony-youth pléigh 22:36, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Don't disagree with any of that. A sub article for both parts of Ireland which is summarised as appropriate in other articles is a good idea.  I am a few weeks away from being able to start it, but I am adding to the UK one at the moment. If anyone has any pointers to resources (pref online) to any of the above suggestions I would be grateful. Regan123 (talk) 23:33, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Ireland (now Northern Ireland)?

 * Obviously the subject is sensitive but is this okay to use when describing the town someone was born in? Specifically, an article like John Bodkin Adams, who was born in Randalstown in 1899, says at the moment that he was born in "Randalstown, County Antrim, Ireland". This is confusing to the majority of readers who won't realise that the country given here is where the town was - they will assume it is where the town is now. They shouldn't have to click to the town's page to understand. While this is the way that Wikipedia likes to work, adding "(now in...)" would clarify the matter. I've tried to add this but another editor dislikes it. Can we decide a policy on this? Malick78 (talk) 19:04, 27 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The correct place to have this discussion is IMOS. I know the discussion was started and has stalled without consensus, but maybe you should restart it. My comments on that thread stand. Ben W Bell  talk  19:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

New articles
Is there a new Northern Ireland articles page? If not, there should be - it's good to know what's recently been created, so stubs and shoddy articles can be improved. If there is a bot looking for new articles they could be posted on it. Basically, what I'm after is a Northern Irish version of New articles (New Zealand) and similar. --Helenalex (talk) 23:15, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Ireland national football team: proposed article mergers
I have proposed the following mergers:
 * Ireland national football team (IFA) → Northern Ireland national football team
 * Ireland national football team (FAI) → Republic of Ireland national football team

Proposal Talk:Ireland national football team IFA with lead-up discussion earlier on that Talk: page. jnestorius(talk) 23:12, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Ireland portal - now a featured portal
Great news! The Ireland portal has been made a featured portal, taking it's place along side the Scotland, London and North West England portals on these islands and the France and European Union portals on the continent.

Come on Northern Ireland ... let's pick up the Northern Ireland portal and make a go of it for the new year!

p.s. Happy Christmas! --sony-youth pléigh 18:32, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Bot-driven tagging of Northern Irish categories
I have recently gotten authorisation for a bot (called BHGbot), for applying project banners tags to articles and categories.

BHGbot's first runs have involved tagging categories with WikiProject Ireland category, and having completed that job I wanted to offer to do the same thing for Northern Ireland categories. (Please note that this is just intended as a helpful offer; if this project doesn't want it done, I won't do it).

There are two parts to what I propose:
 * Job0006: Replacing all instances of  with the new WPNI category tag (just created by me, modelled on WikiProject Ireland category and other similar banners), which does not include assessment fields for priority/importance. This will ensure that the categories are still listed in Category:WikiProject Northern Ireland categories, but will avoid cluttering Category:Unknown-importance Northern Ireland-related articles and Category:WikiProject Northern Ireland articles with categories, which do not need an importance rating
 * Job0005: add WPNI category to subcategories of Category:Northern Ireland which are not already tagged (see the Job0005/List of categories, and some notes at Job0005 on how it was compiled).

Please note that both these proposed jobs will tag only categories, not the articles within them. (If members of this project are interested, I would be happy to use BHGbot to help with the auto-tagging of articles, but I suggest that's best left aside for now as a separate issue).

I'd welcome any comments, either here or on the talk pages of the two proposed jobs. Hope this helps. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:47, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Replacement of Irish place infobox with Template:Infobox_UK_place
According to WP:UKCITIES, all settlements in the UK must use the UK infobox. As it stands, most major towns in NI have been changed to the new infobox, but some towns such as Ballymena have not yet. I changed the infoboxes for Cookstown, Coagh, Dungannon and Magherafelt, but it would be great if the editors here could help in the final push to rollout the infobox in all villages and towns in NI. Cheers! EJF (talk) 17:30, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I converted Ballymena to the UK infobox. Bangor, Holywood, Larne and Newtownabbey still use the old infobox. Plenty of smaller towns such as Coalisland still are using the old box. In List of towns in Northern Ireland and List of settlements in Northern Ireland there are plenty of towns and villages that don't yet use the UK infobox. EJF (talk) 18:28, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Politics of Northern Ireland
I thought I would bring tis to the attention of users here we have a anon IP altering the images on Template:Politics_of_Northern_Ireland, Template:Politics_of_Northern_Ireland_1921-72 and Template:Politics_of_Northern_Ireland_1972-98, I have ask on their page not to do this without discussion on the issue first, but they insist on ignoring that request and continues to change the images. These template have been stable since they where created any thoughts.--Padraig (talk) 00:38, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Since you have opened a discussion on the subject, and invite the IP to make a case for changing them here. If there is no support for change, then revert back noting as much. Just because something is stable doesn't automatically make it better, though it does suggest that there should a good reasons and widespread agreement for changing it. For what it is worth, my personal opinion is that the template was fine as it was and the change doesn't add much other than rile folks up. Rockpock  e  t  00:52, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The anon is commenting over at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Unionism in Ireland. I've made a proposal over there too. --sony-youth pléigh 00:59, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Year in Northern Ireland articles
Hi folks

I have created a navigation header template for the year in Northern Ireland series of articles, called YearInNorthernIrelandNav, and started rolling it out on a few articles, e.g. 2007 in Northern Ireland.

The template is based on YearInIrelandNav (which I created last month), and the colour scheme for the N.Ireland template arises out of a discussion on that template at User talk:BrownHairedGirl and a further discussion on colours at User talk:Sarah777. Basically, the dominant dark blue color (HTML code #000062) is that used on the website of the Northern Ireland Executive, which seemed to me to be probably the most neutral option amongst the various possible colours.

Hope it's OK; pls leave a note on my talk if there are any problems. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I decided to be WP:BOLD, so I have rolled out the template on all the year in Northern Ireland articles. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:41, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:UKNATIONALS
Following from an extended discussion at "Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (biographies)" on how people from the United Kingdom should be described ("British", or "English", "[Northern] Irish", "Scottish" or "Welsh"), which did not result in consensus, an essay entitled "Nationality of people from the United Kingdom" (WP:UKNATIONALS) has been prepared. You're welcome to provide your comments on how it can be improved at the talk page of "Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies)". &mdash; Cheers, Jack Lee  –talk– 16:50, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

UKTOWNS
Hello team,

May I please bring to the attention the WP:UKTOWNS guideline? It has been very successfully used for settlement articles for Great Britain and I think it would be a great tool for Northern Ireland too. Taking much of its recommendations from the global-WP:CITIES project, it is intended for use with NI, but I don't think it is very well known. Belfast however appears to use it effectively.

The guide is admittedly a little Anglocentric (though I've tried to combat this), but it is not meant to be political in anyway - it's purely a guideline on layout and content for inhabited places. Infact, I would hope the Republic of Ireland would also adopt a simillar approach. If there are any outstanding issues in the guidelines, please let me know and I'll provide an addendum for NI as I have done for London. Hope this helps, <span style="color:#696969;font-size:larger;font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">-- Jza84 · (talk) 19:31, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Edward Harland
✅ rated as B. EJF (talk) 21:26, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Would this qualify as a B-class article or would it only meet Start-class? Can anyone provide me with any pointers for improving it? I'm keen to avoid a COI by rating it. Cheers, EJF (talk) 17:16, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Maps for the constituent countries in the UK
I have created the above maps. I hope you all don't mind that I was WP:BOLD and added them to the relative articles myself. I really don't want to create any edit wars I just want to see what others think and hopefully bring this to a nice consensus on what to use. I hate the idea that other countries seam to be more organized then us with these things, so I hope you think the new one looks professional... I'm actually kinda pleased :-) Please voice your opinion over at Talk:Scotland I know I'd personally love to hear your opinions! Thanks -- UKPhoenix79 (talk) 05:15, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Museums in Northern Ireland
Could I ask for some help accessing local knowledge, from members of this wikiproject, on the behalf of the new WikiProject Museums? We are currently trying to identify articles within the Museum projects scope (& develop guidelines to help improve them etc). There is a List of museums in Northern Ireland. Could you take a look at the list for your local area and see if any are missing or create articles for any red links. Could you also add the new project banner " " to the Talk pages of the articles, so that we can identify those in need of work etc. Any help appreciated &, if anyone is interested you are welcome to join the project or discuss Museum related articles on the Project Talk Page.&mdash; Rod talk 13:41, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you include art galleries in your definition of museums? Cordless Larry (talk) 14:58, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes art galleries & similar are within the scope of the project, although we are still clarifying exactly what the limits of this are - however it does not include aquaria, herbaria, zoos and other non-museum 'collections' because these are well-covered in other projects.&mdash; Rod talk 15:11, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks for clarifying. Cordless Larry (talk) 15:45, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

NI disambig
The following is reproduced from NI article discussion page:

I think the following disambig at the top of the NI article looks really silly and should be removed. Does any one really look up NI thinking they'll go straight to an EP constituency page? Heres the disambig:

"This article is about the constituent country. For the European constituency, see Northern Ireland (European Parliament constituency)."

Does any one else support deleting this disambig? Redking7 (talk) 22:41, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the hatnote is appropriate, particularly if you're looking for the European parliament constituency and are not sure what to search for. I'll add a comparable hatnote to that page linking to this one.  WLU (talk) 22:57, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Any one else have any view on the "hatnote"? I still think it looks really silly and out of place. The following is the "hatnote" User WLU has added to the constituency page:


 * "This article is about the constituency in the European Parliament. For the United Kingdom constituent country, see Northern Ireland."


 * I can't help but find it amusing that any one would think that any one would look up Northern Ireland (European Parliament constituency) and expect to read about NI!


 * Still, if no one speaks up to support removing the "hatnotes", I will leave these edits as is. Regards. Redking7 (talk) 20:32, 10 April 2008 (UTC) Redking7 (talk) 01:59, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Germany is the best example, even its disambiguation leaves out any mention of the constituency of the same name. I support getting rid. Crazy Among (talk)
 * WLU just reverted my edit when I had deleted this "hatnote". I opened this discussion on both the NI page and here. WLU states editing the article can only be discussed on the NI page. I have disregarded that as this discussion was well flagged on the NI discussion page and this is an entirely appropriate forum. I hope this won't lead to an edit-war. Redking7 (talk) 21:05, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Edit-warring
WLU has reverted the above edit despite two of the three users who contributed to the above discussion agreeing with the edit. I'm not sure how this should be handled? Regards. Redking7 (talk) 18:51, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The hatnote is clumsy and doesn't seem to fit the spirit of WP:DAB. The consituency article is about NI, so it should be summarised in Northern Ireland and linked from there. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 10:49, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The discussion continues at Talk:Northern_Ireland, where there is a surprising amount of heat.  --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 10:59, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Irish footballers
A debate that might interest editors here has been started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football. Djln--Djln (talk) 00:08, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Assessment requests
WikiProject Northern Ireland/Article assessment is still a redlink. I can't find a place on the project page to request an assessment. I was hoping to get Free Derry re-assessed after a recent expansion. Scolaire (talk) 19:20, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * See WikiProject Northern Ireland/Assessment. I reworked the whole page to be the same as Wikiproject Ireland's and Wikiproject France's with a requests section. So you can stick 'em in there! Fribbler (talk) 17:09, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Troubles in... articles
Is there, or can we come up with, a policy on which Troubles deaths are notable? Some people think that the 'two or more killed' rule is absolute - ie if only one person was killed it isn't notable and therefore can't be mentioned on a 'troubles in...' page, regardless of other circumstances. If there is not already a policy, I suggest that it should be something like:

Fatal troubles 'events' are notable and can be included in 'Troubles in...' pages if:

1. Two or more people were killed

2. The event was the first of its kind (first attributed to a particular group, first bombing death etc); first killing of a particular kind of person (first RUC officer killed, first republican paramilitary etc); or is otherwise a significant 'first'.

3. The victim was inherently notable in his/her own right (ie worthy of a page of their own).

4. The event had a significant effect - ie directly led to a breakthrough in or breakdown of the peace process etc.

It would be really good to have a semi-official policy to point at which consists of more than 'two killings notable, one killing not'. --Helenalex (talk) 02:50, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * That would work.Traditional unionist (talk) 10:31, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me too. Fribbler (talk) 17:15, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I will add it to the project page, along with some thoughts on what should be on area pages. --Helenalex (talk) 08:54, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I have removed part of this, as it is clearly biased. As republicans were generally responsible for most "firsts" in terms of the security forces, we are presenting an even more biased view of the Troubles than before, as republicans generally being responsible for more incidents in which two people were killed than loyalists. If "firsts" refers to the first killed in the entire of Northern Ireland as opposed to in the general area then please revert me and clarify the text. BigDunc  Talk 10:35, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I have reverted as there is no consensus for this. Just because republicans killed more people than anyone else, and therefore did more "first" killing than anyone else, doesn't mean it is biased to point this out!  Removing that part of the policy could be seen as an act of bias.  I don't particularly want to get engaged in ANOTHER ding dong with this user, it's rarely productive.  I will raw attention to this discussion.Traditional unionist (talk) 10:44, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * TU, two admins have said the previous inclusion criteria were biased as they exluded the majority of killings by loyalists. Now you're attempting to include even more killings by republicans. This means the whole set of articles are hopelessly biased and fail NPOV, which is a policy that cannot be ignored. BigDunc  Talk 10:49, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * That doesn't make sense to me as it is an argument based on raw numbers and not proportionality. Proportionally, republicans murdered many more people during the troubles than anyone else, therefore any policy will by definition catch many more republican murders - there were just more of them to catch!Traditional unionist (talk) 10:51, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Request for comment
As can be seen here, it has been agreed before that due to the two casualty minimum inclusion criteria the articles contained in the subcategories of Category:The Troubles in Northern Ireland by locality are biased, as they exclude the majority of killings by loyalists. Recently even more biased criteria have been added, where the death of the first soldier/policeman/etc in a particular area are to be included. As loyalists were responsible for very few of those (especially "firsts") we will be including more killings by republicans. So the average article will include killings by republicans, yet most of them will not include a single killing by loyalists despite them being responsible for over 1,000 deaths during the Troubles. This is obviously a major breach of NPOV, yet an editor refuses to allow these biased criteria to be amended. !! time=11:10, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

As can be seen here, it has been agreed before that due to the two casualty minimum inclusion criteria the articles contained in the subcategories of Category:The Troubles in Northern Ireland by locality are biased, as they exclude the majority of killings by loyalists. Recently even more biased criteria have been added, where the death of the first soldier/policeman/etc in a particular area are to be included. As loyalists were responsible for very few of those (especially "firsts") we will be including more killings by republicans. So the average article will include killings by republicans, yet most of them will not include a single killing by loyalists despite them being responsible for over 1,000 deaths during the Troubles. This is obviously a major breach of NPOV, yet an editor refuses to allow these biased criteria to be amended. BigDunc Talk 11:10, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes loyalists killed 1000 people. Republicans killed 2000.  I have some sympathy with listing all deaths as per BHG, save for the fact that there are plenty of other sources for people to find that out.  My major point is that of course more republican murders will be flagged - they were responsible for much more than half of the total death toll!Traditional unionist (talk) 11:15, 4 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I disagree that the 'firsts' is biased; notable is notable regardless of who it makes look bad. Would you argue that a list of murderers is biased against men because the majority of murderers are male? Secondly, I disagree that it disproportionately singles out republicans. As I recall, the first RUC officer to be killed in the Troubles was killed by a mob of loyalist rioters (rioting against the disarming of the police, ironically enough), and the first soldier to be killed was shot by the RUC, although he wasn't stationed in NI so he's usually counted as a civilian. This is hardly the point, though. The first death by bombing or whatever is notable whoever was responsible.
 * I wasn't aware that the guideline was being interpreted as 'first in that area', and I don't think that it should be, particularly since some of the areas the articles cover are fairly small - the first RUC officer killed might be the only one, or one of three, for example. So unless anyone objects the policy should probably be clarified accordingly. 'First' means 'first in the Troubles' rather than 'first in that particular area' unless there is some really compelling reason for an exception.
 * In terms of the 'two or more' rule, Dunc might have a point, since republicans tended to go for bombings which killed lots of people at once whereas loyalists preferred to shoot people one at a time. While I think an incident which kills five people is more notable than one which kills one, it is not more notable than five individual murders. The Shankill Butchers' killings were pretty notable, but wouldn't make it past the notability threshold we currently have because they happened one at a time, whereas, say, a prematurely detonated IRA bomb which kills the bomber and his mate would. This does seem a bit silly. Personally I always thought two people was a bit of a low bar for notability, but raising it would only create more of a skew towards bombings and away from shootings.
 * As long as we keep the rule that not all Troubles deaths are notable, we are going to argue about where to draw the line. We can either include all deaths in the 'Troubles in X' articles rather than draw what will always be a fairly arbitrary line of notability, or we can come up with a stricter defintion of notablity which removes numbers as a criteria unless the incident was the most fatal of its type. This would empty out a lot of the articles unless someone feels like writing them in a more meaningful way than the current 'list of notable fatalities' format. --Helenalex (talk) 11:44, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually I think the new policy is as close to perfect as it will get. The Shankill Butchers murders are includable on this policy, because they are notable in their own right as a group, so they would be included in the troubles in belfast article, if it existed.  So I see no problem whatsoever with this policy.Traditional unionist (talk) 12:14, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The inaccurate, unbalanced and biased results produced by these inclusion criteria can best be seen on The Troubles in Portadown (version under discussion below). Searching here for "Portadown" returns results of 20 deaths attributed to Republicans, 25 to Loyalists, and 2 others. However the current version of the article has 6 people killed by Republicans and 5 by Loyalists, and that's ignoring that the first members of the British Army and RUC were killed by Republicans and could be included under these critera, making the total 8 people killed by Republicans and 5 by Loyalists. Compared to the 20 vs 25, that is not a neutral summary of the Troubles in Portadown. I would also agree with Helanex about the first in Northern Ireland, and as I said I didn't object to that. BigDunc  Talk 17:51, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The simple solution to your concern seems to be to add a brief summary line mentioning the total number of deaths in the particular area attributed to a reliable source e.g. "in total X people were killed in Ballygowhataboutery by Republicans and Y number of people by loyalists." Valenciano (talk) 21:24, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * If we applied the changes you want we wouldn't produce a neutral result, we would just skew it the other way. If that is your problem the answer is to include the total number of people killed in a town and who killed them according to RS.Traditional unionist (talk) 17:55, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, total number of people killed and who by seems like a good solution. I'm still not convinced that a two-death killing is necessarily notable, but that's another issue and if everyone else is happy with it, then I'm fine with it too. I will edit the policy to state that 'first' is 'first in the Troubles' and that a group of individual killings can be notable. --Helenalex (talk) 22:35, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Please see Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-06-22 United Kingdom
I hope ya'll can give us your imput. GoodDay (talk) 21:04, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup
Currently, 1083 of the articles assigned to this project, or 28.1%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 2008-06-18.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. Subsribing is easy - just add a template to your project page. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:26, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme
As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.
 * The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
 * The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
 * A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot  ( Disable )  21:10, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Re-design Project page
Hi all, I have pulled together a design for the cluttered Project Page (see my Sandbox), as per requests on the current page. This new design includes a sidebar template. I've kept all the important stuff and tried to get rid of clutter; however there's still a lot that could be gutted, but I'm hesitant to do it. Please let me know what you think of this new design. Thanks! Dicdoc (talk) 20:07, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I do like that! Fribbler (talk) 22:27, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Go for it Dicdoc - if it's just the layout of the Project Page itself, it could certainly do with a facelift. It's something I never got around to doing myself. If I ever get the time(!) I'll come back and have a look at your improvements.


 * This WikiProject was based primarily on the Australian and Beatles wikiprojects and has even influenced a couple of others - notably the Scottish and Ireland wikiprojects which were both created by ripping the text/code from this one (much as I had done from the Australian one before!). The Ireland wikiproject, having many more contributors than this one, has obviously developed, whereas this one hasn't improved at quite the same rate! Ironically, the IRA wikiproject (since renamed to "Irish Republican WikiProject" or something) was created by ripping the Ireland one! --Setanta747 (talk) 01:34, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * OK I put the new design in place, any problems, give me a shout or make whatever improvements you feel necessary. Dicdoc (talk) 13:28, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Map colours
There seems to be a slight oversensitivity regarding the choice of map colours for an updated map here. Given that WPNI have a green map as their own logo, perhaps someone would care to give an opinion on behalf of this project? Just a thought. Crispness (talk) 11:49, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi Crispness. I designed the sidebar and took the map image from an existing NI userbox.  I think it's green in the sense of maps traditionally showing all land masses as green, it's not to display any political message or allegiance.  The fact that the UK regions of the map you are referring to are deliberately being assigned a certain colour in order to distinguish them is quite another thing.  Though now this will probably spark up a furious debate about the map used on the NI Wiki Project!!Dicdoc (talk) 13:49, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Ooops! Sssssh! Don't tell anyone, and maybe we'll get away with it! :-) Crispness (talk) 14:30, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Poll on merging Subdivisions of the United Kingdom to Countries of the United Kingdom
A poll is talking place on Subdivisions of the United Kingdom and Countries of the United Kingdom. The Merger proposal is here, and is where all the options (merge, redirect to or from etc) can be voted for. --Matt Lewis (talk) 18:59, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

NOTE: The new article is "Countries" of the United Kingdom, by the way - not "counties", as it it may first appear.--Matt Lewis (talk) 13:20, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Charities - online list?
Is there an online register of charities in Northern Ireland, the equivalent of those at Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator and Charity Commission?

I've just created two new templates, UK charity and Scottish charity. (I know the former is inaccurately named as it only works, so far, for England and Wales: if I can work out the wiki technicalities I'll combine the two, and NI if I can find a register, into a single template at that name.) They are for use as External Links - as it seems to me to be a valuable asset to the article, as evidence of the charity's genuineness and a link to its accounts etc. They're similar to the templates for links to IMDB. See them both in use at Age Concern: Age Concern NI (http://www.ageconcernni.org/) has charity number XN 48785A, which I'd like to link too.

The article at Charity Commission says that charities in NI "are regulated by the Voluntary Activity Unit of the Department of Health and Social Services at Stormont Castle.", with a couple of redlinks. That doesn't seem to be accurate: the nearest I can find is http://www.dsdni.gov.uk/voluntary_and_community but there doesn't seem to be a register. Someone knowledgeable might like to update that article?

If anyone can find me a useful online list for Northern Ireland charities, I'd be delighted, and will make a NI version of the template - please let me know. Thanks, PamD (talk) 11:20, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * If anyone does know of such a list, please let me know on my talk page - I've watched this page for a week and am now taking it off my watchlist. Thanks. PamD (talk) 07:12, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Related WProject: WP:BISLES (British Isles Terminology task force)
I've added this new task force to the 'Related projects' (its actually a sub of WP:GEOG). --Matt Lewis (talk) 17:37, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

GB or GB & NI?
Please see: Thanks.--Mais oui! (talk) 14:12, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Requested move

David Healy's International goals and caps
This has beed proposed for deletion, if anyone is interested Fasach Nua (talk) 09:20, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Canals in the United Kingdom vs Canals in Great Britain
There's a little discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Waterways about whether it would be more useful to have an article listing canals of the UK, or whether the existing coverage of NI canals in Canals of Ireland means it would be more useful to have an article listing just canals of GB. Contributions welcome. --VinceBowdren (talk) 13:32, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Northern Ireland Flags again
Some editors on the NI page are insisting on changing the term Flag of Ireland to something else e.g. Irish Tricolour - even though they use the correct names of the UK and former NI flags. It is being discussed here Talk: Northern Ireland. Regards. Redking7 (talk) 22:07, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Ireland disambiguation task force
An Ireland disambiguation task force (WP:IDTF) has been created. It will: free up various Talk pages for their respective articles, avoid inner and cross article repetition, avoid debate-postponing moratoriums from needing to be placed, and can accommodate all aspects of the issue of disambiguating the word "Ireland". --Matt Lewis (talk) 04:29, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Northern Ireland
Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 23:11, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Edit North West Regional College
Hi I'm new to editing Wikipedia, and I've noticed a substantial number of inaccuracies on the North West Regional College page - mainly due to the College's recent merger. I would like to edit these - would that be ok? (Gerimartin (talk) 14:47, 22 September 2008 (UTC))
 * Yes, feel free to be bold and make any changes you feel necessary :-) You may like to read the introduction to learn about how to edit. Make sure that your edits do not contain original research, are referenced and are written from a neutral point of view. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask. Happy editing, EJF (talk) 16:17, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Image needs replacement
Hello all...

An image used in the Craigavon Bridge article, specifically Image:Craigavon bridge 2005 jonathanmoran.jpg, has a little bit of a licensing issue. The image was uploaded back when the rules around image uploading were less restrictive. It is presumed that the uploader was willing to license the picture under the GFDL license but was not clear in that regard. As such, the image, while not at risk of deletion, is likely not clearly licensed to allow for free use in any future use of this article. If anyone has an image that can replace this, or can go take one and upload it, it would be best.

You have your mission, take your camera and start clicking.--Jordan 1972 (talk) 00:54, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Towns and villages
An IP editor, has started changing the classification of settlements to towns, (example), even when some of these settlements have fewer than 200 people! A long-standing consensus has been that in accordance with NISRA's terminology, only settlements with a population above 4,500 people are towns. I'm just checking here to see that this consensus is still standing, before I revert any changes made by the IP. Thanks, EJF (talk) 16:53, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd say feel free to revert; Cushendun is by no means a town, and from a brief look neither is anything else he changed. --Blowdart | talk 13:46, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Missing geographical coordinates
Many Northern Ireland articles are missing geographical coordinates. Finding the latitude and longitude of locations, and entering coordinates into articles is straightforwards, and explained at Geocoding how-to for WikiProject members. Having coordinates on articles mean that they turn up in GoogleMaps, MultiMap and other such places which link to wikipedia based on geo-coordinates.

It is now possible to get lists of Northern Ireland articles that have no geographical coordinates via CatScan, for example:


 * Northern Ireland articles missing geo-coordinates.

Alternatively, if CatScan is down or very slow, you can find them by looking through Category:United Kingdom articles missing geocoordinate data.

The articles in the lists above are currently marked with coord missing templates, which need replacing with filled in coord templates containing their latitude/longitude data (or else have lat&long entered into the infobox).

There are about 67 articles missing coords - I hope you'll consider adding coordinates so as to make Northern Ireland articles more visible on the web. thanks --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:17, 21 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Update. Articles have now been slotted into subcategories, as follows:


 *  articles in Category:County Antrim articles missing geocoordinate data
 *  articles in Category:County Armagh articles missing geocoordinate data
 *  articles in Category:County Down articles missing geocoordinate data
 *  articles in Category:County Fermanagh articles missing geocoordinate data
 *  articles in Category:County Londonderry articles missing geocoordinate data
 *  articles in Category:County Tyrone articles missing geocoordinate data


 * Coords are useful for making the article appear on Google Maps & many other mapping services; and they allow our users to click through to see the article subject location on a map. There's a short guide to on how to add geocodes to articles ... it really is very easy to do. I hope you'll take some time to ensure that Northern Ireland is as well represented as it can be on wikipedia by fixing up the listed articles. thanks --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:09, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

New Ireland project
Hi all, I've started a new Ireland related project which I hope will bridge a gap I feel exists between the two Wiki community's with an interest in Ireland related matters. The project has just started but I hope it will allow us to work together at first on uncontroversial articles such as Sports in Ireland and if successful I hope will allow for a more constructive and friendly approach to the controversial issues. Gnevin (talk) 17:08, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

CFD discussions
There are a couple current CFD discussions that people may be interested in. They concern the intersection of religious and nationalist terrorism. Please see these 2 discussions linked below. One is above the other on the same page.
 * Categories for discussion/Log/2008 November 4
 * Categories for discussion/Log/2008 November 4 --Timeshifter (talk) 19:16, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

New Article
I can't find anywhere to list new articles like this so I'm gonna add it here, if anyone knows a better place to put it then let me know. Dickson Plan. --Eamonnca1 (talk) 00:53, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Cross-community vote
Could someone take a look at Cross-community vote which I created. I don't think I've explained the concept very well. Thanks! <font color="#fff"> Roadnote <font color="#235"> ♫ 13:57, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Proposed Moves: Ireland > Ireland (island)
There are active move discussions at: Talk:Ireland (disambiguation) and Talk:Ireland. All interested parties welcome to comment. Rockpock e  t  01:27, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Requested moves that may interest project members
A number of articles have been nominated for a name change which involves changing the capitalization scheme used. They are:
 * Special Protection Area,
 * Area of Conservation,
 * Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty,
 * Site of Special Scientific Interest, and
 * Special Area of Conservation

(the links point to the discussion of the requested moves.) Members may wish to comment on the requests both for and against the proposed moves. I'm not sure where else notices could be posted to get as wide a discussion as possible, both for and against the requests), and so would appreciate people identifying appropriate projects and posting similar messages there.  DDStretch    (talk)  08:49, 12 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Why have you posted this on the Northern Ireland project page? Mooretwin (talk) 09:35, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Issue regarding Irish political video
There is currently an issue with the article Hero (Mariah Carey song) where I am involved in a discussion about an Irish political video being included in the article. More opinions welcome at Talk:Hero_(Mariah_Carey_song). (Posted here due to scope of issue). Regards, Woody (talk) 15:25, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

New article could use some eyes
Hey - I've started the article Pat Finucane Centre. I think it could use the eyes of a few experts for expansion and to make sure the language is as neutral as possible. Thanks!  <font color=#0036ff>Flying <font color=#e41a1a>Toaster  07:40, 6 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh also: I've tagged Corrymeela Community for this WikiProject. I've been watching and editing this article for a long time, but always appreciate any feedback or edits people have.  <font color=#0036ff>Flying <font color=#e41a1a>Toaster 

Category:Northern Irish people
I have started a discussion here with regards making a change to the name.--Vintagekits (talk) 23:47, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposed move: Republic of Ireland-UK border be renamed and moved to Ireland-UK border.
It has been proposed below that Republic of Ireland-UK border be renamed and moved to Ireland-UK border. Yes it's been done before; a move without consensus was reverted and there's now a proper proposal. Talk page discussion has started. --Blowdart | talk 00:42, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Disused railway stations in Northern Ireland
At User:The Anome/Disused UK railway stations still lacking coordinates, a group of editors are attempting to add coordinates for disused railway stations, using National Grid easting/northing coordinates obtained from old public domain maps such as those at http://www.npemap.org.uk/, and a bot which translates these into WGS84 lat/long coordinates and adds them to the articles.

Unfortunately, we cannot find any free sources of old maps for Northern Ireland, and the current arrangement can only handle National Grid references, and not Irish Grid references (although I have the code to do so, if necessary.) Would anyone be interested in helping find these stations? If so, please contact me at my talk page.

Thanks, -- The Anome (talk) 13:03, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Seeking knowledge of Ulaidh and Ulidia
I have posted a question at Talk:Ulaid but here might be better. It says on Irish mythology that Ulaidh is only the north-east corner. I didn't think that was true and changed it adding the map from Ulaidh but since that I found this map, linked to lots of articles, of 11th century Ireland where a place called Ulidia is in the top corner (I still think Ulster mythology goes beyond that but I reverted my changes until I know the difference between Ulaidh and Ulidia) thanks ~ <font color="Brown" size="2" face="Impact">R .<font color="brown" size="2" face="impact">T .<font color="brown" size="2" face="impact">G  21:20, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * For a rough overview of Ulaidh and its size:
 * Originally Ulaidh was the name of an over-kingdom situated in the north of Ireland. It was populated by the Cruithin who it is said once held land all the way down to the River Boyne. When the Gaelic invaded Ireland, the over-kingdom of Ulaidh suffered gradual land-loss as the Ui Neill Gaelic facion took over the south and then western portions of Ulaidh forming the Northern Ui Neill and Southern Ui Neill. This also saw the destruction of Ulaidh's ancient capital Emain Macha.
 * Ulaidh then became isolated to just east of the River Bann where it survived until the Norman knight John de Courcy conquered it forming the Earldom of Ulster. Thus the over-kingdom of Ulaidh and the Cruithin as far as well know it passed from history.
 * Names such as Dalaradia, Dal Riata and Dal Fiatach are names of kingdoms that formed the over-kingdom of Ulaidh, and as such Ulaidh had its own over-king as all the provinces did. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.241.45.231 (talk) 13:43, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Milestone Announcements
I thought this WikiProject might be interested. Ping me with any specific queries or leave them on the page linked to above. Thanks! - Jarry1250 (t, c) 22:10, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

List of rivers of Northern Ireland
Please note that User:Superfopp has twice removed the article List of rivers of Northern Ireland and subsumed its contents into an article listing rivers in Ireland. To do so reduces the body of geographical articles on NI and means that readers cannot access a list of NI specific rivers. This seems to me to be counter to NI Wiki Project. I have reverted the article. Please keep an eye on this. Ardfern (talk) 18:27, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree & will add it to my watchlist. Thanks Ardfern.  <font color=#0036ff>Flying <font color=#e41a1a>Toaster  05:46, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group
Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. &mdash; Delievered by §hepBot  ( Disable )  on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 06:10, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Six nations 2009
Congratulations on winning the six nations 2009 grand slam to all at Wikiproject Ireland and Wikiproject Northern Ireland! Fribbler (talk) 22:47, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks Fribbler!  Flying Toaster  22:51, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Belfast, County Down?
What part of Belfast/BT postcodes is in County Down because on the Traditional Unionist Voice, it says Belfast, County Down although googling the postcode shows that most websites believe it to be in County Antrim. Speedboy Salesman (talk) 15:28, 26 March 2009 (UTC)


 * As far as the post is concerned, postcodes in County Down are in Belfast (hence "Belfast, County Down"). I think I may be misunderstanding your question, though - is this what you're asking?  Flying  Toaster  13:43, 31 March 2009 (UTC)