Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography/Guide

UAs & Counties
Thanks for starting this. Should the guideline also cover when to use the Unitary Authority & when to use trad/ceremonial counties?&mdash; Rod talk 13:14, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Good idea. Added link to WP:UCC. MRSC (talk) 14:36, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Great work. Could this also be summarised in situ for each of the four parts of the UK, or at least fleshing out the examples? For England, something like:
 *  district/borough/unitary area, administrative county (for non-unitary areas only), in the ceremonial county of ceremonial county (for non-unitary areas only where ceremonial county name differs from administrative county name, and for all unitary areas), England 
 * Not neat, I know, and perhaps still scope for confusion regarding cities, Greater London, and whether metroplitan districts are, in this sense, unitary. But it would be helpful somehouw to distill the gist of WP:UCC for those unwilling to read two guideline articles simultaneously!
 * — Richardguk (talk) 21:02, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Examples are a good idea, but rather than clog up the layout, I suggest linking to (old revisions) of GA/FA articles. MRSC (talk) 21:19, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Countries
We decided some time ago to use the relevant constituent countries in articles and more recently we have not been automatically linking these as a matter of course, I wonder if these guidelines are written down anywhere, or did they develop on project talk? MRSC (talk) 15:37, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Guideline for UK postcode districts
Discussion moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography

Input requested: Talk:SE_postcode_area. Thanks. MRSC (talk) 08:07, 22 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I think this needs a more centralised discussion rather than mass redirection and merge proposals by a single user. This seems like a good place! In principle I'm against the above redirects (and a few other the user has made), there is no "one size fits all" approach to this. Some postcode's will warrant their own page while some will not, as is already shown by the fact that we don't have individual articles for individual postcodes. I feel that most of those that we do have are notable enough or have enough information (as in a merge would overwhelm the parent article) to justify seperation. Jeni  ( talk ) 12:05, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

"One size fits all" has not been proposed, and that is why there are separate merge discussions for each affected area: I encourage you to contribute to the relevant discussions, providing a rationale in each case. MRSC (talk) 12:11, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Talk:SE_postcode_area
 * Talk:WC_postcode_area
 * Talk:G_postcode_area


 * Contributions have been made, in each case with a rationale? Rather than bury discussions deep in Wikipedia I have suggested centralised discussion here to encourage contribution in the discussion, though I guess that doesn't fit in with your "quiet removal of content" approach. Jeni  ( talk ) 12:15, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I am very saddened that this discussion has moved so rapidly from a discussion about encyclopaedia content. MRSC (talk) 12:17, 22 March 2010 (UTC)


 * See also BD3 for a current stand-alone article.
 * There are merits for and against merging, depending on whether we emphasise quantity or quality of information. In some towns, postcodes are a common way to describe localities in conversation; elsewhere, the practice is more contrived. But that is also true to a lesser extent of ordinary locality names, since suburbs too can contain other suburbs and do not even have well-defined boundaries. So we could choose to encourage separate articles; but even the fullest current postcode district article would merge acceptably into a section within a postcode area article.
 * Either way, it would be helpful to have a common guideline for postcode districts, either to be merged or kept, to prevent articles from being repeatedly merged and re-created, to ensure consistent naming, and to aid navigation.
 * Frankly, I think a one-size-fits-all approach would be helpful given that the merits of each individual case are so finely balanced.
 * — Richardguk (talk) 15:16, 22 March 2010 (UTC)


 * We do have a guideline that we do not consider postal geography to be a primary frame of reference. This means that Denham is described as being a village in the South Bucks district of Buckinghamshire, not a village in the town of Uxbridge and the county of Middlesex.


 * What happens with these postcode articles (BD3 a prime example) they become pseudo locality articles with "Tourist attractions" and "Sport" (!) sections.


 * This creates a duplicate of the locality article itself. I would say our established practice is already against creating such articles. MRSC (talk) 15:34, 22 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Do we know if there are any others floating around? MRSC (talk) 15:34, 22 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Post codes was originally a way for the Post Office to sort out its letter deliveries, but it has moved on from there and it is now a "label" for an area. Consider insurance of any kind, what you pay for your house or car insurance is based on postal code, plus other factors, such as age, experience, etc.Pyrotec (talk) 15:37, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Does that mean we should, or could, create a viable article for individual districts? What content would would put in there? Is it not already covered in existing locality and postcode area articles? MRSC (talk) 15:40, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not convinced that we need an article for a full post code, e.g. AB1 2CD, as that could comprise a single business address or say no more than 20 households. There appears to be arguments in favour of having some post code areas, e.g. BD3. The PA postcode area, for instance, covers a very large area, some of which maps onto towns, others onto groups of communities; and groups of others map onto one locality. There is an objection above regarding the G19 (Glasgow, sub area) article - however, I'm not convinced that every, e.g. G postal code (area) needs an article, anymore than the PA ones do; but I'm willing to consider "exceptions". Pyrotec (talk) 16:12, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * [conflict] Insurance (as is marketing) is calculated down to the level of postal walk; i.e. the full post code. There is a considerable difference between (say) Whitechapel and the riverside apartments of Wapping, yet they share a post code. It has no administrative significance, and indeed often spans administrative areas - some of E1 is within LB Hackney and the City of London. By all means state which localities are within post codes, but they really have little meaning beyond the organisation of postal delivery. Cheers Kbthompson (talk) 16:22, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

What is the argument for having the BD3 article? What content should go in it? It has more content that should be a BD3 United F.C. article than anything else. MRSC (talk) 16:45, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I personally don't like that article; and I much prefer SW1 (postcode district) and/or SE12 (postcode district) as models of what could go into these articles.Pyrotec (talk) 16:59, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think I will suggest on the talk page of BD3 that the article should be edited and moved to BD3 United F.C. as that is what most of the content is about. I created those two articles in 2007 the last time we looked at this issue. Even with that level of detail, the articles could still be aggregated into the postcode area articles and that would allow comparison between districts, which might be more valuable. I don't see how as individual districts they could be expanded much beyond what they are now, without replication of geographic locality articles. MRSC (talk) 17:08, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you slightly exaggerate: only about one third of it is football, the other two thirds is ethic diversity (or lack of). However, its not very outstanding as a post code article. Coming back to your other comments, SE, WC, etc, are unique in many respects as they are sections of London. If you take most other codes they are a postal city or town and the surrounding areas. B is Birmingham, but some of the higher B numbers are areas outside Birmingham; PA = Paisley, etc. The same problems that you have identified with the SE & WC articles (which I like), are likely to occur; but I would anticipate that PA postcode (which exists) could cover the Postal area and the Town and for the sake of argument, Oban with its three PA codes (34, 37 & 80) might have another sub-article - but I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable to do it. Pyrotec (talk) 17:42, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The part that is not the football team has little basis in being in an article about a postcode, or any article. "Immigrants moved to BD3 in the 1950s and 60s" is hardly encyclopaedic. You are suggesting creating articles based on post towns? I still don't see them as viable. It is much better just to have a section in the relevant geographic locality article such as. "Footown forms a post town in the AB postcode area. It consists of the AB1 and AB2 postcode districts and extends beyond the town to include Bartown". This is what I've been putting in locality articles and it has been satisfactory for WP:GA standard.


 * Perhaps this should be our policy/guideline? Post town and postcode district information forms part of the geography section of the relevant locality article. MRSC (talk) 17:51, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Postcodes exist purely for the convenience of the post office, who reserve the right to adjust boundaries as and when they see fit. Whilst other organisations do occasionally choose to follow the same boundaries, they do not have any say over what those boundaries are.
 * Articles of a general nature - those explaining the system, possibly with examples - should be permitted. Articles devoted to specific postcode areas, districts, sectors or (heaven help us) full postcodes will be, by and large, entirely lacking in content which does not fit better into a suitable article devoted to the town, village or wherever. -- Red rose64 (talk) 18:56, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Based on feedback so far, here is sample guideline for discussion. MRSC (talk) 20:03, 22 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I happen to see some use in postcode articles, such as PA postcode area, TA postcode area, etc, if only to explain the postal system. I also happen to like SW1 (postcode district) and SE12 (postcode district), but I accept that they have little scope for expansion. BD3 has little to justify its existence in its current form. On that basis I'm happy to accept points 1 and 2; and (with reservations) point three. Pyrotec (talk) 20:22, 22 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I can't see any consensus for #3 Jeni  ( talk ) 00:08, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * @Pyrotec: I don't think anyone has suggested deleting articles named after postcode areas (such as BD postcode area), only those named after postcode districts (such as BD3).
 * @Jeni: Even if we can't all agree, wouldn't it be better to have a common guideline for postcode districts, so we know whether to expect them within the area article or independently? I think the advantages of consistency outweigh any advantages of assessing each postcode district on its own (somewhat arbitrary and fluctuating) merits. Since content will at worst be moved (and redirected), not deleted, would a clear rule not be better than the status quo? If the area articles one day grow too large, we can easily reopen the matter at that time.
 * @MRSC: I support having guidelines. On balance, I support the guidelines you have proposed, but with two suggested amendments:
 * Guideline 2 perhaps ought to refer parenthetically to the London postal district article as a unique exception.
 * Guideline 3 should be extended to clarify where district information (if any) should go; an example would assist editors who are unsure what "district" and "area" mean in this context; and we should specify the format for the section heading: eg "... Any detailed desciption of an individual postcode district should be placed in a separate section within the relevant postcode area article, as with SW postcode area."
 * — Richardguk (talk) 03:13, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for your constructive contributions. I have incorporated them into the following:

@Jeni: Calling "no consensus" during a discussion that is clearly working towards building a consensus doesn't really help us. Simply calling "no consensus", whilst offering no rationale for maintaining these articles and no explanation as to what we would put in an article about a single postcode district to make them viable does not help build consensus. To date, nobody has come forward with any explanation as to what would be put into a single postcode district article beyond what we already have. Instead of calling "no consensus" it would be more constructive to offer an alternative guideline with an explanation of how it would work in practice, then the group will decide if there is consensus to carry it out or not.

@Richardguk: Tied to this, we need to think about a standard layout for postcode area articles. I see perhaps a table with fairly basic information and then probably a prose section underneath, with more detail. The layout may differ for the more urban postcode areas, I'm not sure.

Any other suggestions? MRSC (talk) 06:28, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I guess it is worth pointing out at this point that my view on these articles has changed following the course of this discussion. I had originally favoured a pragmatic approach where articles with no substantive content, that is not already contained in the postcode area article, are redirected to the postcode area article. However, this approach appears unacceptable both to those who favour retaining all current postcode district articles regardless of content (on the basis of "no consensus"/"I don't like") and those who favour a consistent approach (based on the questionable viability of the district articles). Based on the quantity of available sources of data for these articles (Royal Mail publications etc.) I now side with the view that we should adopt a consistent guideline regarding these articles. MRSC (talk) 08:08, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * There appears to be a de facto layout already for postcode area, e.g. SW postcode area, AB postcode area, B postcode area, G postcode area, PA postcode area, TA postcode area
 * There is, but it might require some expansion to include all suitable data. Some articles include active sectors for example. This might be excessive detail. I guess I am just encouraging debate about what we would like to put in the postcode area articles. WC postcode area for example it might be entirely reasonable to have two sections, entitled WC1 and WC2, as it only has two disticts. MRSC (talk) 08:08, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * (Sorry I did not intend to hit the send button, above - this is what I intended to say).
 * There appears to be a de facto layout already for postcode area, e.g. SW postcode area, AB postcode area, B postcode area, G postcode area, PA postcode area, TA postcode area, all look remarkable similar as stubs. You have draft proposals, above, to merge in postal code distracts, so based on what you have done in SE& SW (SW1, SW12, etc), I would have expected one or more "maps" showing the geographical layout of the districts within the area, as in e.g. SE12 (postcode district). Discussions of non-geographical topics, such as football and ethnic make up, should be avoided. Pyrotec (talk) 08:19, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. See WC postcode area for how I think this should work in practice. Further comments and direction is welcomed. MRSC (talk) 08:52, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * That works for London (well a segment) and I suspect that it will work for other large conurbations such as B(irmingham), G(lasgow), etc. If we look at a rural area such as TA (Taunton) with 24 consecutive codes, but I could do the same with PA. TA postcode area has a table but no map, yet, of districts. If I've got this right: Taunton (a postal town) gets TA1 to 4, Bridgwater to the north, also a postal town, gets TA 5, 6, 7 - 7 being villages to the north and east of Bridgwater; TA 8 & 9 are villages progressively north of TA7; TA10 to 24 are towns and villages, going clockwise about Taunton, starting from the east of TA7. If we go back to your WC postcode area and try and relate that to rural areas, I'm aware of some villages having two "walks", well two men with a van each, and that appears to be of the form PA9 9A* and PA9 9B* - but I've never seen that documented anywhere. So in TA postcode area, at area level, e.g. TA7 to TA9, that would be broken down into individual villages; but we would stop at that point, as braking it down further, into streets, would take it into full Postal codes. Pyrotec (talk) 09:47, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that for less densely populated areas a boundary summary by district is not going to be much use. Breaking into sections by post town, reflects the actual administration by Royal Mail so makes for a meaningful structure. There are always the post towns that share a district, but a pragmatic approach will allow us to vary the layout by situation. MRSC (talk) 09:55, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

As an aside, the layout of the table in NW postcode area with the 1917 name incorporated into the coverage should be applied to all London postcode area articles. MRSC (talk) 10:02, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * A fine set of guidelines. I would suggest that the matter be revisited after a period of time, if the format is found to be too restrictive. Looking at NW district, it might be worth saying where (at least) the principal office is located. Where the principal office is on the former London Post Office Railway, it should at least get a link. HTH Kbthompson (talk) 10:16, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Great to see a consensus of opinion forming between editors, with the notable exception of . Looking at what we have already have in WP:UKPOSTAL, this will sit alongside that guidance and replace current points #3 and #5.

The replacement text will read:

As we develop the postcode area articles any variation will become apparent and we can incorporate that into our guidance. Anything else we should look to incorporate into the guidelines now? MRSC (talk) 11:36, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Great progress.
 * The tabulated district lists were previously nearly all in a #Coverage section of the area articles. If this is to be renamed to #List of postcode districts in some area articles, then I suggest it also be renamed in all the others, or else the section name change be reverted, for consistency.
 * For some time, I've been wondering about transcluding the district lists into a complete list. This would be very similar to List of postcode districts in the United Kingdom, but with more detailed information (I wouldn't want to lose the existing list article because its simple content makes it more authoritative than the frequently-edited but hard-to-verify lists in area articles). Coincidentally, I notice that User:BrownHairedGirl has done this with the (much smaller) lists of national monuments in Irish counties (List of National Monuments in County Carlow etc transcluded into List of National Monuments of Ireland using Template:NMI list item). This would produce an enormous table but one which would be helpful for anyone wanting to analyse the national data. But to do this, the table layout needs to be consistent. And, if nothing else, it would allow editors to verify that the area articles are at least consistent with the existing list. Could the London district names be included in brackets after the London post town, to avoid the need for an extra column? Alternatively, a template such as NMI list item allows contextual flexibility if table rows are built from template parameters, so there could be an extra column in London area articles and then the name could automatically be concatenated for a combined list.
 * See User:Richardguk/Postcode areas transcluded for a more basic prototype that I created a few months ago, using  tags in copies of each area article. At the time, the district lists had been split into two within BT postcode area (BELFAST / non-BELFAST), EH postcode area (EDINBURGH / non-EDINBURGH), SW postcode area (South Western / Battersea) and W postcode area (Western / Paddington); and the London table columns were very inconsistent.
 * — Richardguk (talk) 11:48, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I think "list of postcode districts" is a more accurate section title and should be applied to all articles.
 * I've had this idea myself and completely agree. The London tables should be made consistent with the national ones. I think NW postcode area overcomes this?
 * If we are developing an approach where the postcode area articles are essentially split into a list and then a prose section, it is entirely reasonable for the first section to be consistent (to aggregate into a large table) and the second section should have all the flexibility to deal with regional nuance. MRSC (talk) 11:53, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh yeah, quite a nice solution at NW postcode area, if I say so myself. So we would just need to add   and sort out any inconsistent layout. To be sortable, rowspan attributes would need replacing with repeated individual items.
 * I think the "local authority" column should instead list "local authority area" (as with Template:Infobox UK place). It would be helpful to list county as well as districts for two-tier areas. But perhaps metropolitan counties and Greater London are too large to include as such. Maybe "county name (list of shire districts within that county), unitary name, met borough name, London borough name". For example: "Surrey (Runnymede, Spelthorne), Windsor and Maidenhead, Hillingdon". Then we can make the list canonical.
 * — Richardguk (talk) 12:32, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Much agreement, "local authority area" is fine. I prefer to only use the lowest tier local authorities in the tables. This is because by introducing counties we risk confusion with postal counties and I think that the nuance of unitary authorities not being listed with their ceremonial county (e.g. Medway as part of Kent) will be lost on many readers and cause confusion. County level information might be better off in the prose section? It will also cut down the work we have to do trying to match up the boundaries. In practice a postcode area will only be part of a fairly limited number of counties that can be summarised in prose quite easily? MRSC (talk) 12:41, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Consistent approach for non-geographic districts is also required. Should we list the 'actual' location (as in E postcode area)?


 * Seems sensible, where something useful and reliable can be said (but not where the use is unclear or too mixed to be clearly described, taking account of the changing nature of allocations). In this way, the less-restricted content of the lists in the postcode area articles distinguishes itself from the more rigidly defined content of List of postcode districts in the United Kingdom (each approach having distinct merits).
 * I note that you've removed some but not all occurrences of  in E postcode area. I understand that screenreaders will by default assume column scope for table headers in the first row, and row scope for table headers in the first column, so all existing uses of the scope attribute are redundant and should be removed. Also, I think the E table needs an explanation of the italic district names in the text above. (The NW article states: "The historic district names are shown in italics in the coverage table below.")
 * — Richardguk (talk) 13:37, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for recognising I had stated removing the scope="row" and then got distracted! Agree it should all be removed. Explanation also added, and should be applied to other articles too. MRSC (talk) 13:45, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Writing meaningful content about postcode districts/areas is harder than you might have imagined, which I why I think these articles have been problematic. Writing the prose section of WC postcode area was quite easy. SE postcode area less so, but I think I've got the level of detail right to be useful/encyclopaedic and, crucially, not creating pseudo-locality articles. MRSC (talk) 07:07, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Local Government Areas point 3
AFAICT, current practice in Scotland is to use the council areas of Scotland rather than the lieutenancy areas. For example, "Kirkcudbright is a town in Dumfries and Galloway" (as opposed to "Kirkcudbright is a town in Kirkcudbrightshire), and "Duns is a town in the Scottish Borders" (as opposed to "Duns is a town in Berwickshire"). Was this an oversight? --Jza84 | Talk  12:40, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll probably swap this out - it does look pretty universal for Scotland to use the council areas, so this shouldn't be a controvertial change. --Jza84 | Talk  12:30, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I guess they were already covered in #2 "Local government areas are the primary frame of reference in articles" although this is perhaps not very clear what local government areas they refer to. I'll see if I can make it clearer. MRSC (talk) 09:48, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

UKNOWGOV
UKNOWGOV item 3 says about not noting both the UA and ceremonial county when they have the same name but that doesn't seem appropriate given that a UA is a district of the ceremonial county in contrast to a standard non-metropolitan county that has UAs such as Essex where it would probably not be necessary to state that Colchester is in the administrative and ceremonial county of Essex since Colchester district is a district of Essex just like Thurrock apart from the fact that Thurrock has independence from the county council thus the non-metropolitan county isn't really a distinct building block but it is with County Durham district since it is a district like Hartlepool.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 18:10, 3 August 2021 (UTC)