Wikipedia talk:UK Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 5

message: Three (3!) UK-related Featured articles are listed on Featured article removal candidates
*Buckinghamshire
*Have I Got News For You
*Not The Nine O'Clock News
They are far from perfect (compare the brilliant Blackadder or Doctor Who):  given the tenor of WP:FARC recently, they all face a significant risk of being defeatured, so a little effort to clean them up and make them shine is called for.  -- ALoan (Talk) 17:39, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: FARC alert

message: The United Kingdom general elections are approaching. Considering the popularity and content growth which has resulted from high-interest topics such as the Pope, should we consider having a project to make Wikipedia the definitive source for information relating to the UK general election, in general, and this year's in particular? The national and international interest created by a closely contested and highly charged election tends to get people talking about it, and people like to know what they're talking about (or at least seem to ;-). If the media picked up on the quality of our articles relating to the election, we could harness this interest to bring more readers, editors and content. I personally consider this a great way to combine making Wikipedia better with making the election more interesting, and thus meaningful for people, not to mention the importance of neutral information regarding politics. Here are some things we could do:
* Create a WikiPortal for this year's election, to provide a nice interface to finding out more
* Create custom articles for comparison of candidates, platforms, manifestos, etc. using templates.
* Increase coverage of the developments as the election takes place. 
* Organise and promote election-night coverage (emphasise speed, etc)
Any comments?
*I'd support increased coverage if you were willing to get it started.  I'm not sure about all of the above points--how would comparison of candidates work in an encyclopedia, and could it possibly be kept NPOV?  But, yeah, we should also integrate the Wikinews coverage with it, wherever possible.  Manifestos can go on Wikisource.  Joe D (t) 23:00, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject General Election 

message: Whilst cleaning up after an anon, I came across the article Offensive terms per nationality. Its not the best article, but I was surprised to see there were no insults for the Scots, the Welsh or even the English (as opposed to British). Even more surprisingly I can't actually think of any myself. However it looks like an omission that people here would be able to correct. -- Solipsist 09:44, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added a few for scotsmen Brookie 16:34, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Um... yes... I've made the descriptions for Brookie's suggestions a little more NPOV, and added Jock. - MykReeve (T) (C) 17:01, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! I thought that they were meant to be offensive! Oh dear - don't look at the Welsh! Brookie 19:46, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  You !$*& Scotsman 

message: This article is pretty rubbish actually. I've rewritten the first para, but it needs a complete overhaul. Jooler 15:42, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I have volunteered to do History of British cuisine, at some point soon, maybe the rest of it. I probably should do Scottish beer first now have done English beer and (rather brief at the moment) Welsh beer. Justinc 16:52, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: [[British cuisine]] - needs a rewrite

message: With just a week to go now until the general election, we could really do with lots of help to get the 650+ constituency pages ready.
The groundwork has been done and there are templates and election result data ready to use.  We just need lots of help prepping each page.  Full details of how you can help are here: WikiProject UK Parliamentary Constituencies.
At the very least, have a look at the page for your own constituency and check it for accuracy.
Any and all help will be very much appreciated.  80N 05:08, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)
:Ok I've created three constituencies, but I'm a bit worried as there seems to be a bit of confusion over the use of templates in the main wikipedia; Some duplication of constituencies created by User:Uncle G; similar duplication of pages containing party colours; (also the meta data templates use the American spelling for colour/color). Jooler 12:03, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  UK general election - request for help 

message: * A request that readers to this noticeboard look at the requested move on this talk page. Jooler 22:10, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Talk:Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)]]

message: Just wanted to pop in and say "hi" and that I've come back.  However I'm not going to be participating to the same extent as I was before I went away for wikibreak and I see this is still ticking over (though someone should archive some of this talk page!) so I'm still going to be taking it easy.  But hi to anyone who missed me. -- Francs2000 | Talk  00:28, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Hi

message: Wikipedia:WikiProject Cricket is launching a collaboration of the fortnight. All cricket-loving Wikipedians are invited to come along and help choose our first collaboration and, of course, to help in the collaboration itself.
Also, if you are interested in helping improve and expand WP's cricket coverage, please feel free to sign up to the Cricket WikiProject. Kind regards, jguk 18:41, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Cricket/Collaboration of the fortnight]] 

message: I'm dissapointed with the quality of some of the articles on counties and am proposing collaborating on getting them up to scratch.  See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK subdivisions if you're interested. Joe D (t) 17:10, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, this is now at a new wikiproject, Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography. Joe D (t) 12:24, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal for collaborating on counties etc

message: Could someone knowledgable check on the city of Diss article. It is described as being a "seperatist stronghold". Thanks. func(talk) 22:33, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've reverted the paragraph which didn't use encyclopedic language (refering to the train service) and was POV. As for the "seperatist stronghold" I don't know what it refers to, either seperation of Norfolk from the UK which seems very unlikely that anyone in Diss advocates, let alone it being a stronghold, more likely it's talking about the UK and EU - possibly UKIP does well in Diss, however I still don't think the term is useful so it's gone. -- Joolz 22:49, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep: someone's having a joke. I loved the earlier claim that its name derives from Dis in Dante's The Divine Comedy. There's plenty of real background at Diss Online]. RayGirvan 23:18, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops, I completely skimmed over that part! -- Joolz 00:49, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Diss]]