Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cheshire/Archive 2

message: I must say I'm quite jealous of the amount of progress and organisation that is evident on this project! It seems better than that of the wider UK geo project! - shame I'm north of the border however!
Was wondering if I could have some feedback with regards to an ammendment I'm proposing about settlement article structuring; I think the proposal is a positive one, but would like consensus and feedback if pos. The proposal is found here. Hope you guys can help! Jhamez84 22:20, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Feedback

message: We are putting in some good work on the administration and the Settlements of Cheshire, and User:Salinae has done some good work on Salt Mining in Cheshire and Canals in Cheshire, So, I wondered if it would be a good idea to produce a list of more "thematic" topics which might be put on some wanted list for articles? In  that way, we might be able to get a better skeleton structure for what work needs to be done. Some ideas that spring to my mind are these:
*Canals in Cheshire (already started)
*The Salt Industry in Cheshire (already started)
*Public Footpaths of Cheshire
*Roads of Cheshire
*Rivers of Cheshire (possibly closely linked with the canals article)
*Railways of Cheshire
*Archeological Sites of Cheshire
*The Silk Industry of Cheshire
*Public Parks and Gardens of Cheshire
*Religion in Cheshire
Are there any others that spring to people's minds, and should any which I have listed so far be discarded? If we can build up a list of possible themes that we can arrange in order of priority and number of people willing to give them a try, we can start to fill out bits on the main project page more. What do people think?  DDStretch  (talk) 16:49, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea - perhaps these need to be posted on the main page.  There are a number of railway station pages, plus a number of road articles, so putting this together under a larger umbrella of "transport in cheshire" would be relatively easily initially.  We could then "grow" these themes. Pixie2000 18:17, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I had been thinking of a Firsts in Cheshire, listing inventions, structures etc.  However, I could only think of three things (polythene, Anderton Boat Lift and the Bridgewater Canal), so I thought it would be a bit sparse. Salinae 21:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just came across the fact that (apparently) Mollington was the first place to have a Neighbourhood Watch scheme.  That is four "firsts" then. Pixie2000 22:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I'll try to find out if there are any more "Firsts" for Cheshire which might be added to any article. So, I think it should be added to the list. We can always decide to put it in as a prominent section of, say, the main Cheshire article if it still seems a bit sparse after some hard searching around.  DDStretch  (talk) 00:33, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Ok - I'll put all these possibles for articles on the main page in the "Open Tasks" section. I'll put in some more tasks which I know some are already doing as well. If people are working on something themselves which has not already been mentioned, feel free to add them. I'll also put in a section where requests for help can be put if anyone would like some help with some of the tasks they are working on.  DDStretch  (talk) 00:33, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Thematic" articles

message: I am fairly new to Wikipedia and note that initially you wanted the template just on towns and villages.  Now interest seems to be spreading to canals etc.  I have written a few new articles and added to some older ones, almost all with a Cheshire basis - Cheshire people, buildings, structures, etc.(see my user page).  Should they be included in the project?  Should I add the template to the talk pages of all of these?  Are the talk pages containing the template integrated somewhere (like lists of...)?  It's a worthwhile project and something we Cestrians should take pride in.  Peter I. Vardy 21:33, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: First of all, thanks for the comment and your work already on articles concerned with aspects of Cheshire. Please feel free to add your name to the list of participants on the main project page. I think the template should go on all articles that are concerned with Cheshire. I saw the first task of the project as getting a start on sorting out the county, district, town, and village articles, but the project should also work on other aspects as stated in its aims. So, if you would like to add templates to any of your projects, please feel free to do so. As far as I know, the record of where the template has been used is not recorded in a permanent list, but it is possible to construct a list "on the fly" by going to the template page and clicking on "What links here" in the menu (the Context bit of the menu on my setup). So, one would go to Template:WikiProject Cheshire by typing that into the "Find" box and pressing go. Then one would click on "What links here". I think at some point, we may be able to think about having a "Cheshire Portal", just as Cornwall and London do. We would need to know about a few more "thematic" articles existing on Wikipedia before that could happen convincingly, though. If people think the project should be restricted, though, let's discusss this. I agree we should take pride in our County (even though I was born in it and don't live in it at the moment, I still think of myself as someone from Cheshire.)  DDStretch  (talk) 00:53, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed - anything Cheshire related can be included as far as I am concerned. Pixie2000 08:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have just extended an article on Robert Spear Hudson who was born in West Bromwich and whose business activities were in that town and in Liverpool.  However he lived for some 9 years at Bache Hall, Chester and during this time played a prominent part in the civic and religious life of Chester.  Do you think that he (and others similar) should be included in the project?  Then how about Joseph Crosfield, subject of a recent new article?  He was the founder of Crosfield's, the chemical business in Warrington, now in Cheshire but throughout his life he and his business were in Lancashire. Peter I. Vardy 16:53, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: How far do we go?

message: A new InfoBox is being sorted out for UK places (the discussion, etc can be seen here), and, in the course of this, a discussion about maps has happened. Jhamez, who has done really good work on constructing a new outline map for Manchester has very kindly constructed an outline map for Cheshire. This could be used as well as, or in place of, the thumbnail map in the infobox so as to give a more accurate placement of settlements within Cheshire. I think the size of the current thumbnail map and the size of the red marker makes it of comparatively little use. We may be able to specify a better marker than the large red dot that is currently used, but that is less clear at the moment. He would like suggestions and discussions of how it could be improved upon, and, once we are happy with it, we can start to introduce it into articles about Cheshire. It will make a good adddition to articles about, say, ancient monuments or other structures which are not settlements, within Cheshire, I think.  DDStretch  (talk) 11:50, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the kind comments. Any suggestions for improving the map (it may have some minor errors due to my unfamiliarity with the area), please feel free to contact me; they will be easy to impliment. I'd like to see each county (at least for the North West to begin with) have a map like this. Jhamez84 22:47, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Outline map for Cheshire

message: If you write an article greater than a stub or contribute significantly (more than 1,500 characters) to a pre-existing article it's worth finding an interesting fact from it and submitting it for the Did you know? feature on the Main Page - but do it within 5 days.  The threshold seems to be low; in fact I've submitted 5 (4 on Cheshire-related subjects) and all have appeared.  It's a way of getting Cheshire-related topics on the main page and gives one a bit of kudos too. Peter I. Vardy 15:12, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Have a Go at Did You Know?

message: I have re-structured the Cheshire page and added some more content.  Please review and amend as you see appropriate - it still needs plenty of work, particularly around its History.  Pixie2000 (talk) 21:46, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Cheshire article rewrite

message: There's a new, unified infobox that has been developed aftermuch discussion and editing. It is smaller and automates the entry of certain fields (like Fire, Ambulnace, and Police fields). Now that is it able to be used, the old England place infobox may soon be up for deletion. We need to make sure if we add an infobox to any new or existing articles that we use the new one. We may also like to consider changing any we come across, though I believe there is a move to try to automate the changeover. The new template can be added as I have done for the Haslington entry. It is used by referring to "Infobox UK place" inside the double curly brackets.  DDStretch  (talk) 01:02, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: New InfoBox to be used for all Settlements, replacing "Infobox England place"

message: At least two people have been listed in the "Famous People" section of Cheshire whose criteria for inclusion may not be clear. Kim Cattrall was born in Widnes, and Tim Curry was born in Warrington. Both were born in those places. However, Kim Cattrall left Widnes when she was less than a year old (i.e., 1956/1957), and Tim Curry left Warrington for South London in 1958 (information for both of these facts taken from Wikipedia.) So, given that they were born in an area that became part of Cheshire only after they had left, should they be listed in the "Famous people"  section of Cheshire? Being notable, they certainly could be listed in the corresponding "Famous people" sections of their birth towns, but I think they should not be placed in the Cheshire article's "Famous people" section. What do others think? The reaaon I ask is that there is some dispute starting about this.  DDStretch  (talk) 11:25, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See my comment on the Cheshire talk page.  I suppose in these cases the answer might be no, but rewording "famous people" could allow for a more useful section. Salinae 12:54, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Or you could have "Famous Cheshire People (boundaries since 1974)", "Famous Cheshire People (boundaries pre 1974)", "Famous Cheshire People (Boundaries pre-Norman Invasion)" :-) Salinae 12:54, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Along with claiming some role for the project in editing Liverpool, Flint, Burnley, etc, because they were at some point claimed to be in Cheshire? 8-) I've altered the name of the section to "Notable Residents", following the guidance you pointed me towards.  DDStretch  (talk) 13:04, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you looked at (for example) :Category:People from Wigan which shows how the structure that has been rolled out works. I can do the same for Cheshire from if you all want.Regan123 22:53, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: People from X, where X at the time was neither in Cheshire at the time of birth nor the period of their residence

message: Apologies if I am duplicating DDStretch's comments above...
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 01:58, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New infoboxes 

message: Sorry I havent been around lately, I couldnt come on for one reason or another. Just to let you know, if there are any articles needing doing, dont hesitate to let me know. JFBurton 19:58, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hello 

message: It's probably been long enough, so I've nominated Middlewich for Good Article.  The page is pretty stable now, and although there's still more which could be added it'll be worthwhile getting feedback on where it can be improved. Salinae 22:37, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Obviously theres much to do Salinae 21:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry to hear that. However, would setting up a kind of "task force" for us all on the project to work on to help this article gain GA status help at all? We could divide up some tasks between ourselves and work together in that way. I can see that Runcorn may be also a suitable candidate for a kind of "task force" as well. What do you think?  DDStretch  (talk) 01:10, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think many of the things highlighted were formatting issues - especially with ref to (now earlier) versions of How to write about settlements.  I'll go through the article and do a sub-editing job later and let people have a look Salinae 12:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There's been quite a bit of changes since the unsuccessful GA nomination.  Could someone please have a look and point out what areas Middlewich could be improved in?  Thanks Salinae 21:37, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've made a few minor edits to the article and placed some suggestions on Talk:Middlewich which I hope are helpful. Peter I. Vardy 21:25, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've updated according to the suggestions and resubmitted - see how this goes! Salinae 22:18, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Failed again! A large number of administrivia. Salinae 21:32, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Nominating Middlewich for GA

message: I thought the project page was getting a bit too big, so I'm in the middle of reorganising it. Expect a few sections to be moved into their own sub-pages which can be accessed by means of the box at the top of the page. If people think this is a bad move, or want something specific, please let me know.  DDStretch  (talk) 23:52, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Project Page Reorganisation

message: Quite surprisngly, many of the categories I have recently set up have been proposed for renaming here. I'm neither sure what is going on, nor why we have had ours singled out when some othershave not, nor what the good reasons are for them being renamed. I've asked for the renaming to be put on hold until the reasons and the advantages, etc have been explained to us. Let's see what happens.  DDStretch  (talk) 17:59, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They should be being renamed soon. It seems that I was "caught out" by an inconsistency in two different guidelines concerning the naming of categories, and the one concerned with naming assessment categories was not explicit. I, of course, used the one that has become the "non-standard one". Oh well...  DDStretch  (talk) 23:15, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment Categories being proposed for renaming!

message: I have finally started categorising them as promised many moons ago.  I have used the settlement templates to automatically add categories.  I will then go through all the other Cheshire articles and put them into the correct district cat. Cheers, Regan123 22:54, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Many thanks.  DDStretch  (talk) 23:15, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No problems.  The auto cats can take up to 24 hours to update, so they may take a small while to complete. --Regan123 23:20, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  District Categories 

message: 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 11:43, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox flag straw poll 

message: Is there a  talk page template, as there is for several other projects? Chris 03:26, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Guess so, writing this answered my own question, this is not shown on the front page of this project. Chris 03:27, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But if you look, there is a box containing important sub-pages, and in that is a link to Templates and so on. Following that link will give you the template you were looking for (amongst others).  DDStretch  (talk) 10:14, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: WikiProject Cheshire talk page template

message: The Link to Deva Victrix Roman Tours Continues to keep getting removed from the article,  stating it is "Commercial" Albeit it may be (but I am not stating that it is), but it is relevant to the article, it offers educational information to viewers. 
Can this please go to an independant discussion ? //Melonite 21:57, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I replied to the message which was also posted on the article's talk page. I include my response below:
I have removed the link once. I can't see where it has been removed before then from this article, and so I'm not sure why you think it "continues to keep getting removed". If the link were to be added along with a suitable relevant and real contribution to the article for which it was a refence or citation, I think it could be justified in being kept.
The greater problem at the moment is that a substantial amount of material has been added by users, one in particular who has not responded to messages on his/her talk page, nor to emails sent to him/her to provide references and citations to the material added. In the absence of this, we are left with a list of material which might be verifiable, but for which we cannot decide, and which would probably be extremely difficult to provide references or citations for retrospectively by people who were not the original editors who added the material. In the light of this, the addition of yet more material that is not justified or (in the case of the external link we are discussing) not referred to in the main text as a reference or citation has seemed to me to be giving us yet more of a mess to sort out. However, as I've said, if the link is referred to sensibly in the text, I see no reason why it could not be kept. The rest of the uncited information may well have to more radically edited to help conform to the requirements of wikipedia (WP:CITE, WP:References, and WP:A.) 
 DDStretch  (talk) 22:06, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've just noticed that it isn't clear what article is being discussed here. It is Deva Victrix, an article that is, in my opinion, fatally flawed by the almost complete absence of citations for almost all of it, meaning that, according to the guidelines of Wikipedia, it could be justified in being removed, and the article would then be reduced effectively to a stub with some photos. We need, as a project, to discuss  what to do about this article, and so the next section is pecifically about this article.  DDStretch  (talk) 20:08, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Roman Tours - (Website) 

message: Deva Victrix, was originally under a different name, and before that, was a part of another article. It has had a large amount of information, possibly the great majority of it added by User:Chestertouristcom with effectively no citations or references. User:Chestertouristcom has no user page, but does have a talk page: User talk:Chestertouristcom. There seems to be a very strong link with an external site: Chester Tourist External Site. I tagged the article as being in need of references back in January 2007. Nothing was done, and the user continued to add a lot of unsourced and unreferenced material. I left a message on the user's talk page on 25th February 2007, asking for citations and references to be added, and this was followed up by an email to the user, but no response was received and new unreferenced material continued to be added up to the middle of March when it stopped.
The problem is, what to do? We are supposed to require entries to be adequately sourced and referenced, and yet hardly any of the material for Deva Victrix is. It will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to attempt to produce references for this material retrospectively when one isn't even the original author, especially so if one does not have a specialised knowledge of this topic. I have asked for assistance on the other wikiproject that has a template on the talk page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Archaeology but as yet received no response. I've also asked for advice about what to do on Wikipedia talk:Citing sources with, as yet, no reponse. 
My feeling is that we could simply delete all the material, but I imagine this would cause some consternation in certain quarters (the removal of an external site whose inclusion had not been justified has already caused some negative comment, as the previous section shows.) If we did delete the unreferenced material, the article would then probably be almost just a stub article with a lot of photos.
However, what other way forward is feasible? Unless someone or some people can begin to go through the article checking and sourcing the stuff, adding citations and references where necessary, we are seemingly stuck except for waiting until someone who can do that comes along. Could I ask for some comments on what to do here? Many thanks.  DDStretch  (talk) 20:08, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You mean, of course, The Chester Wiki - no need to feign shyness in mentioning it. Thanks for the pointers. I hope someone can spare the time to get around to updating it soon.  DDStretch  (talk) 18:16, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: What to do about [[Deva Victrix]]?

message: I know that the state of the state of the Deva Victrix article is probably the same as many articles on wikipedia, and there will be other articles that fall within the Cheshire project that are in a similar state, but I do feel we urgently need to  begin addressing these issues, because the fact that other articles are deficient should not affect our own desire to have articles within our project's remit improved according to the guidelines. So, what do we do in this case? And, what can we do in the wider case of other Cheshire-related articles? Perhaps establish a priority list of articles that need work doing on them, or what? If we want to stop the Cheshire Portal from going "stale", we certainly should be trying to address this problem.  DDStretch  (talk) 20:08, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You mean, of course, The Chester Wiki - no need to feign shyness in mentioning it. Thanks for the pointers. I hope someone can spare the time to get around to updating it soon.  DDStretch  (talk) 18:16, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: And all the rest...

message: I came across Chester Wiki when a link was made to it from Chester Castle, having been previously unaware of it.  Does anyone know anything about Chester Wiki, and how it relates to Wikipedia and the Cheshire WikiProject? Peter I. Vardy 12:14, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Peter, please see the discussion here for some information when I asked for advice whether it would be generally good to have such an external link in place. On reading the advice, I think I am inclined to delete the links where they occur unless some serious work is done to improve the quality and verifiability of the content on the Chester Wiki. After all, we have a large enough job trying to bring the articles up to standard with respect to references and citations, without new external links that point to a different wiki with no verifiable content on it.  DDStretch  (talk) 15:53, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well hello there, I created Chester Wiki in February and I must admit did add some links at the bottom of the Chester page to my site. I can honestly say that I didn't mean to cause any annoyance, hinderance to anyone, indeed, I didn't honestly comprehend the amount of effort that you guys put into Cheshire over here. And on that bombshell I will not try and add anymore links and will advise other ChesterWiki users not to either. Sorry for the bother —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.214.9.147 (talk) 22:15, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: After some discussion, I've added the Chester wiki external link back to just the Chester article. The situation is not clear-cut, but it would seem better to have the link there than not, on balance.  DDStretch  (talk) 12:45, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chester Wiki 

message: The good news is that, after a lot of very hard work by Peter I. Vardy, Runcorn has now achieved Good Article Status. Congratulations all round, but especially to Peter. 
Now we probably need to think about some other articles. Middlewich must be near to being able to get it now, and I think we need to turn our attention to Chester and Cheshire itself, probably. What do people think?  DDStretch  (talk) 12:45, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Congratulations again. I'll use Runcorn as a template and try again with Middlewich. Salinae 21:03, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Runcorn]] achieves GA status

message: Not sure if anyone has seen this but I wondered if it might be worth doing something on? It looks quite interesting. 
Purpleprose 22:08, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: BBC Online Cheshire coverage

message: When wikifying the new page on the Brighton Belle pub in Winsford, I've created a new category "pubs in Cheshire" (sub cat of Cheshire).  I'm not suggesting that every pub is notable and should be included, but some will be (because of age, architecture or links to notable trains!), and so could be included. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Salinae (talk • contribs) 22:50, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see there's already a "Public Houses in Cheshire" category! Salinae 22:58, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Brighton Belle, Winsford]]

message: I switched :Template:Cheshire, Borough of Crewe and Nantwich over to the  template the other day, mainly to reduce excess whitespace but also to make the navbox more standardized and easier to maintain. It was pointed out that in the process I made it look less like a number of other Cheshire-related navboxes, so I've rejiggered the styling to match the original more closely (before: , after: ). If it's still a problem may I offer my services to convert over the other navboxes to navbox generic in the same manner? I encountered this navbox via random paging but I don't mind sticking around to help make my drive-by fit in better. Bryan Derksen 06:19, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Given that the modification now looks and fits in with the other navboxes, and more than happy myself, top accept your kind offer to help us convert them - as you say, it saves a lot of white space, and so everyone wins! Thanks for the offer and work.  DDStretch  (talk) 09:38, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Getting started on a few more. BTW, in case anyone wonders why the navboxes are automatically "hiding" on Wikipedia:WikiProject Cheshire/Templates and Images, it's because the default behavior of navbox generic is to autocollapse whenever there are two or more navboxes in the same article together. This default behavior can be changed but I'm leaving it as default for the time being since IMO it's generally a good idea. Bryan Derksen 23:43, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Using the navbox generic template

message: A discussion has been opened at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject London#Category:People from Ealing by district about upmerging local area categories for People from... into current local government boundaries only.  This could have implications across the whole of England if carried through.  Your are invited to join the discussion.  The proposer is planning a massive merge by 22nd June if no objections are received. --Regan123 11:22, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  People from Categories 

message: I have received a request from an editor working on Vale Royal Abbey for a current or recent photograph.  Does anyone have such a photograph they could add to the article? Peter I. Vardy 08:23, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vale Royal Abbey 

message: I'm not sure if the Cheshire WikiProject would be interested in moving its List of places in Cheshire forwards, by creating a stronger, gazetteer type article more akin to List of places in Greater Manchester and List of places in London? 
As one of the strongest and most active county WikiProjects, I think this would be a great addition to your aims and acheivements. Jza84 20:46, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cheshire gazetteer 

message: Is there any protocol for updating the Cheshire Portal? It doesn't seem to have been changed since January and there have been lots of new articles & DYKs since then. Can any project member wade in and change it, or is there a single maintainer? Espresso Addict 10:21, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We haven't discussed it really. I set it up, but it was never my intention that only I should edit it - Far from it, as I wouldn't have the time to maintain it like that along with all the other things I want to do. At least, that was my understanding. So, my opinion is that you should certainly add to it if you see a need to update or expand it. If a need comes for there to be some coordination to the edits of it, I am sure that it could always be discussed as would be the case for any other articles, I think. But I wouldn't want to presume too much myself in thinking the time is now, but perhaps others have a different view?  DDStretch  (talk) 11:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think, decent Cheshire articles willing, we should aim to update it every month. (At least then if we miss, it will still get updated every few months...) I'll have a think about a shortlist for the various slots, and post some thoughts to the portal talk page for discussion. Espresso Addict 11:42, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea! Thanks.  DDStretch  (talk) 11:48, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Now posted, for those project members who aren't watching the portal page. Espresso Addict 16:06, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cheshire Portal 

message: I've just removed the backlog of tagged but unassessed articles. (The 7 remaining are all glitches in the system of one form or another.) I haven't left comments, as I was keen to get through all the articles in search of portal fodder, but if anyone wants comments on something let me know here or on my talk -- I didn't watch all the articles, so I won't see queries on their talk pages. I'm guessing that my standards might be slightly tighter than previous reviewers (I've assessed a lot for WikiProject Biography, which has rather high standards, particularly with regard to referencing), so do correct me if you feel hard done by.
I don't know if it's worth producing some generic comments on typical stubs & starts and linking them from the template, as a high proportion of them had much the same problems?
We should probably get a bot to summarise the totals for us, but so far, we have:
*GA: 5
*B: 44
*Start: 196
*Stub: 336
*List/dab/other unrecognised: 7 
*Total: 588
There seems to be some confusion over the importance tag, as I suspect some articles (Cheshire, for instance) have been put in high when they should be in top, and others the converse (eg Middlewich).
Now there's just those hundreds of untagged articles languishing unloved in the Cheshire categories... Espresso Addict 02:03, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A bout of assessment 

message: Just a heads-up that the CCC website now has a 'new look', which looks to have trashed all the urls. Sigh. Why do they do these things? Espresso Addict 02:08, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chester City Council website  

message: I suggest that we have the goal of updating the featured article/bio/picture on the portal for September. (I've already completely refreshed the New articles & partially refreshed the DYKs.) I've created a formal Suggestions sub-page, and copied the above suggestions there, so I'd suggest we try to come up with a decision somehow (voting?) there over the next week. (Copied from the Portal talk page for those project members who don't watch the portal page.) Espresso Addict 10:05, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've made three suggestions for the proposed September update at the Portal talk page. Everyone's thoughts most welcome! Espresso Addict 10:28, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Updating the [[Portal:Cheshire|Cheshire Portal]] for September 

message: In between other work on wikipedia, I'm coming to the end of a long period of reading about the origins and early history of Cheshire, and have started to do some initial writing around the subject. I want it to go in the History of Cheshire article, and it could then be used to modify the short summary section in Cheshire. It is possible that a number of articles may be split off from an expanded "History of Cheshire" article, but that will be for the future.
There is a common view that in the early years of Cheshire, its northern border was the River Ribble. For example, we see it in Cheshire and Historic counties of England and it was in History of Cheshire, until I made an early edit partially correcting it, though not entirely in wikipedia-style. I think this oversimplifies a rather uncertain state of affairs, and it isn't a consensus view in the available published literature, which I'm gathering together now. I've been thinking how to represent this in articles. One really needs to almost duplicate a lot of the content of the relevant parts of Volume 1 of Victoria History of the County of Chester (VCH) to get an accurate and authoritative extended argument about the state and origins of this uncertain situation. At the moment the articles that discuss it (apart from the one I've already edited) give a misleading picture of a strength of consensus amongst the various sources that discuss the history of Cheshire. My personal conclusion is that, if one has to say yes or no to the idea that the northern border was the Mersey rather than the Ribble during this period, then yes would be the more accurate answer, contrary to the views expressed in the wikipedia articles and in a very few sources. That is because I think the VCH is likely to be the more accurate, and it explains how an administrative issue to do with binding the Domesday book may have given rise to the idea that there was a closer asssociation between Cheshire and the land "Inter Ripam et Mersham" (what was later to become South Lancashire) than was actually the case. However, there is a need to give a neutral, balanced view of what the sources say. Over the next week, I'll be beginning to write about this and other aspects of the History of Cheshire. I raised the issue of the northern border some time ago on Talk:Historic counties of England and got effectively no feedback, except that another editor raised a similar issue of that article also not giving a true picture of the state of affairs for Rutland, which I have also partly verified by reading various sources (F.A. Youngs 1991 "Guide the Local Administrative Units of England: II Northern England" was useful in this case.) Let me work on it for a bit, and then see what you think.  DDStretch  (talk) 11:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The paltry state of that article was the main thing that set me off in thinking about massively expanding it. Yes, I do have that book, and it forms part of the body of sources that dispute the idea that the northern border was the Ribble. I have (quite) a few others. My first task is adding all the references to the books I possess that are relevant and will be used by me in a section at the end. That way, I can easily put in-text references as Notes to the individual page numbers in a Notes section. I know about the "panhandle" as it was in existence up to 1974. Given that I was born in 1953, it formed part of the old borders of Cheshire that I knew well, but is now is just a fading memory or something new to younger editors. There have been other border changes as well: the border was changed to follow the Manchester Ship Canal rather than the Mersey, and a huge chunk dangling down from Manchester was given to Manchester at around the same time. Taxal was originally in Cheshire, but was transferred to Derbyshire some time ago, and, in return, Cheshire got Kettleshulme. There are a few other interesting border or jurisdictional issues (Threapwood springs to mind). I'm toying with an idea of having a series of outline maps giving the changing borders in a kind of time-line, so they can be seen in context a bit.  DDStretch  (talk) 12:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Adding the references is certainly a good first step. I guess you might have to be careful of OR in interpreting the different sources. I don't know how far one can go in saying 'A is more reliable than B', or 'the consensus of reliable sources is x' before getting into murky OR waters. I'd be far more comfortable doing it in my real-life specialism than in local history/geography which is just a hobby. The maps would be simply great, if you can produce them in a way that doesn't infringe anyone's copyright. Espresso Addict 13:31, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The [[History of Cheshire]]

message: I now see that WP:UKCITIES has been flagged up as being only an essay, and not a guideline or policy (as it hasn't gone through some difficult-to-find process which relies on consensus to apply). This means that proposals up for GA or FAC status can possibly fail because they do not conform to WP:CITIES, which can be inappropriate for UK settlements (see later about a possible "Catch 22" situation).
Since the problems of using WP:CITIES for UK settlements prompted the writing of WP:UKCITIES in the first place, I can see that things may well become more difficult for a while. However, reading WP:PG, Help:Modifying and creating policy, and WP:Policy, including WP:Policy#How are policies started? shows what I think is a worrying amount of equivocation over what is being talked about: "Policy" or "Guideline".
However, what I glean from reading the documents suggests that a way to provide a justification for a future proposal of a guideline or policy is to show how it has been successfully used by editors. And so, I suggest that this should encourage us to avoid the potential problems of GA and FAC proposals at this time and merely provide evidence for successful implementation of  WPUKCITIES by making use of it in all our settlement articles.
Unless a Catch-22 situation is imposed upon us, i.e. "WP:UKCITIES can't have been successfully used if articles using WP:UKCITIES have not yet achieved GA or FA status articles. And articles cannot achieve GA or FA articles unless they use WP:CITIES, rather than WP:UKCITIES", then all will be well in the end.  DDStretch  (talk) 12:23, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Perhaps a greater impetus to not go for GA or FAC status at this time?

message: If you take a look at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Waterways#Lock, tunnel names, etc, you will see that an editor has embarked upon making a very large number of contentious edits and page-moves to canal-related topics without prior discussion. Despite the contentious nature of them, edits and page moves have continued to be made, even after their contentious nature have been pointed out to that editor. Anderton Boat Lift (within the scope of our project) has already suffered from such editing, and it may well be that other lock-structures within the scope of this project may be affected. Can I ask that people be alert to any such edits and attempt to revert them? The problem is of edit-wars beginning, but I thought a warning here may well be appropriate.  DDStretch  (talk) 09:22, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've watched Anderton Boat Lift. Checking my style guides has not provided any canal-specific guidance, but normal UK English usage would be to capitalise words occurring after the proper noun in geographical names (the lock at Foxton; Foxton Lock). I suspect, however, this is an area where style varies in different countries, so complete consistency across an international project might not be possible. Espresso Addict 14:42, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I totally agree. In the discussion, in which I have played a major part, I provided a set of authoritative sources showing that "Foxton Locks" (and, incidentally, "Foxton Inclined Plane") were the correct capitalization scheme, but this evidence was ignored and his own opinion was merely repeated along with yet more page moves and editing of articles. This has caused some considerable unhappiness in the Waterways project, and sorting out the mess that has happened is not easy, and, in at least one case, will require admin intervention to undo a clumsy page-move that demonstrates the user making the contentious edits and page moves simply does not have a clear enough understanding of English naming schemes to know what to do when operating unilaterally. We need to be a bit vigilant for a while, as it is still not yet clear that the editing and page-moving without prior discussion will stop.  DDStretch  (talk) 15:51, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Canal-related potential problem

message: I have just spent a large amount of time reverting a very large number of edits that seemed to be intent on removing all Cheshire-related templates and renaming all Cheshire-related categories from various village and parish articles for settlements and places within Warrington. The user who did this was User:DShamen. I'm not sure how to view these edits. I certainly felt they should be reverted, but the number of them and the effects that the edits took struck me as being quite disruptive, though I have not reported them anywhere, thinking that an assumption of good faith might still be made. You can see how many were involved by viewing my own contributions (there were around 27, and Peter also reverted one for similar reasons to the ones I gave.) I think we need to be alert to such changes, and wonder if there is any means by which a mass-revert can be carried out that would not be so time-consuming.  DDStretch  (talk) 23:29, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've just noticed that the changes are much more extensive, extending over many other places (like parks, parliamentary constituencies, and so on) of Warrington-related articles. The pattern of edits is reminiscent of an historic-counties advocate (because of the removal of Cheshire templates and categories from Warrington-related articles), but I'm not too sure. What do others think? I don't have the time to go through look at each of them and revert the inappropriate ones.  DDStretch  (talk) 23:41, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have also dropped him a note, though it might be a bit heavy handed as I think he might now have stopped. I'm not sure what to do other than go down his contributions list, reverting all the changes manually; I'm not aware of a mass revert tool and I think rollback should not be used for them as they are not simple vandalism. If he starts up again, then there might well be call for requesting a block, but it would probably be best applied by someone outside this project. Espresso Addict 00:15, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

text: If one looks at the editing history of Culcheth and Glazebury and then on User talk:DShamen, you will see that he anonymously re-imposed the edits in one case and then posted a message on his talk page that complains that we were "rather touchy people". I have robustly replied, as I think, given his prior editing experience of wikipedia, it is reasonable to expect that he should have realised that such radical edits would be better discussed first.  DDStretch  (talk) 14:17, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Wholesale removal of Cheshire templates and the changing of Cheshire-related categories for Warrington-related articles

message: Could someone give Middlewich a peer review?  I'm thinking of submitting it for GA again (despite  what I've said previously) and would appreciate it if someone else could take a look.  Thanks. Salinae 22:31, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I could have a look at it if you like, Salinae, but I don't have a handle on how the GA review system works, so it would be a general look. Espresso Addict 23:34, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be good, thanks.  I think I'm a bit too close to it now. Salinae 11:32, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Middlewich peer review

message: I've just updated the portal for November, but there were only five new articles/stubs listed on the main project page. I'm sure there have been more? Espresso Addict 11:25, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Any more new articles for November portal update? 

message: I'm now back from a succession of funerals, etc within my family, and have noticed that a large number of edits have been made to Chester which may have resulted in some problems with the article. Given its importance within our project, I wondered if we could take a closer look at it and try to sort it out a bit more. A major task would be to make the structure fit exactly within the guidelines given in WP:UKCITIES. I've tried to tidy some of the changes up, but I'm still not fully with it, given the things I've had to do over the past few weeks, and so any extra eyes would be a good idea. There may be  an issue to do with the inclusion, removal, etc of the city coat of arms, where it might be added, and how to deal with a viewpoint that states that some kind of disclaimer is required to it (sdee the article's history for some background to this, as well as User talk:Twinney12 and User talk:Excirial for a bit more background.)  DDStretch  (talk) 13:19, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Attention needed for [[Chester]] and related articles