Talk:London/Archive 1

message: This represents a solution to a problem: ambiguous place names.  This should be discussed on naming conventions! -- LS
:Yes, it solves ambiguity, but at the cost of ease of use, and that is a too high price.  If I write an article on something else and want to mention London, it is the difference between keeping track of and writing ((London)) or ((United Kingdom/London|London)).  This is a stupid approach.  If we want to make it complicated to link to pages, we could just aswell introduce unambiguous object identifiers. -- LA2
::I agree; London should definitely have a page of its own (and a reference from this one). -- Pinkunicorn
::Please, "just say no" to almost all subpages.  There are almost always good reasons not to have them.  There are better ways to disambiguate.  If necessary, this can be moved to London, England, but I'd say don't do that: the London is, as everybody knows, in England, and London, Ohio (if there is one--there probably is) can live comfortably at London, Ohio with a link from London.  No one will be confused by this.  :-) -- LMS
:::Note: the history of the above conversation before it was moved here is at . Graham87 (talk) 11:34, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  ambiguity 

message: Where did the flag come from, there's no reference to it in the text and it it far too big. Is it the flag of London or of the City of London? Mintguy
: It's the flag of the City of London, not London itself.   Also, London wasn't a Celtic town first: "We can be reasonably certain that there were no major sttlements in or around London at the time of the [Roman] conquest." (Dominic Perring, Roman London) JohnKozak
: I think the flag is wrong - it represents the old City, one tiny part of what the article is about. If we can't figure out which flag it should be - and that could be difficult?! - then I think we should remove this one anyway as it is a little misleading - in a way ... mmmmmmm yes come to think of it the flag should probably be in the separate article on the City, so it can't really be in both places can it??? -- Nevilley 21:15 Feb 22, 2003 (UTC)
: I don't know much about the flag and London.  But I convert the gif file to png file - the preferrable format for Wikipedia.  Could somebody delete the gif file? ---- Wshun
: The flag may be that of the City of London, but the corresponding shield was used on marker posts at the edge of the old Greater London local government area as far afield as Potters Bar.EdH 02:01, Dec 17, 2003 (UTC)
:: Are you sure it wasn't the edge of land owned by the Corporation of London? They do often use their arms to mark their property even outside the City itself. The GLC had its own arms  which it should have been using, rather than appropriating someone else's. Marnanel 20:21, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: flag

message: Re: the first sentence. I like the choice of first sentence but is the list of great cities given in comparison the right choice? The ones listed /are/ great cities but so are so many other places! Pete 09:58 25 Jun 2003 (UTC)
: I agree, rewording needed, Fantasy 11:10 25 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Personally, I find the first sentence just silly.  One could argue endlessly about what exactly are the "great cities of the world" and if you feel like mentioning such a thing in an encyclopedia, it would be more appropriate in an article of its own.  --anon
: I've come round to something closer to your view since writing the above a week ago. Question is, what to change the sentence to? IMO something as anodyne as "London is the capital city of  the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" is too boring. Any ideas? Pete 09:13 2 Jul 2003 (UTC)
::I've just deleted it until someone get a better idea. The current one is just not good. (or better: not a "fact" ;-) Fantasy 09:17 2 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Now is something like
London is the capital city of the UK. In its guises from the capital of Roman Britannica to the centre of British Empire and to contributing a quarter of the GDP to the world's fourth largest economy, London has been one of the world's most important centres of commerce and politics for 1500 years.
POV? Pete 14:10 2 Jul 2003 (UTC)
:No. it's almost poetic. I'm putting it in. Just saying 'London is the capital of the UK and England' is just too plain boring. Mintguy
::Heh. A bit of a lyricism never goes down well on the Wikipedia. I see now the phrase has been watered back down again! Pete 21:52, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: The first sentence (old talk)

message: A population of 13,945,000 for "London metropolitan area" seems a bit excessive.  I checked the reference and they seem to be including all of the surrounding counties (Essex, Hertfordshire, etc) as part of this figure.  And then they count Berkshire plus the new Unitary Authorities that were formerly Berkshire.   ( 09:25 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I agree. That number seems quite excessive. The figures I have read are typically closer to 7.5 million. Also, this article claims London is the 2nd largest conurbation in Europe after Moscow. I would say London is 3rd or 4th. Moscow is definitely the largest conurbation in Europe, but I'm pretty sure the Paris conurbation is bigger than London's. Also, if we consider Istanbul a European city, then London should be ranked behind that. Summary- Moscow is biggest, then Paris, then Istanbul, THEN London. I know the standards for conurbations are inconsistent, but I think this ranking is probably accurate. I'd like to know your opinions. -Dan
According to the UN Population Division figures, which compare UN Urban Areas to each other, London is indeed smaller than Paris and Istanbul.  If we consider Istanbul a European city (a reasonable assumption, given Turkey's bid for ascension to the European Union), then it goes like this:
1. Moscow (10.5m)
2. Paris (9.8m)
3. Istanbul (9.4m)
4. London (7.6m)
I'm going to update the page to reflect this.
--69.141.221.171 19:08, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Population of metropolitan area

message: "71% class themselves as white, 6% as Indian, 5.3% as black African and 4.8% as black Caribbean."
That leaves a 12.9% for others and "not saying", which is a lot. Any more breakdown? Andy G 19:54, 15 Aug 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: 12.9% for others 

message: I notice that the weather in London has been redirected to the London page. I think that link is used by some pages as an example of a broken link, however. An example is on the Wikipedia:User preferences help page, but I believe there are others. Having this link appear as one that exists may cause confusion. So is the redirect necessary? Ajr 12:34, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: London's weather

message: What do people mean when they call London the capital city of England and of the UK?  They can't mean that the City of London is, because the legislative and judicial and executive branches all live in the City of Westminster.  And Greater London itself doesn't have a city charter... So is London the capital city of the UK? Morwen 18:57, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Capital city?

message: User:pigsonthewing; yes, "large enough to be among the largest" is a tautology. "Large enough to be among the largest of cities" isn't, and avoids making the incorrect statement that Greater London is a city. Or, if it doesn't,
somebody needs to come up with another phrasing that also avoids making
that statement.
:Greater London is a city in sense (1) of the word (A center of population, commerce, and culture; a town of significant size and importance.), but not in sense (2) (A large incorporated town in Great Britain, usually the seat of a bishop, with its title conferred by the Crown.).  Instisting that 2 is the only true definition is pure prescriptivism and unsubstantiated by usage.  Morwen 20:56, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Largeness

message: The are lots of images on this page, which is great. However remember to keep them spaced out a bit if you can - if they are crushed close together on a low res screen then the layout is totally screwed on higher-res screens. Maybe an HTML expert could rig up a table so that all the pictures neatly went down the right-hand side of the page no matter what screen size is being used? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 13:13, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Given my modest knowledge of HTML, I don't think it's possible to set up a single table to be anything but rectangular. The best thing I can think of is a tabular photo gallery at the end of the page, to thin out the images within the text. -Smack 00:58, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

text: An HTML expert wouldn't use a table for non- tabular data. They'd use Cascading Style Sheets. Andy Mabbett 01:11, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)
replies: text:  I guess that's why I asked for the help of an expert then ... cos I clearly didn't know what I was talking about :=) Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 01:52, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

text:  Absolutely.  The images on the page look rather poor in part because the CSS layout code that wraps them has mostly been cut'n'pasted in (that's why St Stephens Tower took a huge amount of horizontal space it didn't).  I'm going through all the images and fixing their markup (and making sure they look good on browsers other than Internet Explorer).  I might also reorder them a bit (partly for logic, partly for layout).  I'll post here once I'm done - I'd appreciate it if y'all could take a gander and see if the improvement is sufficient. -- Finlay McWalter 01:44, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)
replies: text:  I appreciate that you are in the middle of changing things... but at the moment you've reverted to the problem I tried to get rid of earlier today.. my screen res is perhaps too high on this computer (1400xsomething) but London Eye picture is starting to the left (and down) of St. Stephen's Tower picture rather than directly below it. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 01:52, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Spoke to soon... now it seems to be the St. Stephen's Tower left of the Palace of Westminster one... London Eye is further down. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 01:54, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sorry to be screwing you around like this. Once I'm done, I'll ask you to send me a screenshot. Armed with that, i'll put in magic BR-clear tags (which will prevent the floating images from piling up horizontally on oneanother) and it should look great. I can reproduce the tower/palace stackup now by reducing my font size, so I should be able to fix that one myself. All of this is partially caused because we have such a preponderance if images when compared with the text, and the real solution is to write more text, or have fewer images. -- Finlay McWalter 02:02, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)
replies: text:  No problem, I'm just pleased you know what's going on and how to work through it. And yes we need more text :) Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 02:13, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

text: Looks great for me... IE6 at 1400x1050 Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 08:02, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Images 

message: Hmm, the page says MCC stands for "Middlesex Country Cricket".  Doesn't it really stand for "Marylebone Cricket Club"? -- Finlay McWalter 02:53, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: You are correct. Middlesex just play their county games there. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 08:02, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: MCC?

message: Was a bit of a dissapointing read ;)  London is one of the biggest centres of culture on the world, and all the culture section has is 4 orchestras?  I don't know enough about the topic, but surely we could come up with a bit about theatre, opera, live music, art galleries, museums, special events? --Steinsky 00:32, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Culture section

message: Why is here London named as capital of 4th largest economy, when page for GDP says that UK is 7th?
Tomislav
: 4th is the gross figure, 7th is when re-stated according to purchasing power parity rather than fx rate. Which is more correct is arguable, and economists argue about it. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 12:04, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: GDP

message: What is the source for the claim that London is the second most populous conurbation in Europe, and which city is supposed to be more populous? 
It seems from other articles that Moscow and Istanbul are
definitely larger, and Paris may well be also. Cambyses 20:25, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I've now worked out that this is indeed the point at issue, but the confusion is not mine but the article's. I'm not referring to the paragraph on population, but to the very first sentence in the article, which claims that London, "with a population of over 7 million", is the second-largest conurbation in Europe. I would take "conurbation" as synonymous with "metropolitan area" (indeed, the article on one redirects to the other), in which case the sentence implies that London is the same thing as the London metropolitan area, and has a population of "over seven million". Anyway, now I understand what's going on, I'll see if I can effect a subtle change.... Cambyses 14:16, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

text: The Met boundary is now coterminous with Greater London, so that removes one definition.  However, there is still telephone London ;) Morwen - Talk 15:59, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Population? 

message: What's the rationale for deleting the Iain Sinclair link?  And why "The Waste Land"? - it's only marginally about London.
:Fair points. I was just generally tidying up and decided that, as there was a London in fiction page elsewhere (even though a stub), this page should just have a few major highlights. I wasn't sure Iain Sinclair was significant enough to be mentioned in a one-paragraph summary of three hundred years of London literature (though on that basis I really should have cut Hornby as well), and The Waste Land got in on the basis of its literary stature even though the London content is partial. But I wouldn't defend either decision to the death. Harry R 12:54, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Book List

message: I don't really get it. In some articles the former city names are added without problems, while on others the former names get edited out. Could someone enlighten me what's wrong with London (formerly Londinium)? Halibutt 11:09, Jun 14, 2004 (UTC)
*That piece of information is mentioned in the very next sentence anyway. To me, even that seems overly prominent for something that hasn't been true for  over 1500 years (does it really need to be in bold?), but we certainly don't need it twice in the intro and then mentioned again in the history section. Harry R 16:59, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  former names 

message: We have population figures, but how many people are employed in London? There must be a lot who commute. Edward 00:15, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  How many people work in London 

message: Image image:antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0304/london_iss_full.jpg was added by an IP address, replacing the previous picture, but appears broken so has been removed. --VampWillow 19:05, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: New Image

message: Please let me know whether you see white space to the left of the photo of Trafalgar Square in the London attractions section. As I view it User:Boothy443 has created it three times. He says it isn't there. Can an article appear differently to different users? Wincoote 08:11, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Is there white space or not?