Talk:Addington, London

message: Village? In Croydon? Secretlondon (talk) 22:22, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Croydon wasn't always as big as it is now.  Although Addington is technically part of Croydon, there is a lot of green space between Croydon proper and Addington Village, so it is still relatively isolated.  To reinforce the point, the road that runs through it is called 'Addington Village Road' and was part of the main A2022 before the bypass (Kent Gate Way) was built in the 1970's. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 15:33, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

message: Uakari, I see nothing in the guidelines you refer to that says what tense should be used. You have also failed to comply with other guidelines that state the historic county of a place can be mentioned in the lead. Refering to the historic county in the present tense does not contravene the guidelines you mention because the tense used is a grammatical, not a factual, matter. Past events can be mentoned with a present tense if the context allows, which in this case it does. I have inserted a rather pointless citation to illustrate the point. It refers specifically to other parts of London but the point of the citation is the tense used, which relates directly to your argument. BTW, please do not revert detail referenced with a reliable secondary source, which this is. To avoid doubt, this reference was published in 1996, well after 1974, or 1965. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 10:07, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Using the present tense implies that the area concerned is still in the stated historic county, which is not the case, and is specifically against the guidelines in paragraph 3 of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_UK_geography/How_to_write_about_counties#:~:text=Avoid%20using%20headings%20that%20arrange%20the%20history%20of,A%20note%20on%20the%20geology%20of%20the%20territory. I fail to see what you mean by 'a grammatical, not a factual, matter'. Using the present tense implies that the persistence of historic counties is a fact, whereas the guidelines specifically state that it is not. What is your specific objection to writing: 'Prior to 1965, Addington was in the historic county of Surrey'? I also notice you have not been consistent in adding historic county information to London areas. You have mainly done so for areas outside the area with the post-town LONDON, thus violating WP:NPOV. To be consistent, you need to add historic county information to ALL London neighbourhoods outside the City of London, and keep the same tense: Westminster and Piccadilly as much as Addington or Aperfield. It seems this is a pet issues for you, but individual personal beliefs do not trump Wikipedia guidelines, which have been reached by consensus. Your suggestion to alter how historic counties are referred to was not adopted, as per the discussion here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_UK_geography/How_to_write_about_counties#Request_for_Comment_-_Proposed_change_to_guidelines_on_how_to_write_about_counties. You are thus causing a lot of correction work to every random London neighbourhood article where you have inserted historic county information in the present tense, which is inconsiderate. user:MRSC may also wish to comment here. For the reasons stated, I am again reverting your changes to this article. Uakari (talk) 14:14, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Uakari, as Roger 8 Roger stated, there are other guidelines that state that the historic county can be mentioned in the lead. I would object to writing "was in the historic county of Surrey" as this would mislead readers by implying that the historic county of Surrey was abolished. The area was removed from the administrative county of Surrey. The fact this area is no longer within the area of Surrey County Council (the non-metropolitan county of Surrey) does not mean the area is not part of the historic county of Surrey. As for your suggestion regarding consistency, I do not see any issue in adding historic county information to all areas in Greater London, as many articles already have - including those for inner-conurbation areas that are part of the LONDON post town. You have raised Roger 8 Roger's proposal to change a set of guidelines regarding the default meaning of the word "county" on Wikipedia from several years ago; I do not see how this is relevant to this discussion, which is about whether Addington's location in the historic county of Surrey should be mentioned as being "in the historic county of Surrey", alongside the informally defined "south London", the local authority district (LB Croydon) and the ceremonial county of Greater London. PlatinumClipper96 (talk) 16:29, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

text: PlatinumClipper96 The wording I suggested does not imply that Surrey as a county no longer persists, just that it no longer exists as a historic county 'with the former boundaries', as per the wording of the guidelines. The historic county of Surrey 'with the former boundaries' was indeed abolished when the County of London was created in 1889. Humans established counties and humans can and do change them: that's what human geography is. Then Addington ceased in 1965 to be part of that newly-established county of Surrey, so perhaps better wording would be: 'Historically, it was in the county of Surrey.' But again, this would need to be done for ALL areas of London outside the City of London, or not at all. Using the present tense implies that Surrey, as a historic county 'with the former boundaries', persists to this day, and that Addington is presently part of that entity. This is not only false but against the guidelines/consensus. The complex history of changes to counties is why in my view it is better to leave this information out of the lead altogether and explain it in the history section instead (in the past tense). I would agree that a lot of irrational, unilateral and unsupported edits are taking place to give false information that historic counties persist 'with their former boundaries', and these keep happening even when the matter has been resolved by consensus or no change in consensus. Therefore I would support MRSC's suggestion of a topic ban, if this also makes it easier to revert edits that state or imply the persistence of historic counties 'with their former boundaries'. How could this be implemented? The proposal I linked is relevant because it involves a discussion about whether historic counties 'still exist with their former boundaries', and the result was that there was no change to the consensus that they do not. Uakari (talk) 17:32, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: A tense debate