User talk:Dr Greg/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Links to a redirection page

Thanks for the "heads-up". As it's >12 months ago, it's difficult (at my age) to recall my thought processes at the time - probably I was concentrating on getting the list of closed stations complete, itself a job and a half. Most times, when insering a redirect (a different task), I don't change the link, so that the connection is shown - perhaps I was thinking along those lines. As to retracing my steps, I can't promise this, but I'll try to spot the obvious cases from my contributions list, if it goes back that far. Else I'm stumped. Bloody amateur!! Folks at 137 (talk) 19:12, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Re: Chrisbot

I share my computer with my family, so they unhappily accept to let the bot run in the background. I didn't (due to my bro's needing to go on the computer strait away) have the time to do the uploading to swap the icons. You can do it yourself if you want - but in my experience it can be a week before MediaWiki's cache updates so whether it's today or tomorrow isn't going to change anything. ChrisDHDR 18:22, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

new icon templates

i read your comment on the "route diagram: templatepage".

go for your proposed project!! as i said in my little contribution, spoorstrip, to which they refer you, is outdated in the icons it has and difficult to use.

i'm trying my own project, off and on--depending on work, of changing the icon names to a sort of "wiki-english" with simpler rules and more sensisible naming of icons. see my sandbox page for examples.

keep in touch. Dkpintar (talk) 07:02, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Rhostyllen station

Hi, Thanks for sorting that muck up out. I worked the Chester line for yonks and was never sure which side of Ruabon Road Tunnel the halt was supposed to have been on. Now I realise why! I should get stub articles out for all the stations on the Salop-Chester line in the next week or so. BTW - is there a way of easiliy checking which station entries have had an update or are new as that would be very useful to me. Thanks, Eramaps (talk) 11:26, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

No problem. As you may by now have realised, the NPE map you linked to from your article does show where the station is, if only you'd noticed! Are you aware how your watchlist works? See Help:Watching pages for details. The "Moves, creations and deletions" section tells you how to watch a page that doesn't yet exist, assuming you know its name. Apart from that, there's no easy way to check for articles yet to be created, but if you know what category they are likely to appear in, you could try the category method suggested in the "Alternatives to watchlists" section of that help page. --Dr Greg (talk) 18:55, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

P.S. I've taken the liberty (not being a Welsh speaker) of adding an IPA pronunciation to the Rhostyllen railway station article. You might like to check its accuracy (click on the pronunciation itself for the Welsh pronunciation guide I consulted). --Dr Greg (talk) 20:20, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Thanks for the watchlist tips; I'll do some reading on that. I'm not a Welsh speaker myself either but I've been involved here long enough to know how to pronounce nearly all the place names. Yes, your IPA pronunciation looks right although I had to flick back and forth for a few minutes to work it out! The stress symbol is right too; stress is nearly always on the penultimate syllable in Welsh. I have now put up articles for everything south of Wrexham. Eramaps (talk) 16:25, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Join us

Hello, Dr Greg/Archive 2! Thank you for your recent contributions to one of Wikipedia's Greater Manchester-related articles. Given the interest we're assuming you've expressed by your edits, have you considered joining WikiProject Greater Manchester? It's a user-group dedicated to improving the overall quality of all Greater Manchester-related content. There is a discussion page for sharing ideas as well as developing and getting tips on improving articles. The project has in-house specialists to support and facilitate your ideas. If you would like to join, simply add your name to the list of participants. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask at the project talk page. We hope to be working with you in the future!

It would be a privilege to have someone like you at our user-groupSansonic (talk) 18:18, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

RE: Commons rail icons

Thanks for showing me but you could have at leased fixed it yourself since you knew it was broken. ChrisDHDR 09:24, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't know how to write a robot to fix all the Hungarian Wikipedia articles, or all the articles on all the other language Wikipedias! -- Dr Greg  talk  21:00, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Template:Blackpool & Fleetwood Branch Lines

On this template you have Maudland as a terminus off the line to Longridge, facing away from the ECML. [1] and the Clearing House diagram on the article for Preston station and others make me feel that the plan of the area may be more complex than that, although historical changes of layout make it hard to tell.

Incidentally I came back to this area to find out more about Maxwell House station (look at my username and do some maths). I thought at first that some Preston fan had vandalised the article based on the name of a relative of mine, Jim Maxwell, who was one of the "young invincibles" (He was the involved in the move which led to the ironic penalty here), and a famous brand name. I thought you might find this amusing. Britmax (talk) 10:00, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

The confusion is over different stations called Maudland that never co-existed. The original passenger Maudland railway station was a west-facing terminus to the Preston and Wyre Joint Railway[2]. Later a goods-only east-west connecting line between the Preston & Wyre and the Longridge line was built immediately to the north, and around that same time, or possibly a little earlier, Maudland station was demolished. Later still, Maudland goods station was built on more-or-less the same spot, but this was an east-facing terminus connecting only to the Longridge line. In 1885, the goods connecting line to the Fleetwood line was removed, and replaced by a south-facing curve linking the Longridge line to the WCML.[3] I've taken some interest in the Longridge line and haven't been able to find any evidence for any layout other than as described above. So there were two Maudland stations (1 passenger, 1 goods) at different times. I see no point in showing both on the same map, as one is relevant only to the Fleetwood line and the other is relevant only to the Longridge line.

Maxwell House station was named after a nearby building, but didn't survive many years. I presume you've read what I wrote about it in the Preston railway station article (which gives the online references I used). -- Dr Greg  talk  21:00, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification here. I have read the part of the Preston article tht deals with the station: it's interesting to see that spats between railway companies are nothing new. Britmax (talk) 23:23, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Maps and plans of station

Hi I saw that you make maps and plans. Could you make me some that good plans, of station?Yusek (talk) 18:23, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Maybe. It depends if you can supply me with a good source to make it from, and I do not have a lot of time spare to do this, so there might be a long wait! -- Dr Greg  talk  19:18, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Kenneth Manley / Poulton-le-Fylde edits

I've tracked nearly a dozen bizarre edits referring to this non-existent Manley character across WP, all from an IP range in the US. The edits cover Poulton-le-Fylde to Charles Bronson and several in between. My contributions page lists these.

New vandalism is cropping up again after my first set of reverts - can you suggest the next course of action, or support me if I need to elevate this issue? I realise I'm not exactly following the protocol here, but the reference to Poulton and the same IP range suggests it's one determined nutter. Raze (talk) 22:00, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm no expert on this. If all the edits came from the same IP address it would be easier. I think that an increasing level of warnings on the user talk page would automatically attract the attention of an administrator who would consider blocking action. As these edits come from different addresses we can't 100% be sure it's the same person (but it seems very likely), so you can't really jump in with a level-4 warning. I'm not exactly sure of the protocol in a case like this. According to WP:VANDAL, you can report repeated vandalism via WP:Administrator intervention against vandalism, but I'm not sure whether the conditions there are being met? -- Dr Greg  talk  00:56, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

A little note to show my apprication

I would like to say thanks for organising the 'Article Alerts' section on WikiProject Lancs and Cumb. It looks great. And to show my apprication I would like to give you a Banestar.

The WikiProject Lancashire and Cumbria Award Thank you for your contribtion relating to WikiProject Lancashire and Cumbria. Your recent contribution has helped our WikiProject move closer to our goals. I am looking foward to seeing your futher contributions.93gregsonl2 (talk) 19:41, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Garstang and Knot End Railway

Dr Greg, There may be some good new material added by Tangerine (from Blackpool) but the damage to source references made it hard for me to see, and very difficult to recant. I reverted to the last clean edition before your "clean-up after" - I hope you understand. I will go through the added material and try and tie it back to the references quoted. A new '3-day old' editor is already laying vandalism claims!' Oxonhutch (talk) 20:44, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

As far as I could tell, Tangerine's edits added no new content and were purely cosmetic/technical. Unfortunately Wikipedia's "differences" engine can get confused and get paragraphs out of alignment, making some edits appear more complicated than they really are. I looked at the formatted versions side-by-side and, by eye, couldn't spot any obvious changes beyond

• delinking of dates in the first edit, which is in line with current policy, and therefore not a problem
• using citation templates in the second edit, the movement of an image and reclassification of the references. I agree with you that the use of citation templates is not mandated. And, as my clean-up edit indicates, repeating the full reference to the same book is pointless. The separation into "notes" and "references" (or other equivalent section titles) is also perfectly acceptable and, in my view, makes much sense when there are multiple references to the same source.

I have no objection to your reversion. (Having said that, I didn't carefully compare the versions word-by-word, so it's possible I missed some other change, but I doubt it.) -- Dr Greg  talk  22:19, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Railway station

Thanks for the comment. I have added that as I think it is important to have a link to railway station in the articles, otherwise there is no definition of the term. I do agree that it is clumsy; can you think of a better way of doing it? Twiceuponatime (talk) 08:46, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Medlar with Wesham

Hi Dr. It's not a big thing, but technically it is the civil parish which has declared itself a town, and therefore the town status belongs to Medlar with Wesham, not merely Wesham. The parish council styles itself Medlar with Wesham Town Council. Skinsmoke (talk) 15:14, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

OK, I'm happy to take your word for that. Are you happy to leave my current wording describing the town as "Wesham" (which is what almost everyone, including Ordnance Survey, calls it in practice)? -- Dr Greg  talk  23:24, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

As I said, not a big thing. In common language we refer to lots of settlements as a town, although, strictly speaking, the only actual legal definition of a town in England and Wales is where a civil parish has opted to use the title, thereby gaining a Mayor, rather than a Chairman of the Council (can't see any other advantage). So, for example, although everyone calls Accrington a town, legally it isn't, as it is an unparished area. On Wikipedia, in the geographical sense of the word, we tend to extend the definition to settlements that have a market charter, or were previously Municipal Boroughs. Some would argue that there are other indicators, such as the presence of a town hall; others that any area that was an Urban District previously is effectively a town. No idea whether Wesham has a market charter or not, and I don't know the area well enough to know whether people think of the place as a town or a village. It would be interesting to know whether it was referred to as a town prior to 1974, when it was part of Fylde Rural District. At that time, the civil parish didn't have the option of adopting town status. I have a sneeking suspicion the parish council merely declared itself to be a town as the good councillors didn't want to be outdone by Kirkham. Who knows, we could finish up with a town within a town! Incidentally, I was intrigued that you say the Ordnance Survey describe Wesham (or anywhere) as a town. On second thoughts, I think you may have meant that they describe Medlar with Wesham as Wesham. If the latter, you are partly right. They actually use all three: Wesham for the larger settlement; Medlar for the smaller settlement to the north of the M55 motorway, east of Corner Row; and Medlar with Wesham for the civil parish (see Ordnance Survey Election Maps and turn on the parish layer). Skinsmoke (talk) 04:22, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, as you have already worked out for yourself, Ordnance Survey don't indicate town status on their maps at all, I meant just that, on their Explorer map, they label the settlement as "Wesham" and the parish as "MEDLAR-WITH-WESHAM". (And the built-up area of Wesham looks like less than 10% of the area of the whole parish.) I must admit it looks pretty small for a town and I'm sure lots of people regard it as a suburb of Kirkham. The map I was consulting can be seen at Lancashire County Council's MARIO site.

While we are having this conversation, do you have any thoughts on hyphenation of these multi-barrelled parish names, such as X-with-Y or P-on-Q. Ordnance Survey seem to be pretty consistent in using the hyphenated form, but Wikipedia is inconsistent and often uses an unhyphenated form "X with Y" etc. -- Dr Greg  talk  00:56, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Aaargh! Hyphenation! Must admit I tend to prefer the unhyphenated version, largely because I work a lot on the List of civil parishes in... pages, and if you put them into a sortable table, hyphenation can really bugger up the alphabetical order. Computers treat a hyphenated word as if it is just one word when sorting, so you can get some very odd results. Ordnance Survey seems to vary from place to place. They tend to prefer hyphenation in Lancashire, but not in some other counties. They have Anderton with Marbury in Cheshire, for example. Ultimately, as the Ordnance Survey use the version notified to them by the District Council, I suspect it comes down to the whim of the clerk who filled in the form that got sent off. Most local authorities seem to be totally inconsistent, using both versions as they see fit on their websites, and in official documents. (If you think it's bad here in England, you want to see how wonderfully anarchic and inconsistent Welsh councils can be: I counted five different spellings of Llannerch-y-medd in one document from Isle of Anglesey County Council! That, incidentally, is one that, according to Welsh grammarians, the Ordnance Survey consistently gets wrong!). Parish councils, who are the ones who really should know, are just as bad! Medlar with Wesham Town Council seems to prefer the unhyphenated version, but they do use both indiscriminately, sometimes on the same webpage. What makes it even more difficult are those combo names, like Lytham St Annes or Norton Radstock or Aldridge-Brownhills. You would expect if anywhere would have a hyphen it would be those, but not necessarily. Then there's the ons and bys and ins, unders and cums, not to mention juxtas! Why on earth is it Newcastle upon Tyne but Newcastle-under-Lyme; Ashton-under-Lyne but Ashton upon Mersey? It would make it a lot easier if we just had a Wikipedia UK policy to ignore the hyphens, as we ignore the stop in St. names (St Helens, not St. Helens), contrary to practice in the United States, where they tend to include the period. Skinsmoke (talk) 03:05, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

End of rant! Skinsmoke (talk) 03:38, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, I take the opposite view that hyphens improve the readability of a sentence, without them there's the possibility of interpreting prepositions such as "with" or "under" as part of the grammatical structure (e.g. as "Medlar", with "Wesham Town Council", ...). But never mind... -- Dr Greg  talk  21:06, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

As a matter of interest, that's the French view also. They always have the hyphen, even for "and" combinations, and even include it for "St" names, which are always spelled in full. They, for example, have Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Carhaix-Plougeur, Saint-Gaudens or Boulogne-sur-Mer. The only exception is for "the" names, so it is still Le Havre. I can appreciate that system, as it is at least consistent, and would give us Bredbury-and-Romiley, Saint-Helens and Irlam-o'-th' Heights (the last one looks a bit odd, to say the least!).

I get the impression practice is changing. Thirty years ago, you would always see Ashton-under-Lyne, although today Ashton under Lyne appears to be making inroads (as, unfortunately, is Ashton Under Lyne, which just looks plain wrong!). Dehyphenation also appears to be happening in Welsh, where Llannerch y medd is now seen as equally correct to Llannerch-y-medd. The Welsh get much more uptight about their convoluted rules on capitalisation, and can get into wonderful arguments justifying Llandrillo-yn-Rhos (or Llandrillo yn Rhos), as opposed to Betws-y-coed (or Betws y coed), which even their nomenclature professionals can get wrong (the Welsh placenames board only last month admitted they and their expert source had got a village on the Isle of Anglesey wrong for years).

Intriguingly, the Germans use the hyphen in a different way completely, to denote subordination to the commune (gemeinde), so you have Heilbronn-Frankenbach, which would translate over here as, for example, Blackpool-Bispham or Manchester-Moston. This means they never use the hyphen for preposition names, and so have Neuenstadt am Kocher, but they do use it, confusingly, for combination names, hence Baden-Württemberg or Neckar-Odenwald, our equivalent being Lytham-St Annes or Norton-Radstock.

Perhaps the Icelanders have the right idea. They just make it all into a single word, as in Vestmannaeyjar, which would work out as Channelislands over here. Funny old world we live in! Skinsmoke (talk) 08:34, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Category:Buildings and structures in Blackburn

You did what I was unsure about and place it in cat:B&S in Blackburn with Darwen. I must admit the relationship between unitary authorities, districts and county is starting to lose me :-) NtheP (talk) 13:39, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

The administrative hierarchy is

• Ceremonial County (e.g. Lancashire)
  • Unitary authority (e.g. Blackburn with Darwen); or (within the Administrative County) district (which may have the status of City, Borough or plain District) (e.g. City of Lancaster)
    • Civil Parish
      • Settlement (town, village, hamlet) (e.g. "Blackburn", "Lancaster, Lancashire")

Not all the levels exist in all locations and not all levels correspond to Wikipedia categories! -- Dr Greg  talk  18:21, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Within the categories at both English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, it seems that "Blackburn" has often been used when really it ought to be "Blackburn with Darwen". -- Dr Greg  talk  11:32, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

IPA

Hi,

Actually, we should only have local dialect for the local pronunciation, not for the generic one. kwami (talk) 23:00, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

My point was (re Carlisle, Cumbria for reference) that what our article says should match what the citation actually says, otherwise what's the point of the citation? But, on second thoughts, the citation also gives a US pronunciation matching yours, so even though I think UK pronunciation should used for a UK place name, it's not worth pursuing this further — in fact I, as UK person, would pronounce it with a (mild) "r" anyway(!) -- Dr Greg  talk  00:24, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I think the point of the conventions is that they should be accessible to all English speakers, not just nationals. So -shire should be transcribed with an /r/ regardless of whether it's pronounced locally, New York shouldn't be "noo york", etc., so that everyone is included. Then if the local pronunciation is notable or not easily predictable (or people just want it regardless) we include that too. Some English people see this as an assault of American English, but then US place names are transcribed with RP vowels, so it goes both ways. And for some reason people only object to /r/ -- they don't seem to mind /h/. I haven't figured that one out yet. kwami (talk) 01:15, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Lancaisire cuisine

Hi Dr. Greg. I was wondering what you make of Mario's Cafe Bar and their record breaking breakfast. Is it a notable business? I ask because I saw you working on Lancaisire cuisine, and I'm across the pond so its hard for me to know what's what with all the pounds and rashers involved. I created an aticle on Mario's that was speedy deleted and it's now under review, so I'm curious as to your opinion (and maybe you have access to better sources than are readily available on Google News?). But don't get me in trouble for canvassing or whatever. I'm just asking you to weigh in as a culinary expert! :) Freakshownerd (talk) 00:28, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Merge discussion for List of UK dialling codes covering Wales

An article that you have been involved in editing, List of UK dialling codes covering Wales , has been proposed for a merge with another article. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. 90.208.56.217 (talk) 03:57, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

User:Wakey82

Hi, Greg. As this person has now resorted to personal abuse, I've reported the matter to WP:ANI. Regards. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 05:00, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Edit to Preston article

Sorry about that, I did mistakenly think you had undone my edit - thanks for the message. Warofdreams talk 20:37, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Four-velocity animation

I have moved the conversation that was here to Talk:Four-velocity#Four-velocity animation, so others may take part. -- Dr Greg  talk  21:33, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I've opted to just get rid of the animation altogether. You were right, it's too misleading. But if you come up with any idea for an accurate animation of anything relating to SR/GR, let me know. I feel like our articles are lacking in those. — Kieff | Talk 20:41, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

West Pennine Moors

Hi, I noticed you edited this article. I hope you don't think I got too carried away but I thought the article was far too bitty just repeating what I suppose is in other articles. I intend to find some more decent refs and see if I can find anything else. I'd appreciate your opinion.--J3Mrs (talk) 22:34, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I haven't had time to review your edits in detail, but you seem to be doing a good job! This article happened to be on my watchlist because I recently reorganised the corresponding category.-- Dr Greg  talk  15:52, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Preston

Hi Dr Greg,

I'd very much appreciate your particular view at Talk:Preston. Naturally I think I've made the best proposal for the article(s), but looking through the archives and the related material you contribute to, I'd feel more comfortable with your blessing and support before changing things around. --Jza84 |  Talk  14:41, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Re: Disambiguating Preston

I appreciate you catching the mistake. But please assume good faith. I wasn't "guessing". It was a simple mistake...it happens. I will change what I can later tonight. --User:Woohookitty ^{Disamming fool!} 00:22, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I believe I got them all. --User:Woohookitty ^{Disamming fool!} 14:12, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks very much. And sorry, I didn't mean to cause any offence. (Unfortunately the naming convention that has been adopted is confusing, even to the locals.) -- Dr Greg  talk  18:47, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Poulton

Hi there, I noticed the recent change you made. Just wondered if you were doing any more work on this tonight, only I'm working on it a bit and I don't want to keep encountering edit conflicts! Not a problem at all if you are, but I'll leave my editing for a bit if you are. Cheers, --BelovedFreak 23:42, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and by the way, I have noticed your edits around the place and was planning to ask you your opinion on Poulton-le-Fylde anyway. I'm hoping to nominate it at WP:GAN soon, so any feedback would be appreciated. You seem to have more understanding/knowledge of rail transport than me (not difficult!) so if you spot any more errors or can add anything, that'd be great. --BelovedFreak 00:01, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

As you will have gathered, I did no more last night. To be honest, I'm not much of an expert on what makes an article GA class, but what you've done is looking pretty good: it's certainly well referenced! If I spot any improvements, I'll make them. -- Dr Greg  talk  20:37, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Listed Building Cats removed?

Hey just wondering why you have removed them today? Just out of interest :) Bankhallbretherton (talk) 18:45, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

If you're referring to Bank Hall, I removed Category:Buildings and structures in Lancashire because the subcategory Category:Buildings and structures in Chorley was already there, no need to count it twice. Similarly with a number of other articles. Nothing to do with listed buildings, though, I didn't touch any of those categories. -- Dr Greg  talk  19:06, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

m15

m15 is a strain of e.coli regardless of its not being in the ecoli article. your deleting of that edit from the m15 article seems to me unreasonable, to say the least.

a simple google - http://www.qiagen.com/products/protein/expression/qiaexpressexpressionsystem/e_colihoststrains.aspx http://www.qiagen.com/faq/faqview.aspx?faqid=842&SearchText=&FaqCategoryId=0&MenuItemId=0&catalog=1&ProductLineId=1000068 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1164922/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.166.202.41 (talk) 12:59, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

You misunderstand the purpose of the M15 disambiguation page. It isn't there to list all possible meanings of "M15". It is there to list all Wikipedia articles that are about "M15". Once the relevant information about e.coli has been added to a relevant article, then it can be added to the disambiguation page. See WP:MOSDAB. -- Dr Greg  talk  13:18, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Media in Preston

Hi there.

Please could I have some justification as to why the site I edit, Blog Preston, was not allowed to be added to the Media section of the Preston page?

Thanks, Andy Halls —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.61.255.83 (talk) 14:57, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I have replied at Talk:Preston, Lancashire#Media in Preston -- Dr Greg  talk  19:27, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

PAGES FOR SLAIDBURN AND NEWTON-IN-BOWLAND: REQUEST FOR PROTECTION

Dear Dr Greg

I would like to request protection for the two above pages. Dr Marytin Cawley (Neautone) has bought a bogus lordship of the manor and is seeking to pervert the historical record by claiming he is Lord of Newton. If you look at Neautone's talk page, you will see my various attempts to persuade him to desist. I am a Cambridge don and a leading expert on the Forest of Bowland. Please confirm your assistance in this matter.

Manorial (talk) 10:41, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Journalism, Media and Communication, University of Central Lancashire

Thanks. I was trying to edit it to make it sounds non-promotional, and I ended up with that horrible opening sentence and had a blank trying to think of something better -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:52, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I see what you mean. The current version isn't ideal (and it would be better if the claim could be sourced from something other than the University's own website). But it's a pet hate of mine to see articles that say "Trumpton railway station was a railway station in Trumpton" or similar! :) -- Dr Greg  talk  21:16, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Dr Greg. You have new messages at Talk:Newcastle railway station.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

notifying you by tb because otherwise you may miss my note to you, coming as it does before my lengthy justification to Mick of my actions. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:12, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Lancashire

To know that my hard work is so appreciated, gives me a warm feeling inside :-) --Trappedinburnley (talk) 21:13, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Not my manor

I see that you have a lot of experience with articles about settlements. I wonder could you possibly advise - should Alverthorpe be described as a parish, as well as, or instead of, just a suburb and former village? Do you know if there was ever a manor here (if that makes any difference)? Many thanks. Knucklehead-McSpazatron (talk) 12:55, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Not my manor either, but Alverthorpe is not listed in Civil parishes in West Yorkshire, which looks like it's a comprehensive list, so I assume it's not a parish. Nor is it listed at http://www.wakefield.gov.uk/NR/exeres/AF6C5F48-6D6B-492B-8EF1-4833BB0D008E.htm. So (lacking local knowledge) the current description as "suburb of, and former village in Wakefield" sounds reasonable. -- Dr Greg  talk  20:38, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Topographic maps

Hi,

Quick query - how did you generate the map at File:City of Preston topography.png? Is it hand-traced from the NPE maps (and if so what data from OpenData did you actually use?).

I'm trying to get my head around using OpenData to produce high-end topographic maps, this is very much a work-in-progress but utilises the best OS data available. Getting the colours and labels right is a significant job for instance.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:21, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I'm sorry to say all the contours and rivers were "hand traced" by laboriously clicking polygons over the NPE images. The colour scale was a matter of trial-and-error over what looked good for the range of altitudes in this map. The only use of OpenData was to check for anachronisms in the 1940s data, specifically the district boundary and the urban areas as a translucent black overlay -- and even these were traced from OpenData rendered images rather than from the raw data.

I have been experimenting with overlaying extra information over my contour map -- road and rail and text labels -- but none published on Wikimedia yet. I might produce more detailed maps for each civil parish within the district. I'm current using double-blue (M), dark-green (primary), crimson-red (other A), brown/orange (B) and an orangey/yellow for wide-unclassified (narrow-unclassified omitted); railways black. All the colours need to contrast with the contour colours. In my rendering I'm also using line-width to differentiate: M widest, A narrower, B narrower still and U narrowest. I haven't distinguished dual- and single-carriageways. In the published version I made the urban areas highly translucent in the hope that the contours would still be visible underneath.

I guess not much of the above is of interest to you because you are looking for a way of automating the process from the data. That has to be the way forward because not many people are going to do what I did. I put many, many, many hours into this and I doubt I'll ever do anything similar again -- it's too much hard work. The original work was all done in Microsoft Powerpoint and exported as PNG. One day I intend to experiment to see if it could be pasted in vector form into an SVG application.

Your Dartmoor map looks pretty impressive. I'm assuming the darker green areas are woodland. I wonder whether it is worth including woodland with contour data -- the woodland obscures the contours that are behind it. As you hint, positioning text labels automatically may be problematic. In my "hand drawn" maps I've had to use my own judgement to position the labels, both to avoid clashes with two labels obscuring each other, and also to ensure acceptable contrast against the background image. On your Dartmoor map, for example, you'd strive to avoid putting text over a dark green road. (In the worst cases, you could consider adding a white "shadow" offset behind the text.)

While I have your attention, I've noticed one curious artefact in all your OS-derived maps. When you zoom in, the lines look a bit like calligraphy, i.e. drawn with a non-circular nib. I think an explanation for this might be when you convert latitudes and longitudes into metres: there is a different conversion factor for each (unless you're on the equator) and I think this means that you are in effect drawing lines with an elliptical brush. Is there a way of doing the rescaling at a different point in the calculation (or using a different "brush") so this can be avoided? -- Dr Greg  talk  21:28, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

OK, a lot to respond there - hopefully my reply doesn't drag too much! :)

Fair enough on your workflow. Producing a SVG map like that from OS data is also a pain in the neck - because the contours are not complete paths, as on the 1:50K maps, there are gaps for quarries, cliffs and in steep valleys. Utilising the OS data to produce a PNG is quicker than hand-tracing, as its mostly done already and the patching isn't as tedious when you don't have to maintain absolute path integrity. You can use SRTM data (and there's a tutorial somewhere on-wiki) to get results quickly, but that source is much lower resolution; you can see the reduced quality at county-scale maps.

My map of Dartmoor is a work-in-progress, and the colour scheme is something I still need to work on. The height colours are fixed (from WP standard), but roads are a pain. That's because the UK has an established blue/green/red/yellow convention for roads, and that uses a lot of the colour space up. Just making rivers and motorways distinct isn't simple!

Urban/woodland data is something I'm not sure about either. Transparency isn't ideal (on the Dartmoor map Plymouth and Princetown would render in very different colours), but solid colours aren't much better. OS 250k scale maps show coloured height, but towns and woods overlay that. OS 25k/50k have buildings over the contour lines, but run them through woods - reflecting the different nature of the two things.

Labelling is something I haven't even considered yet, as its clearly the "last" step of process. Automating that would be good, but I think I'll resort to manual.

As for the "calligraphy" artifact: That's a result of my workflow and my relative inexperience with GIS and SVG. The maps use equirectangular projection, which is what {{location map}} needs to work properly, but the projection is visibly "squashed" at UK latitudes. Stretching it vertically by about ~160% fixes that and makes the final output similar to the OSGB projection.

I export the GIS to SVG using the equirectangular projection, and then stretch at the final stage in the SVG coding - which is why the circular nib is elliptical. Ideal resolution is if I could figure out how to export the data with stretching already done. Could also be fixed in the SVG, if I deliberately use an elliptical nib that gets stretched back to being circular when that is done. There's probably other options too - but I'm not sure how to implement any.--Nilfanion (talk) 00:33, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

(As a seperate point) The most important thing for now I think is to get a colour scheme "fixed". Some, like heights and water, the WP standards are ok. Some, like roads, are not ideal for UK. I think I'll upload a SVG map of a much smaller area (a city?) as that will allow discussion with much more reasonable file sizes. When I get round to that I'd appreciate any thoughts you have on trying to the colours sorted.--Nilfanion (talk) 00:33, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I didn't appreciate the difficulties of building SVG maps from OS data. I naively assumed the contour lines would be continuous. Still, it's got to be better than my method, but sounds hard work nevertheless.

I didn't know there was a WP standard colour scale for altitude. Can you point me to it? (And any other standards for maps, if they're not all in the same place.) I'll see if its feasible to recolour my maps in the standard colours, and then I can do my own experimentation with road colours.

The road colours you've used on Dartmoor don't seem too bad; although the primary roads might not show up too well in a heavily wooded area. My own preference would be to omit woodland from contour-coloured maps; they can go on other versions of maps instead. But other editors might not agree and this should be discussed in a more public forum than my talk page. On my maps I also want to show some "political" boundaries such as districts and/or parishes, and also AONBs, so they need colours too. I've been using dashed lines for boundaries to help distinguish them from road & rail. (And on top of all that, I suppose we should really consider if colour-blind people can make sense of the maps, too!)

If you're thinking of uploading a smaller area for evaluation, the challenge will be to find an area with a large altitude range and all types of roads & rail at all altitudes! I suppose you could fake a fictitious map for evaluation purposes. -- Dr Greg  talk  18:59, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Getting an SVG prepped can be a pain, simply because of the requirement for continuous contours. However, PNG maps can be easy: This image took me under a minute to make and filling in the whitespace between contours wouldn't be very challenging.

The relevant conventions are Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps/Conventions/Topographic maps and Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps/Conventions/Exchanges maps. The exchange map colours are about the same as used in various atlases (Michelin road maps for example), but it is very different to UK norms - we are so used to blue motorways and green primaries, that deviation looks odd). The high-saturation colours for the roads I used in the test aren't ideal, and more muted tones are probably better.

I more or less agree about dropping woodland, as height is generally more important. That said, we need to get a colour chosen: For some areas, such as the New Forest, the wooded areas are more important than the hills. Avoiding a clash with the primary route is important for instance.

I've ignored political boundaries too, as those colours are pretty static too: File:Dartmoor National Park UK location map.svg illustrates that and the "protected area" colour - on a relief map the boundaries can be similar, but a different method for the NP/AONB/etc is needed - probably marking the boundary.

And colour blindness, yeah... Best thing to do is make sure the labels are clear: it doesn't matter if they can't tell whether an A road is primary or not, as long as it clear its not a river. The status of the road is unlikely to matter in the map of the area (it would for a map of' the road), but motorways should be more prominent than B roads to anyone.

And yes, somewhere other than a user talk page is appropriate. When I get round to uploading a test map, the file talk page is probably best for initial discussion (and can go elsewhere once "we" have a decent start?)--Nilfanion (talk) 22:54, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

This map may be of interest to you. Through various experimenting, I can now produce topographic maps quickly and easily (that one is less than an hours work). With practice, I'll be able to produce usable maps with labels and other features of interest about that quickly too. A high-resolution raster map is good enough for most jobs, vector-format is nice but not compulsory after all!--Nilfanion (talk) 21:44, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Nice one! There's some strange artefact that has crept in: there's what looks like a vertical "crease" intermittently in some places, slightly left of centre. You need to zoom in to see it. It's most noticeable south of the Ribble and again about 10 miles north, at the southern edge of the Forest of Bowland high ground. And there's another horizontal "crease" running through the Yorkshire Dales close to the top. I guess its something to do with tiling. As I look more closely, I'm seeing several other, much fainter, "creases" in other parts as well. -- Dr Greg  talk  22:15, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Yep, the creases are the result of a slight error in the tiling (the squares are 20km x 20km). I'll be able to resolve that in "production" files easily enough, but as a proof of concept it works well :)--Nilfanion (talk) 22:30, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

File:Lancashire UK relief location map.jpg may be of interest to you (and the other 47 similar and predictably named ones).--Nilfanion (talk) 11:21, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough

[4] Malleus Fatuorum 20:54, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Template

Cheers for the tidy up :) It's my first ever template (and I've only been on Wikipedia for 6 years!). You and DaveWild have helped a lot, thank you :) doktorb _words^deeds 08:14, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Preston Population

I got utterly confused trying to revert the changes yesterday (as you may have spotted!) The reference to the population now needs changing as well. It may well be worth having a discussion on the talk page regarding this so that other editors are clear about what is appropriate for the article. Longwayround (talk) 08:17, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Painswick

Hi there. I know it's a bit off your patch, but could you possibly have a quick look at this town/ village in Gloucestershire (it seems to call itself the latter). I suspect that it's more properly called a parish, with a settlement, or something like that. You seem to know about these things. Many thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:49, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Painswick is definitely a civil parish; but most civil parishes contain a village of the same name, and this is no exception. The parish also contains other villages, such as Sheepscombe and Slad. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:25, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks Redrose. When does a village become a town - Painswick is quite a size, as can be seen in the lead image. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:36, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

It's entirely up to the elected representatives of the inhabitants. Unlike a city, which is legally defined, the distinction between town, village and hamlet is fuzzy; but if there is a "town council", as with nearby Stonehouse, you can bet that they don't like to be called a village. Curious thing is, Painswick's own website is unclear - it has a town hall but also a village directory. Their tourist info page uses "village" nine times. I'd go with village - bigger villages do exist. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:52, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Redrose64 has beat me to it. All I can add is that, for future reference, you can check whether it's a civil parish from an OS map. Click on the coordinates in the top-right corner of the article, then choose the "Ordnance Survey Get-a-map" option. You'll see "PAINSWICK CP" (= civil parish) in large pale grey capitals, as well as a smaller "Painswick" next to the village/town. -- Dr Greg  talk  21:10, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to you both for such speedy and useful responses. It was well worth my asking. That's a very useful tip, Dr.Greg, and one which I shall try and remember from now on. Regards. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:28, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Transverse Doppler effect

Hi. You reverted my change on the Relativistic Doppler effect. That's right that gamma > 1. My mistake. However, as the article currently is, it says that both the emitted and received frequencies are reduced, and that's not correct. This needs to be changed. Furthermore, in the first paragraph of the Transverse Doppler effect section, it says that emitted light will be redshifted and received light will be blueshifted. Nistra^Talk 21:27, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Never mind. I just misunderstood the phrasing. Nistra^Talk 23:21, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Location map help

hi, i saw some of your comments on the location map page and am assuming you have some knowledge about it. how do i make a name appear on mouseover to a marker:

you can see my code here http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/User:Misconceptions2/sandbox, it has a part which says "link=Rayyis", but it does not say rayyis on mouse over to the marker which has the label=Exp. of Zaid ibn Haritha (Al-Is)--Misconceptions2 (talk) 21:51, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Multiple post. Have responded at User talk:Misconceptions2#Location maps. --Redrose64 (talk) 00:18, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Preston status

Hi there pal, I've worked on making a decent main picture for the Preston, Lancashire page, but I was also wondering whether you think the article itself deserves 'good' status? Thanks again, Dan. (92.232.5.229 (talk) 20:43, 11 April 2012 (UTC))

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